Massive cache usage

[Boatman]

Having completely "Uninstalled" jellyfin from ubuntu 24.04 server as per "https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-completely-reinstalling-jellyfin" and reinstalled with official BASH script

The reason for the uninstall was 138GB of cache usage This was entirely due to Multiple installs of differently configured Music Library on deletion of said Music library all the metadata files remained..... The DB had grown to 450Mb

My Movie collection is approx 450 films (a few of which are probably heavy on transcoding) but not massive.

Having deleted everything...... A new install with NO library setup being done I.E. Jellyfin should be empty!!!! My Cache usage is 108GB (BTW on the new install it stated that jellyfin had been installed and did i want to continue with the same server)

I did a quick VM install and empty setup showed 23GB of cache.

Does anyone have an idea where the files that are causing this issue are?

[34626]

I run Jellyfin in docker and at WebUI it says 12,2 GB used - but when i check the cache folder it says 4,3 MB - I think there is a bug in the webui controlpanel about that part?

[Boatman]

I am fairly sure it's more than a bug in the webui controlpanel. My movie playback is fine for awhile and then starts to stutter significantly even after file cleanup. Files are being stored somewhere.

As stated a clean VM install didn't show 108Gb of cache usage.

It is some problem with historic data being stored somewhere........ Even if installed in docker it's my understanding that the Db files are still on the OS...... so doesn't really help

On a server with jellyfin deleted this is the result..........
ps aux | grep jellyfin...... results in 99516 0.0 0.0 9292 2360 pts/1 S+ 11:33 0:00 grep --color=auto jellyfin

so there is a process still running...... something is not right

[TheDreadPirate]

If you ran "apt remove jellyfin", it would NOT delete any of the configuration or data files.

To truly purge Jellyfin, you need to run the following.

Code:

sudo apt purge jellyfin*
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/jellyfin /var/cache/jellyfin /etc/jellyfin
sudo apt install jellyfin

HOWEVER, is most of your disk usage from transcodes?  The transcode cleanup job only cleans files in the transcode directory that are older than 24 hours.  Normally, transcode files are cleaned up after playback finishes.  But if Jellyfin crashed while a transcode was happening it probably won't clean up the transcode files after it restarts.  But the clean up job would after 24 hours.

If transcodes are the culprit for the high disk usage, in general, you can enable "transcode throttling" and "delete segments" in the transcode settings to reduce how much disk each session uses.

[34626]

I am fairly sure it's more than a bug in the webui controlpanel. My movie playback is fine for awhile and then starts to stutter significantly even after file cleanup. Files are being stored somewhere.

As stated a clean VM install didn't show 108Gb of cache usage.

It is some problem with historic data being stored somewhere........ Even if installed in docker it's my understanding that the Db files are still on the OS...... so doesn't really help

On a server with jellyfin deleted this is the result..........
ps aux | grep jellyfin...... results in 99516  0.0  0.0  9292  2360 pts/1    S+  11:33  0:00 grep --color=auto jellyfin

so there is a process still running...... something is not right

As others mention, it sounds like you need to do a bit of cleanup - Have you run some of that cleanup tasks Jellyfin offers at dashboard > scheldued tasks?.

Please make a new thread about the playback issue and provie logs, info about network and hardare - Then we stand a chance to help you :-)

[Boatman]

Thank you TheDreadPirate for your reply and i duly note your comments. (I will certainly set the transcoding limits after i get a clean install) I did a complete cleanup of all the remaining files after a Purge removal as stated in the opening message.... There were no jellyfin crashes.... and it is certainly not a problem that disappears after 24 hours.

I will look at it further later and try and provide some more detailed information

Many thanks

[Boatman]

SOLVED..... The dashboard reporting of cache usage is reporting total disk of entire OS install (my fault i didn't see it before)

The stuttering i was suffering was completely solved after setting Throttle Transcodes and delete Segments with limits. My CPU is running at approx 40% while running heavy transcoding so all appears ok

Many Thanks for the help, (I learnt a few things on the way which is always good)

One bit of advice is don't create libraries and then delete them............. loads of "rubbish" is left behind