FireStick (Android TV App Woes)

[lozenge57]

Hello!

I'm having just an awful time with my daily jellyfin usage on my fire stick. Previously, I was forced to use libVLC as exoplayer just refused to play any of my HDR content and many of my older show files audio just refuses to sync up properly. I understand libvlc was removed, but this has made my main watching device borderline unusable.

Both my app and server is up to date and I just cant figure out whats wrong - I banged my head against the wall trying to figure this issue out months ago with no luck but I found libVLC worked fine so I used that. All of the media in question plays fine on the roku TV (although this app has its own headaches), my steam deck, as well as my windows PC, so I'm at a loss why I'm only having trouble with the android tv/fire stick build. This is unfortunate as this is my main device.

If there is any more information I could provide that could help with troubleshooting this issue please let me know - I only have so much time for troubleshooting and I've hit a wall, but I would be endlessly grateful for some help.

Thanks

[TheDreadPirate]

What are your server specs and what OS?

Can you share your logs via pastebin?

[lozenge57]

Hi! So sorry for the delay!

My server:
Ryzen 7700x
Radeon 6950xt
32GB DDR5 6000
Running jellyfin server for Windows (this is also a gaming and sunshine streaming rig)

whats weird is that I went to start one of the files that refuse to work on the android tv (firetv) to generate a log file, now instead of exiting with an error message, they play but with no picture (black screen).

That said, here is one of my previous logs from the same file - they seem to receive a quit command:

https://pastebin.com/VP2MrCjS

let me know if you need this log pasted here instead.

Again, these just refuse to work with exoplayer on firetv, but work fine on roku and web, although the roku app has been a whole other problem (audio going out of sync on resume playback)

[theguymadmax]

This is a known issue caused by a bug in ExoPlayer on devices using the MT8696 MediaTek chipset, which is found in newer Fire TV 4K Sticks and the latest Google streamer. It occurs when playing media that includes both Dolby Vision and HDR10+. Here are several threads related to this.

AndroidTV
https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-and...ssues/2630 (old issue)
https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-and...ssues/4021 (new issue)

Exoplayer/AndroidX Media
https://github.com/google/exoplayer/issues/11096 (old issue)
https://github.com/androidx/media/issues/1895 (new issue)

Workarounds:

1. Remove DV Metadata: Follow the steps in this forum thread to strip out the Dolby Vision metadata.
   
2. Remove HDR10+ Metadata: ffmpeg -i input.mkv -map 0 -c copy -bsf:v "filter_units=remove_types=39" output.mkv.
   
3. Force Transcoding on ATV: Reduce the bitrate or set audio to stereo to trigger transcoding on the client.
   
4. Use Kodi with Jellyfin Plugin: Kodi allows you to choose the format compatible with your TV. You can disable Dolby Vision or HDR10+ as needed.
   

[lozenge57]

Thanks so much for that information! I was pulling my hair out lol.

[TheDreadPirate]

This is a known issue caused by a bug in ExoPlayer on devices using the MT8696 MediaTek chipset, which is found in newer Fire TV 4K Sticks and the latest Google streamer. It occurs when playing media that includes both Dolby Vision and HDR10+. Here are several threads related to this.

AndroidTV
https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-and...ssues/2630 (old issue)
https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-and...ssues/4021 (new issue)

Exoplayer/AndroidX Media
https://github.com/google/exoplayer/issues/11096 (old issue)
https://github.com/androidx/media/issues/1895 (new issue)

Workarounds:

1. Remove DV Metadata: Follow the steps in this forum thread to strip out the Dolby Vision metadata.
   
2. Remove HDR10+ Metadata: ffmpeg -i input.mkv -map 0 -c copy -bsf:v "filter_units=remove_types=39" output.mkv.
   
3. Force Transcoding on ATV: Reduce the bitrate or set audio to stereo to trigger transcoding on the client.
   
4. Use Kodi with Jellyfin Plugin: Kodi allows you to choose the format compatible with your TV. You can disable Dolby Vision or HDR10+ as needed.
   

Regarding workaround #2.  jellyfin-ffmpeg can also strip out HDR10+ in the same way my guide strips out DV.

Code:

/usr/lib/jellyfin-ffmpeg/ffmpeg -y -hide_banner -stats -fflags +genpts+igndts -loglevel error -i "/path/to/dv_video.mkv" -map 0 -bsf:v hevc_metadata=remove_hdr10plus=1 -codec copy -max_muxing_queue_size 2048 -max_interleave_delta 0 -avoid_negative_ts disabled hdr10_video.mkv

Swap "remove_dovi" with "remove_hdr10plus".

https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-ffm....patch#L36

[mercuryred]

Hello,

Having a similar issue with the DV content. Strangely reducing bitrate/forcing stereo audio still results in a playback error. Initially the video would play for a seconds then fail but after doing the above it doesn't play whatsoever. DV played just fine when libvlc was an option.

Is there another fix for this beyond transcoded all my media. I do not wish to do that. Can libvlc be returned as a feature or is there an estimate on a proper fix?

[TheDreadPirate]

libVLC will not return as an option due to libVLC not having been updated for over 2 years and contains multiple unpatched security vulnerabilities. It also required a lot of extra code that became buggy and unwieldy to maintain.

If only the audio is transcoding, your video may still be dolby vision. Ensure that the video is transcoding and that your server is properly configured. We'd need your hardware specs and ffmpeg logs to determine what is happening server side with these transcodes.