Transcoding Cleanup

[bobdit]

The problem is even if you delete the segment .ts files, there is one .ts file that is constantly being written to, thus it keeps growing and using up space EVEN if you delete it or truncate it, and it will eventually eat up all the storage. For example below, the file 52ea07d3b2f0447ea3ffdb4271ffd1c5.ts is constantly growing, the other sequentially named files are in the .m3u8 list and can be deleted no problem, but they are tiny compared to the 52ea07d3b2f0447ea3ffdb4271ffd1c5.ts file.

-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 457K Jul 19 06:08 2978ab5578afda35bcc122de1703414f8.ts
-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 668K Jul 19 06:08 2978ab5578afda35bcc122de1703414f9.ts
-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 1.3M Jul 19 06:08 2978ab5578afda35bcc122de1703414f10.ts
-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 681K Jul 19 06:08 2978ab5578afda35bcc122de1703414f11.ts
-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 773K Jul 19 06:08 2978ab5578afda35bcc122de1703414f12.ts
-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 722K Jul 19 06:08 2978ab5578afda35bcc122de1703414f13.ts
-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 671K Jul 19 06:08 2978ab5578afda35bcc122de1703414f14.ts
-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 915K Jul 19 06:08 2978ab5578afda35bcc122de1703414f15.ts
-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 843K Jul 19 06:08 2978ab5578afda35bcc122de1703414f16.ts
-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 729K Jul 19 06:08 2978ab5578afda35bcc122de1703414f17.ts
-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 1.7M Jul 19 06:09 2978ab5578afda35bcc122de1703414f18.ts
-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 738K Jul 19 06:09 2978ab5578afda35bcc122de1703414f19.ts
-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 1.1M Jul 19 06:09 2978ab5578afda35bcc122de1703414f20.ts
-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 1.2M Jul 19 06:09 2978ab5578afda35bcc122de1703414f21.ts
-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 595K Jul 19 06:09 2978ab5578afda35bcc122de1703414f22.ts
-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 616K Jul 19 06:09 2978ab5578afda35bcc122de1703414f23.ts
-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 2.3K Jul 19 06:09 2978ab5578afda35bcc122de1703414f.m3u8
-rw-r--r-- 1 jellyfin render 136M Jul 19 06:09 52ea07d3b2f0447ea3ffdb4271ffd1c5.ts

[MyBackHurts]

Why am I seeing this issue too?

A whole bunch of .ts, .mp4, and .mpu files were accumulating in /var/cache/jellyfin/transcodes/ and eventually filled up my local disk, causing Jellyfin to crash on my Debian server.

To prevent it from happening again, I ended up setting up a cron job that deletes everything in that folder every hour:
0 * * * * rm -rf /var/cache/jellyfin/transcodes/*

Is this a common problem, or is there a way Jellyfin is supposed to clean up these files automatically?

[toytown]

In the admin dashboard, under "Scheduled Tasks" > "Maintenance" , you should see a "Clean Transcode Directory" tasks. It should be set to every 24 hours and also on applications startup.

You can add a different trigger if 24 hours is too slow for you.

[Anlec]

If someone is wondering how to to delete the .ts and .m3u8 file via cronjob:

Code:

*/15 * * * * find /docker/jellyfin/library/cache/transcodes/ \( -name "*.ts" -or -name "*.m3u8" \) -type f -mmin +15 -delete # Removes .ts and .m3u8 files in the transcodes folder that are older then 15 mins

NOTE: Make sure your file path is correct and your user has permission to delete files in the ../transcodes folder

Also, if you are you running something like ErsatzTV, I would recommend rebooting it at least once a day. This will help in the event that a user's client disconnects improperly and ErsatzTV doesn't stop the transcoding process. Rebooting will kill the transcode action and the cronjob above will clean up the .ts and .m3u8 files.

EDIT:
Jellyfin normally deletes the files. This only seems necessary if the client doesn't disconnect gracefully.