trying to troubleshoot problems when the stream switches from show to show or show to filler | ErsatzTV | Page 1

undone mica Sep 13, 2025, 4:53 PM

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I'm using jellyfin with ersatz and every time a show ends, it exists the media player and i have to click on the channel again to open it up and resume watching (and this happens every time whatever is streaming on the channel ends, whether it's filler content or a show)

in an effort to troubleshoot this in the event its just a jellyfin issue, i tried hooking into the stream via command prompt/mpv. While it doesnt kick me out after a show ends, i did notice some warnings in the terminal that might (?) indicate why it's booting out jellyfin. Eventually i got to a point where after the 3rd and final filler plays, it just hangs there outputting errors. I was unable to watch the next show until i ctrl+C'd to kill the mpv instance and re-connected to it.

if anyone can point me in a direction to start investigating more i'd be grateful, im unsure what i'm doing wrong, maybe its something to do with transcoding?

my channel's streaming mode is HLS Direct, and ive attached the FFmpeg profile im trying to use

worthy cargo Sep 13, 2025, 4:57 PM

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How direct is not a real format, it is a “hack” that may (or probably won’t) work for the majority of players

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But if if Jellyfin is like plex, it would use MPEG-ts no matter what, but I’m not sure if that’s the case

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Those logs make it seem like it’s truly trying direct, but with the constant format and video changes that direct throws, I doubt jellyfins player will handle it gracefully

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Choosing a real transcoding profile will solve most issues

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I know hls direct is attractive for low powered rigs, but it will most likely cause issues

mellow pasture Sep 13, 2025, 5:09 PM

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yeah this can be expected with that streaming mode https://ersatztv.org/docs/channels/#secondary-streaming-modes

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HLS Direct does not transcode content and can perform better on low power systems, but does not support watermarks and some clients will have issues at program boundaries

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switching to hls segmenter streaming mode would fix transitions for you

undone mica Sep 13, 2025, 5:14 PM

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Yeah VJ you're right i just tested with MPEG-ts and while it was using 70% CPU for my measly mini pc, it had no issues transitioning between shows/filler

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I'll look into HLS segmenter as well, thanks for the suggestion jason, im guessing (hoping) its HLS-direct but it just... segments the media to allow for these transitions between content lol

mellow pasture Sep 13, 2025, 5:16 PM

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yeah unfortunately that's not how it works, there is a lot that etv has to make the same about every media item to prevent breaking at transitions

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if you want to do a quick troubleshoot i can see if there are any perf changes i can suggest

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!troubleshoot

wild hemlockBOT Sep 13, 2025, 5:17 PM

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To troubleshoot content playback in ErsatzTV use the Playback Troubleshooting tool.

Search for any content using the search bar.
Use the overflow/three dots menu on content and select Troubleshoot Playback.
Select the appropriate Playback Settings that trigger the undesired behavior.
Click Play to start playback.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 until the undesired behavior is reproduced.
Click Download Results to have ErsatzTV collect relevant troubleshooting logs (FFmpeg log, FFmpeg Profile, Hardware Capabilities, Media Info, etc) and compress them in a zip file.
Post the zip in #1006572433039433830 along with a description of the problem to receive help.

undone mica Sep 13, 2025, 5:18 PM

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dang, and sure i can do that, should i keep it on MPEG-ts for the troubleshooting?

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also -- do you think if i encoded all my media to be the resolution and codec, HLS direct might work? i might give that a test with a couple videos

mellow pasture Sep 13, 2025, 5:23 PM

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mpeg-ts isn't relevant for troubleshooting - it will use hls segmenter but that's fine

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it's not likely to work - the major issue at transitions is that timestamps on each frame reset, and 99.9% of players will not be happy when that happens

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if there were an easy way to have consistent playback with minimal hardware requirements, it would just be "the way" - not mentioned as some edge case

undone mica Sep 13, 2025, 5:28 PM

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here's the troubleshooting package

📎 ersatztv-troubleshooting-1757784433.zip

undone mica Sep 13, 2025, 5:29 PM

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mellow pasture if there were an easy way to have consistent playback with minimal hardware requ...

yeah definitely, i just figured not many people would be willing to encode all their media to the same size and codec so maybe that solution wasn't as viable for people, at least thats what i was hoping

mellow pasture Sep 13, 2025, 5:36 PM

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nothing jumps out at me - you're using vaapi which is good. im not sure what qemu virtual cpu means, but apparently hw accel still works with it.

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what you might be seeing is that etv works ahead to reduce buffering, so when you first open a stream it will transcode at max speed until it gets like 30-45 seconds ahead of the wall clock, after which point it will throttle back down to realtime speed

undone mica Sep 13, 2025, 5:38 PM

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im using proxmox and my media stack is running in a VM that has basically 2 CPU cores passed through to it so that's why its saying virtual CPU

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that makes sense, i did see it bouncing around later on between 70 back down to 50%. Im wondering, would setting my FFmpeg Profile's "preferred resolution" lower do anything? most of the media im trying to watch is old nostalgic stuff so its usually lower than 720p

mellow pasture Sep 13, 2025, 5:42 PM

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sure, that's definitely something that would help - matching the ffmpeg profile to the source content is a good idea

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might also be worth testing h264 output vs hevc, im not sure which has a higher overhead

#trying to troubleshoot problems when the stream switches from show to show or show to filler