Playback Suddenly Stops

[xibinim 7]

Hello. Been using Emby for years now with few issues but over the last few months, Friends would just stop at random points and go back to menu/where you last were. Trying to replay that same episode would then be difficult, buffering and essentially ending up unplayable. Playing the next episode would be fine, and so would the last affected episode after doing this. The issue has definitely got worse, only happen once or twice a week. It's now happen at least every other episode and it also only ever happened on my Windows PC (in FF but I've replicated it in Chrome). It's just done it on my TV for the first time (Emby app), again playing Friends. 

The problem is confined to Friends but as it's getting worse, worried it might start spreading. My Emby server is running on a Windows PC downstairs, W10, Ryzen 2400G, 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD. There are 4 mechanical HDs in there where all the media is stored. I have trawled through some old threads with similar issues but haven't got anywhere. Confident it's not bandwidth as the PC upstairs, the PC Emby is running on and the TV are all wired to the router. I also tried lowering the quality and did notice the buffered line grow a lot (something I hadn't seen in a while but I've never had many issues streaming at high quality especially on ethernet) but the problem still returned. The activity log on the dashboard just shows the device disconnecting, just preparing to upload the proper log to this post. The files in question are MKVs. 

Any ideas or help? Thank you. 

Edited July 12, 2021 by xibinim

[Abobader 3464]

Hello xibinim,

** This is an auto reply **

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[Luke 42078]

Hi there @xibinim, let's look at an example. Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue. thanks !

[xibinim 7]

Thanks, have read that, just wanted to make sure my log doesn't give away too much personal information lol. Will be up shortly. 

 

Edit - sorry for the delay, every time I thought I had a chance to get to the PC to upload it, something came up.

https://easyupload.io/csgn6l

Edited July 12, 2021 by xibinim

[Carlo 4561]

Hi can you upload the ffmpeg that goes along with playing one of these trouble friends episodes?

Please just drag and drop it right into the message here.

[xibinim 7]

Thanks for replying cayars. No luck dragging and dropping but here's a 7 day link - https://www.filemail.com/d/wehwkuuplzyjnyz

I looked at the activity log and I think the last incident happened at 19:39 - shows my TV disconnecting from Emby. However the timelines for the ffmpeg don't match up. The link I provided is time stamped 18:59 - the next available one is 21:14.

Edit - yup the issue has spread. Another user on my server just reported the same issue with a different show.

Edit - both shows in question are stored on 2 different HDs so doesn't seem to be a dodgy HD (unless it's both lol).

Edited July 13, 2021 by xibinim

[Carlo 4561]

Nothing looks wrong with the transcode as it processed the whole file at about 4x speed.

This happens to you with both local and remote clients?

[xibinim 7]

Thanks for looking. Yes - locally on a Windows browser (frequently) and now it's happened once on my LG TV (using Emby app). And whatever episode it happens on, will go all weird if I try to re-play it. Play anything else, and it will act as if nothing happened. Only one remote user has reported it so far, multiple instances though. I wondered if it was the HDs, analysed them and all but one are in very good health, one drive is a bit more fragmented than others. My playback settings for video is set to 1080p 4Mbps. I did notice I had my 'transcoding thread count' on 4, set that back to auto. Everything is up to date.

Oh I am using Unifi equipment for my home network/WiFi, don't think it's the cause but might be worth mentioning. Currently have its threat detection stuff turned off and the rest of the settings are generally default - had no issues.

Real head scratcher....

Reaching here but a library can't get too big can it? Or could it be worth resetting everything? Or is there any cache that could be purged?

Edit - it just did it again. Its save point was where it crashed, played fine resuming it but seemed hit-and-miss trying to skip along the timeline. Another user was watching something else and think that was playing fine. As I type this now, it's just done it again lol. Logs for the crash at the start of this edit.

embyserver

ffmpeg-transcode

Edited July 13, 2021 by xibinim

[xibinim 7]

The issue doesn't seem to manifest on my phone using the Emby app (Android). Frequency seems to be increasing on main rig/Firefox though.

[Carlo 4561]

Hi, the transcode appeared to process a 21 minute episode just fine with no errors and at a speed of roughly 4x which is fine.

Are you able to reproduce this over and over again with any specific piece of media? If so does it always happen in the same spot?

[xibinim 7]

On 18/07/2021 at 13:14, cayars said:

Hi, the transcode appeared to process a 21 minute episode just fine with no errors and at a speed of roughly 4x which is fine.

Are you able to reproduce this over and over again with any specific piece of media? If so does it always happen in the same spot?

Hey. So far I believe it's been random, but for me almost all with Friends episodes (another show for another user). I don't remember it happening at the same points in the episodes. Will watch until it repeats and re-watch the episode to see if it happens at the same point.

[Carlo 4561]

Let us know what you find so we can try to narrow down your issue.

[xibinim 7]

19 minutes ago, cayars said:

Let us know what you find so we can try to narrow down your issue.

Lol didn't take long. Going to edit this post as I go along....

• Resumed a current episode around the 16m mark, and the problem happened at 18:46
• It's showing that I can resume from 18:46, oddly it resumed OK for now....
• One possible symptom - upon resuming, it's showing subtitles from another episode. I think I may have spotted this happens a few times before
• Turning off the subtitles was fine but it's crapped out (black screen though controls are still there) when I turned them back on to English
• Skipping/scrubbing the timeline doesn't seem to get it playing again after the subtitle black screen issue
• Just tried pulling it back to near the start and it suddenly skipped back to where the subtitle black screen issue happened, played for a couple of seconds and now has frozen
• I had to click 'played' and start the episode again to get it to work. Skipped to the 16m mark and my speakers just went nuts - this very loud noise (think I have heard a similar one to previous BSODs) drum/clicking noise. It stopped after a few seconds and the episode is playing OK
• Just played past 18:46 - no issue so it does seem random.......just happened as I'm typing this. 19:27 this time though
• Resumed episode after the last flare (subtitles off), played OK and allowed me to skip throughout the episode though it did struggle to catch itself on where I settled

Edited July 20, 2021 by xibinim

[Carlo 4561]

Hi is your system setup for remote access?  If so would you be able to give me access to try and playback remotely with a specific episode or two?
If so, send me a PM and we can set this up.

What kind of subtitles were these?  What happens if you don't use subtitles at all when starting/playing this file?

[xibinim 7]

Another user has just updated me...

Quote

....watching emby on safari in my imac it sometimes stops dead near the end and just skips to play the next one. Maybe the auto play feature is messing it up? I’ll turn off and report back. Happened to me during lego masters. Kept cutting off the last 5/10 mins.

Edit - they didn't have autoplay on but did add this..

Quote

It’s weird never used to happen. Also i was watching loki and an ep skipped ahead on the same ep so I missed 5 mins. So maybe a skipping issue

Edit - problem started for another user just today. It couldn't be some sort of overheating issue? My HTPC does run 24/7 and it is warming in the living room. Though just checked HWiNFO for temps and it's reporting mid-low 40s with one outlier in the mid 50s for CPU/APU temps.

Edited July 20, 2021 by xibinim

[xibinim 7]

Problem hasn't happened for a few days and it just did it again. The only thing of note is I am downloading in the background. Whilst on the subject - I notice a weird (possibly unrelated) issue with downloading/speeds. If I torrent, it does this thing where it will build up speed to whatever the seeds/my connection allows. But then the speed completely drops to almost nothing, this is also felt across the house e.g. watching YT or browsing - picks back up but it will repeat. I notice this specific issue on torrents, couldn't be some sort of throttling or setting on my end if bandwidth gets too high?

[Carlo 4561]

That sounds like ISP throttling your connection.

[xibinim 7]

I swear Virgin are not meant to throttle (will check).

[Luke 42078]

More and more providers are now.

[xibinim 7]

Thing is, pretty sure the problem has happened to me when no one else is on Emby. Watching one stream seems a little sensitive to trip their throttle threshold. 

[Luke 42078]

6 minutes ago, xibinim said:

Thing is, pretty sure the problem has happened to me when no one else is on Emby. Watching one stream seems a little sensitive to trip their throttle threshold. 

Please try lowering the in-app quality setting and see if that helps. Thanks.

[xibinim 7]

39 minutes ago, Luke said:

Please try lowering the in-app quality setting and see if that helps. Thanks.

Tried that, ran at 1080p 60Mbps for months with no issue internally. Gone down to 1080/4 and it still does it, though haven't gone lower yet. 

 

[Luke 42078]

Can you try going lower? That usually helps with this kind of problem.

[xibinim 7]

On 29/07/2021 at 22:12, Luke said:

Can you try going lower? That usually helps with this kind of problem.

Hi, sorry for the delay. Quick update: haven't watched Friends in a while so the problem didn't return, happened to switch over to Brooklyn-99. Everything fine until yesterday when the problem started happening with this show, it really struggled on one particular episode. To the point where it would do it every few seconds, and it repeated on even the lowest quality (144p). Even stranger, some B-99 episodes won't play properly on my phone. The sound works fine but there is no picture, instead showing garbled colours mixed in with a black screen. The same episodes work fine on other devices in the house.

[xibinim 7]

This is hilarious, the list of unexaplainable problems continues. I have tried uninstalling the Emby app on my phone, a new install didn't fix the garbled/black screen issue. So I tried it on my phone's browser (Chrome). Video works fine but the sound doesn't, you can hear the background noise and bedding music but no speaking whatsoever. What on Earth is happening lol!?

Edit - just tried playing every first episode from each season. All work fine bar, what seems like every episode in season 2. Example pic below....

Edited August 27, 2021 by xibinim