SOLVED: Google Chrome Won't Play HEVC Video

[Winthryth]

Google Chrome and Android App will not play any HEVC Video on my Jellyfin server. Upon trying to play HEVC Video through Google Chrome or Android App, I get the "Playback failed due to a fatal player error."  HEVC Video plays fine through Firefox and Android TV app via transcoding. I have tested Google Chrome on multiple computers. The failure does not produce a transcoding log in Jellyfin. Below is the normal Jellyfin log. I have tried with both hardware encoding enabled and disabled.



[2024-05-24 10:30:26.430 -04:00] [INF] User policy for "winthryth". EnablePlaybackRemuxing: True EnableVideoPlaybackTranscoding: True EnableAudioPlaybackTranscoding: True
[2024-05-24 10:30:26.930 -04:00] [INF] User policy for "winthryth". EnablePlaybackRemuxing: True EnableVideoPlaybackTranscoding: True EnableAudioPlaybackTranscoding: True
[2024-05-24 10:30:26.961 -04:00] [INF] User policy for "winthryth". EnablePlaybackRemuxing: True EnableVideoPlaybackTranscoding: True EnableAudioPlaybackTranscoding: True
[2024-05-24 10:30:27.015 -04:00] [INF] Playback stopped reported by app "Jellyfin Web" "10.9.2" playing "Hammerscale". Stopped at "0" ms
[2024-05-24 10:30:29.905 -04:00] [INF] WS "192.168.1.1" closed
[2024-05-24 10:30:30.277 -04:00] [INF] WS "192.168.1.1" request

Setup
Jellyfin 10.9.2 on Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
GPU: Intel Arc A380 with Intel QuickSync Enabled

[TheDreadPirate]

On your phone, make sure you are using the integrated player (found in client settings) instead of the web player.

As for Chrome, did you enable the experimental flag to attempt to play HEVC? Firefox explicitly does not support HEVC and won't even try to play it.

[Winthryth]

My phone was using the Web player, switched to integrated player and works fine now. Thanks

I don't think I enabled the experimental flag to attempt to play HEVC. Have a source for how to so I can check and confirm? Also my friends, who are not tech saving enough to change any experimental chrome settings, can't play any of my HVEC content via Google Chrome either.

[TheDreadPirate]

There doesn't appear to be a way to explicitly exclude HEVC playback.

Try this, only for testing.

Type in

Code:

chrome://flags"

and search for "Hardware-accelerated video decode". Flip that to disabled, restart Chrome, try playing your video again. What happens.

Edit: Had to make it a code block because of the freakin emojis.

[Efficient_Good_5784]

Chrome will only direct play HEVC as long as it's in a MP4 container. If your HEVC videos are in MKV containers it will require a transcode.

[TheDreadPirate]

Chrome will only direct play HEVC as long as it's in a MP4 container. If your HEVC videos are in MKV containers it will require a transcode.

The problem is that it isn't transcoding for some reason.

You can also try turning on debug logging. That will write to the server log what the client says it can play.

[Winthryth]

There doesn't appear to be a way to explicitly exclude HEVC playback.

Try this, only for testing.

Type in

Code:

chrome://flags"

and search for "Hardware-accelerated video decode".  Flip that to disabled, restart Chrome, try playing your video again.  What happens.

Edit:  Had to make it a code block because of the freakin emojis.

Chrome was currently set to enabled, switched to disabled but it had no effect.

Chrome will only direct play HEVC as long as it's in a MP4 container. If your HEVC videos are in MKV containers it will require a transcode.

The problem is that it isn't transcoding for some reason.

You can also try turning on debug logging.  That will write to the server log what the client says it can play.

I am having trouble finding my Configuration Directory. Do you know where it is located for the official Ubuntu Jellyfin deb?

[TheDreadPirate]

/etc/jellyfin

[Winthryth]

/etc/jellyfin

Attached is what I believe is the relevant portion the log is and below is the specific line which I think provides what the client thinks it can support.

[gigantic text wall removed by TDP]

[TheDreadPirate]

It invoked the stream builder with the determination that it needs to be transcoded.

Code:

[2024-05-24 13:47:04.766 -04:00] [DBG] StreamBuilder.BuildVideoItem( Profile="Anonymous Profile", Path="/Server_Media/Shows/Shogun (2024)/Season 1/S01E10.mkv", AudioStreamIndex=1, SubtitleStreamIndex=2 ) => ( PlayMethod=Transcode, TranscodeReason=VideoCodecNotSupported, AudioCodecNotSupported ) "media:/videos/a4595d61-d45a-e47d-f4b9-2ae3a46e7607/master.m3u8?MediaSourceId=a4595d61d45ae47df4b92ae3a46e7607&VideoCodec=av1,hevc,h264,hevc&AudioCodec=aac,opus,flac&AudioStreamIndex=1&VideoBitrate=2147099647&AudioBitrate=384000&MaxFramerate=24&api_key=<token>&TranscodingMaxAudioChannels=2&RequireAvc=false&Tag=d9b29a63b82be481f571cadbcde99750&SegmentContainer=mp4&MinSegments=1&BreakOnNonKeyFrames=True&hevc-level=120&hevc-videobitdepth=10&hevc-profile=main10&hevc-rangetype=SDR,HDR10,HLG&hevc-deinterlace=true&TranscodeReasons=VideoCodecNotSupported,%20AudioCodecNotSupported"

But before ffmpeg even starts playback is stopped.

Can you open the browser's developer console and share with us the output when you attempt to playback HEVC?