Android TV (Shield) library navigation performance

[mtanaka]

Hello,

I've had this issue since day 1 of using jellyfin several years ago, isn't a huge deal but figured it was time to see if I can do anything about it.

On my shield, when navigating through media libraries (scrolling through the movie or show posters list) performance is terrible. The navigation is jumpy, locks up, and the listing display temporarily breaks (see video bellow).

This is only on my androidTV (nvidia shield). On the android mobile app (pixel and samsung phones) and on web (linux and windows, variety of browsers) there is no problems at all.

Media playback is perfectly fine on the shield and on all devices.

This is strictly limited to navigating through libraries on my shield, nothing else is having issues.

Here is a link to a video of my TV as I navigate through my movies library, it is much easier to understand this way: https://streamable.com/ck8mv2

Action taken in the video: simply holding the right direction button on the shield remote to navigate through the movies library, simulating wanting to go find something further in the listings.


Jellyfin setup: docker running on debian. Jellyfin version 10.10.3 (has been happening since I started using jellyfin back in the 9.x days).
jelly fin app version on shield: 0.17.9

Shield info: Shield is plugged in for gigabit LAN access, no wifi is configured. hardware version 2019 (model P2897), software is on shield version 9.1.1.

The TV is a panasonic, 1080p resolution, shield is plugged in via HDMI.


I've disabled backdrops displaying in the app in an attempt to increase performance in case it was just slowing down from loading so much media but this resulted in no change, with or without backdrops is the same result as seen in my video above.

Since the 9.x days I've started fresh on multiple servers with different hardware, gone from native linux installation on bare metal to docker on bare metal linux today with no change.

I've also done a few factory resets of the nvidia shield over the years and this has done nothing to improve the issue.

The docker container is set up so jellyfin metadata and cache locations are on nvme storage and the server itself is on 10 gigabit ethernet and is never saturated in any way. CPU and memory are hardly used. As mentioned this problem doesn't exist on android phone app or web, and playback works great everywhere except the shield.

Navigating through the whole library once does not seem to help in any way via some kind of caching, scrolling backwards from the end results in the same performance issues (even without exiting the library first).

I do not have any other android TV devices to test with to isolate this to either a device or shield-specific issue.

Testing with a much smaller library (like 25 items) eliminates the issue for that specific small library, but obviously dividing my movies into 50 libraries is not an option.

Any suggestions on configurations or things I can try to get rid of this issue would be appreciated.

Thanks,

[TheDreadPirate]

What are the specs of the server? I'm assuming that it isn't a cheapo PC since it has 10GbE.

Try clearing the ATV app cache. I don't think it is the specs. My CCwGTV 4K has less RAM and I don't have this issue. But my library isn't as big either.

You can also try switching Android TV into "App only mode". I found that reduced a lot of background stuff that was slowing things down, in general. Not just in Jellyfin.

[mtanaka]

The server specs: amd ryzen 5 5600G, 64GB RAM, 10 gig nic, 2x nvme in zfs mirror for jellyfin data (other than media library), 3x 16TB zfs mirrors (6 disks) for media. It's overkill for what it does, it hardly uses any of the cpu or ram.

Shield doesn't appear to have "app only mode" so don't think I can try that option.

I've just tried clearing the app cache and then reinstalling jellyfin entirely but it didn't change anything. The issue's persisted across factory resets of the shield over the years, through multiple versions of the shield android TV OS, jellyfin client and jellyfin server, so not surprised there.

With my test library it seems as soon as I have about 3 "pages" of content the problem starts. Once I have to scroll off-screen more than just a couple of rows of posters it starts, and the more scrolling there is the worse it gets. If I scroll slowly it's a lot less noticeable.

So I guess the shield hardware is just not good enough to handle this many items in a library?

I've been thinking of new HTPC hardware recently so hopefully that will get rid of this.

Thanks,

[kandykarter]

Yeah, what's "app only mode"? I'd love to know more about that if possible!

[TheDreadPirate]

I'm not at home, so going from memory. In the AndroidTV Settings > Accounts > Select your account, there is a switch to turn on "App only mode". This greatly reduces the amount of clutter and ads on the home screen.

---

Ah, yep. My memory was correct.

https://support.google.com/googletv/answ...0784?hl=en

[mtanaka]

I confirm my shield does not have that menu option, nvidia probably removed it.

I did however find power savings options and disabled it for jellyfin, did not know this existed (since it isn't a mobile device). After disabling it performance is greatly improved and actually works as expected for most navigation.

[subwoofer17]

I confirm my shield does not have that menu option, nvidia probably removed it.

I did however find power savings options and disabled it for jellyfin, did not know this existed (since it isn't a mobile device). After disabling it performance is greatly improved and actually works as expected for most navigation.

I was just thinking about this too. After years of stuttered library scrolling I thought it might not be "just that way for everyone". I changed the power optimization settings and we'll see what difference that makes. I never even thought to look for that because I assumed a plugin device wouldn't need that.