Jellyfin suddenly started freezing after playing contents for a few minutes

[settecplu]

Hi,
I've been using Jellyfin with succes for a few months. Since a few days it suddenly started having problems when reproducing files, in particular at about two thirds of playback time (but it is random) it simply stops playing. The counter stops, the image is frozen (or black, it depends from the player) and there is nothing I can do to make it finish the playback of the content. Sometimes, if I wait enough, the content rewinnds and the player recue at the beginning, but at this point the playback doesn't even start. "Exiting" from the current film and relaunching the playback doesn't work.

My setup:
- Intel J4105 host running OMV 6 (Openmediavault)
- Jellyfin docker container 10.8.10. 
- I usually play via Amazon FireTV, but the problem is the same when playing via PC or smartphone
- I tried with transconding Off and On (both VAAPI and QSV) with no particular difference. 
- I tried with different contents to rule out an issue with the single file.
- I restarted the container and reboothed the host
- I deleted the config folder and starded with a new Jellyfin server

Both OMV and Jellyfin have been updated to latest version in the past days, after the holiday break during which I have not used the system (could this be the problem?).
I'm struggling to understand what may have been changed in the latest month, Jellyfin was working perfectly before. I enabled the debug log but I don't see anything particular.

I'm open to suggestions!

[toytown]

Are you sure the MKV file is good? The following error from ffmpeg "invalid as first byte of an EBML number" indicates the source file itself could be bad.

[settecplu]

I'm not really sure. The file plays ok in VLC, but is there any way I can check if it is corrupt?
I just tried with a different file and I had the same problem (they both were episodes from TV series). I then tried with a full film and it worked perfectly, so you may be on the right track, but I don't know a reliable way to check for mkv file corruption...

[TheDreadPirate]

From what you've said, I doubt it is file corruption. I don't see this in the log, but is your transcode directory running out of space? Was the movie NOT transcoding?

[settecplu]

Well, this is the tricky part... I don't know how to check for sure if the file was transcoding, apart from looking at the logs, where it seems the file was effectively transcoding. I have no disk quota issues, there is plenty of space. Could it be useful cleaning the transcode folder and starting again?
What I can say is I tried with QSV and VAAPI, and even with transcoding disabled, and it did make no difference. The file you see in the logs seems to freeze always at the same timecode (about 24 minutes from start), so it could be corrupted. But I had this kind of problem on three different files from two different series, it seems a bit much to be just file corruption.
As a side note: I don't really need transcoding if I only use Jellyfin on my tv through FireTV, am I correct?

[TheDreadPirate]

You can never really predict when you will need to transcode, its better to have it available. Jellyfin will immediately clean up the transcode directory once you stop playback. I was still groggy when I posted earlier. Didn't notice this was a container. Make sure that everything is ok on the OMV side. I can't think of anything on the OMV side that would cause this, though.

In the first page of the dashboard it will show what is actively being played, including how it is being played (transcode/direct play/direct stream).

[settecplu]

Thanks. It says "direct stream" because video is compatible with the playback device, only audio will be reencoded.

As a side note: I noticed the RAM usage of my host system has increased by a lot lately. I'm running other containers so I will need to dive deeper.