Playback of transcoded content broken on webplayer

[cjkbarnett 1]

- see below reply -

Edited June 10, 2021 by cjkbarnett
To suit issue better

[cjkbarnett 1]

Hi all,

Unfortunately the new update has broken playback on my server(s).

No clients on chrome (And that's what most of them use) can playback any media. Sometimes it works, but is very glitchy, but only if you attempt serval media files. Direct play through the emby app works mint.

This problem is across both of my servers. Both have nvida GPUs, one is intel, the other AMD

This is only happening when any media requires transcoding. Mostly just with .265 files, which is what most of my library is made of.

I have attached a screenshot of what it looks like when trying to play, and also added logs.

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-transcode-5698584c-1d5d-4701-ba97-6fe3b7242dda_1.txt

[Luke 42081]

Hi there, make sure your nvidia drivers are fully up to date. if that doesn't help, then as a test, try turning off hardware transcoding in server transcoding settings and see if that helps.

[cjkbarnett 1]

Just tried all those steps, running latest drivers and all. Still cant play sadly. 

[cjkbarnett 1]

Just an update - seems transcoding as a whole is now broken.  Xbox clients can only sometimes play files. I have no idea what's wrong, and it has happened on two different servers.

How can i rollback?

[Carlo 4561]

Hi, in order to rollback you would need to have a complete backup of your Emby Server folder so that you could restore it as it was.

Can you show the Media Info screen for this Better Call Saul episode (bottom of episode detail screen).
If you turn off hardware transcoding does it play correctly when software transcoded?

[cjkbarnett 1]

So it gets weirder.

Other accounts can play that file just fine, but when i attempt it on the admin profile (Mine) it hangs. I tired everything, changing drivers, changing transcode settings, rebooting the server, rescanning the library and restarting emby after every change. I noticed that it ffmpeg ramped the cpu up to 100 percent when attempting to play it too, was odd because it did that even when i selected hardware transcoding (gpu).

Emby also wouldn't show the client on the activity dashboard either.

Then i decided to mark the whole series as played, then unplayed and lo and behold, it worked! Seems some items with resume data from the old version of emby don't want to play nice, and causes transcoding to fail!

It seems ok for now, it there any way i can bulk clear the watched status or rebuild it for all my users? Or is it a case of logging into each one and doing it manually?

 

I've attached some screenshots below.

Cheers

 

Edited June 7, 2021 by cjkbarnett
Clarity

[Luke 42081]

That's really odd. Thanks for the feedback.

[cjkbarnett 1]

So another update, the issue is back, and the fix above seemed very temporary much to my disappointment.

 Just random black screens when trying to view *some* transcoded content on chrome. Media that fails on Chrome sometimes, and only sometimes will work on edge, but will be very choppy and jump back and fourth.

I have noticed that emby will, after a while, show that the media is transcoding, and being played in the dashboard, but the client wont display anything. Stats for nerds wont even load, just shows a little box with an x.

At least emby theater works mint!

[Carlo 4561]

Hi, What server version are you currently running?

[Luke 42081]

Did you try turning off hardware transcoding? Can we please see a log example of that? Thanks.

[cjkbarnett 1]

On 6/10/2021 at 11:57 PM, cayars said:

Hi, What server version are you currently running?

Hiya, apologies for the slow reply, i have been away. I am running the latest stable release - 4.6.2.0 on both of my servers.

On 6/11/2021 at 4:45 AM, Luke said:

Did you try turning off hardware transcoding? Can we please see a log example of that? Thanks.

I did, and for some reason when hardware transcoding is disabled, the play controls disappear from the web player. (example attached).

But, if it is any good news, hardware decoding seems to be playing well for the moment. I cannot seem to reliably replicate it...the worst type of issue!

 

[Luke 42081]

Quote

I did, and for some reason when hardware transcoding is disabled, the play controls disappear from the web player. (example attached).

Hi, it's not that they've disappeared, it's that they're not available until playback successfully starts.

We'd have to look at an example, but it could be that with hardware transcoding disabled your server just can't transcode it quickly enough.

[cjkbarnett 1]

On 6/17/2021 at 8:02 AM, Luke said:

Hi, it's not that they've disappeared, it's that they're not available until playback successfully starts.

Ahh ok that makes

 

On 6/17/2021 at 8:02 AM, Luke said:

We'd have to look at an example, but it could be that with hardware transcoding disabled your server just can't transcode it quickly enough.

Its never had an issue transcoding before, but i seem to have found part of the issue. Its when it tries to auto select the quality through the web player. If i manually force a quality setting then it seems to play fine. After it starts playing, i can toggle it back to auto and it resumes. Its only eve off a cold start it does this

[Luke 42081]

Please try the 4.6.3 release as that may help with this. Thanks.

[cjkbarnett 1]

13 hours ago, Luke said:

Please try the 4.6.3 release as that may help with this. Thanks.

Hey Luke, i have one server running the latest release and am happy to say that the issue is now resolved. Thanks!

[Luke 42081]

Thanks for the feedback.