Android TV Playback Instantly Crashing

[Ray Kochenderfer]

I have been having an issue with the Android TV Jellyfin application running on an Nvidia Shield Pro where one specific show series, I cannot get any episodes to play with Android TV. I am able to play other content, including other HEVC content, that are not part of the Pokemon (1997) series.

When trying to play these, there is also no ffmpeg logs being generated, I click the episode, it opens up the player, it then flashes Fatal error trying to retry pop ups until it gives up and returns to the episode information screen.

I am able to play these episodes using the web browser, the windows jellfyin client, and the android application. Only the Android TV application is failing.

Server version: 10.9.9

Episode information (all are pretty much the same except some are 480p):
Pokémon - I Choose You! S01E01
Container: mkv
Path: /JF_KIDS/series/Pokemon (1997) [tmdbid-60572]/Season 01/Pokémon - I Choose You! S01E01.mkv
Size: 401 MB

Video
Title: Encoded by: ImEverlasting - 1080p - HEVC - SDR
Codec: HEVC
AVC: No
Profile: Main 10
Level: 120
Resolution: 1440x1080
Aspect ratio: 4:3
Anamorphic: No
Interlaced: No
Framerate: 23.976025
Bitrate: 2464 kbps
Bit depth: 10 bit
Video range: SDR
Video range type: SDR
Color space: bt709
Color transfer: bt709
Color primaries: bt709
Pixel format: yuv420p10le
Ref frames: 1

Audio
Title: English - AAC - Stereo
Language: eng
Codec: AAC
AVC: No
Profile: LC
Layout: stereo
Channels: 2 ch
Bitrate: 192 kbps
Sample rate: 48000 Hz
Default: No
Forced: No
External: No

Subtitle
Title: English - PGSSUB
Language: eng
Codec: PGSSUB
AVC: No
Resolution: 1920x1080
Default: No
Forced: No
External: No

[TheDreadPirate]

In the Jellyfin forAndroid TV app, on the home screen, click the gear in the top right > playback. Go down to "Audio output" and change that to "downmix to stereo". Even though your audio is already stereo, there may or may not be an audio bug in the Android TV app. But a few users were able to use this workaround while we investigate.

[dinosm]

I have been having a similar issue with more than one show. All the shows that have this issue for me have episodes with two versions (using the merge plugin), 1080p and 2160p.

The 2160p version is the default one. In the past I could go into any such episode and hit play, and the 2160p version, being selected by default, would play.
However now I find Jellyfin crashes - unless I go to Version and select the 2160p version (even though it is already selected). Then, it plays fine.

This doesn't seem to happen with a couple of movies I tried that have versions, but I will run more tests.

EDIT: I don't want to downmix audio to stereo as I have an Atmos sound system and Jellyfin can direct play Atmos videos just fine. This seems to be a UI bug.

[Ray Kochenderfer]

Tried your solution DreadPirate and it didn't work sadly

[theguymadmax]

This is the second time I've seen this issue in files by the same group. It appears the problem lies with the MKV file and exoplayer itself rather than the ATV client. I'll try and do some bug testing on the issue. Performing a straight remux of the file should resolve the issue. For workarounds, downmixing to stereo won’t help here, as it won't trigger a transcode since it's already stereo audio. 

Update to version .17.4, and you should be able to play the file. In .17.4, after two unsuccessful attempts, the player will automatically request a transcoded version from the server, so there's no need to adjust your audio settings.

If you want to remux the file, here’s a command you can use. Given that you likely have many files, you might consider automating the process with a script in Linux.

Code:

/usr/lib/jellyfin-ffmpeg/ffmpeg -i path/to/input.mkv -map 0 -c copy /path/to/output.mkv

[Ray Kochenderfer]

This is the second time I've seen this issue in files by the same group. It appears the problem lies with the MKV file and exoplayer itself rather than the ATV client. I'll try and do some bug testing on the issue. Performing a straight remux of the file should resolve the issue. For workarounds, downmixing to stereo won’t help here, as it won't trigger a transcode since it's already stereo audio. 

Update to version .17.4, and you should be able to play the file. In .17.4, after two unsuccessful attempts, the player will automatically request a transcoded version from the server, so there's no need to adjust your audio settings.

If you want to remux the file, here’s a command you can use. Given that you likely have many files, you might consider automating the process with a script in Linux.

Code:

/usr/lib/jellyfin-ffmpeg/ffmpeg -i path/to/input.mkv -map 0 -c copy /path/to/output.mkv

I saw the tag on the GitHub page but it looks like it's not yet distributed through the play store so I'll have to wait for .17.4 release to do that. I'll try and give that retranscoding a try.

[theguymadmax]

This is the error I got when I played that file. There's already a bug report on ATV with that same error message. I also can't get that to play on any other version of exoplayer, I went as far back as version 1.2.1.

   

Here's the code that's causing the issue.

Code:

    case ID_CONTENT_ENCODING_ORDER:
        // This extractor only supports one ContentEncoding element and hence the order has to be 0.
        if (value != 0) {
          throw ParserException.createForMalformedContainer(
              "ContentEncodingOrder " + value + " not supported", /* cause= */ null);

So I ran mkvinfo filename.mkv and it came back

Code:

|  + Content encodings
|  + Content encoding
|    + Content compression
|    + Algorithm: 0 (ZLIB)
|    + Order: 0
|    + Scope: 1 (1: all frames)
|    + Type: 0 (compression)

Order is set to 0, so why the crash?