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+--- Thread: Fatal Play back Error on some media (/t-fatal-play-back-error-on-some-media)
Fatal Play back Error on some media - SleepyPillow-bot - 2025-10-05
Hey all,
I’m trying to get Nvidia GPU transcoding working in Jellyfin (running as a Docker container on Ubuntu 24.04, with an RTX 2080 Ti). I keep hitting what looks like a CUDA permissions or access problem, and nothing I do seems to fix it.
What’s happening:
- Whenever Jellyfin tries to transcode with NVENC/NVDEC, the logs show:
Could not dynamically load CUDA
Failed to set value 'cuda=cu:0' for option 'init_hw_device': Operation not permitted
Error parsing global options: Operation not permitted
Direct play and direct stream work. Only hardware transcoding is broken.
What I’ve tried and checked so far:
- On the host, nvidia-smiworks — 580.65.06.
- Installed nvidia-cuda-toolkit so CUDA libraries are present. Confirmed /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcuda.so.1 points to the correct file.
- All /dev/nvidia* devices have group video, and my host-level checks look good.
- I’m using the official Jellyfin Docker image and keeping up to date.
- All hardware codecs for my GPU are enabled (no AV1, obviously for 2080 Ti).
- Hardware encoding and "HEVC encoding" switched on.
- Running Jellyfin’s exact ffmpeg command inside the container gives the same CUDA load/permission error.
At this point:
I’ve rebooted, regeared, checked and re-checked guides and docs for Jellyfin+Docker+Nvidia, but it's still not working. The container sees the GPU (nvidia-smi works in the container with --runtime=nvidia), but every attempt to use NVENC/NVDEC fails in ffmpeg (from either Jellyfin or the console).
Really appreciate any advice—this is driving me nuts!
Thanks!