Playback Issues with Jellyfin Over VPN: Pixelation and Artifacts on Non-LAN Clients

[Skynet_o1]

Hello Community,

I'm experiencing a strange playback issue when accessing my Jellyfin server via VPN (WireGuard).

Scenario 1: Accessing the Jellyfin server from an Android smartphone via WireGuard. Playback works flawlessly over both LTE and external Wi-Fi networks. Transcoding also works without any issues.

Scenario 2: Accessing from all clients on the local LAN works perfectly. There are no playback issues, and the video quality is consistently stable.

Scenario 3: Accessing from other clients (Debian or Raspberry Pi with Kodi and Jellyfin addon) via WireGuard results in pixel artifacts. These artifacts are constant and appear in all videos, significantly degrading the viewing experience.

Additional Information:

• I have ruled out defective video files.
  
• The VPN connection provides a stable 50 Mbps download speed on the client side.
  
• The pixel errors occur regardless of whether the videos are transcoded or not.
  
• The Jellyfin server is running the latest version in a Proxmox LXC on a Debian base.
  
  

Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this or how I can fix it?

Thank you in advance!



4o

[TheDreadPirate]

Are you using a reverse proxy? If so, which one? Can you share your jellyfin logs via pastebin?

[Skynet_o1]

No, I don't use a reverse proxy. The WireGuard server runs directly on a DD-WRT router, and that's it. I've attached the log file, and the playback issues occurred around 4 PM.

https://pastebin.com/xvBGwQbT

[Skynet_o1]

https://pastebin.com/cBvi4gdJ
https://pastebin.com/V9v1YkrR

Some more Logs...

I find it strange that the connection from the Android smartphone with the Jellyfin app works perfectly over LTE and Wi-Fi, but not over the laptop or raspberry on the same Wi-Fi network.

[TheDreadPirate]

Does this happen with all playback on Kodi and your Debian PC? Or just live TV?

[Skynet_o1]

Yes, with all playbacks. In the local LAN, all three devices work fine (Android, Debian PC, and Kodi on Raspberry Pi).

Over WireGuard, only the Android works properly, while the Debian PC and Kodi on the Raspberry Pi have errors.

[TheDreadPirate]

The only thing I see is that the transcode bit rate is automatically set really really high (120Mbps). And this is probably breaking Quick Sync. I've only seen this happen when someone had an Nginx reverse proxy for Jellyfin and they had asset caching enabled.

One thing I just noticed was that your still have jellyfin-ffmpeg 5.1.4 installed. I don't THINK it will make a difference, but try upgrading to jellyfin-ffmpeg 6.0.1.

sudo systemctl stop jellyfin
sudo apt remove jellyfin-ffmpeg5
sudo apt install jellyfin-ffmpeg6
sudo systemctl start jellyfin

[pcm]

Over WireGuard, only the Android works properly, while the Debian PC and Kodi on the Raspberry Pi have errors.

What errors ? Can you please share the error logs you noticed ? I could not find any errors in the logs you pasted ...

What's version of Pi ? What specs does it have ? What's the Debian-PC specs ? neofetch/fastfetch/screenfetch output should be sufficient I think

laptop or raspberry on the same Wi-Fi network.

on laptop, i am guessing you're using a webbrowser ? what browser are you using ?
on the browser can you enable stats for nerds and see if there are dropped frames ?
Along with turning on stats for nerds, can you also turn on FPS meter ? To turn on FPS meter (chromium based browsers only)...
right click on the page and goto inspect -> click on the three dots -> click on 'run command' -> type 'fps' that should start fps meter and give you FPS and VRAM stats.
ref: https://devtoolstips.org/tips/en/display...framerate/

I am going to guess you might see some dropped frames but your without your VRAM getting full, which would indicate
I have a feeling there is some network throttling going on along the route somewhere ...

does your android device also have same VPN enabled ? If so can you disable the VPN and try to play a video ? Is the playback still buttery smooth ?