SOLVED: Stream starts fast in browser, but slow on Android TV

[Curler1]

Hi everyone,

I am having the problem that my streams start fast in any browser and very slow in the Android TV App. Sometimes I have to wait around 1 min for the stream to start on Android TV.

I am using QuickSync and playback is running smoothly when the stream is running. It also works if I restart the same file again, just playing the file for the first time on Android TV is very slow. On the browser it always starts immediately, even when playing it for the first time. I am running everything on LAN, so it is not an internet problem.

Jellyfin is running in docker. The media is stored on the same machine, in a different VM, in TrueNAS.

I also attached two logs, one playing in the browser where it loaded fast and one playing on Android TV where it started slowly.

Does anybody have any idea what the problem could be?

Best,
Curler1

[TheDreadPirate]

The only difference in the ffmpeg logs is that the TV is receiving 5.1 AAC in a TS container while the browser is receiving stereo AAC in a MP4 container. The transcode speed is the same.

What kind of Android TV device is it? And can you share the main jellyfin log via privatebin.net?

[Curler1]

The only difference in the ffmpeg logs is that the TV is receiving 5.1 AAC in a TS container while the browser is receiving stereo AAC in a MP4 container.  The transcode speed is the same.

What kind of Android TV device is it?  And can you share the main jellyfin log via privatebin.net?

Thanks for checking!

I am using Google Chromecast with Google TV 4K 4th Gen. At the beginning Jellyfin worked fine and the problem just started a few months ago so I assume it is not the hardware itself. I also reset the device already and reinstalled the Jellyfin for Android TV App.

Here is the main jellyfin log:
https://privatebin.net/?ffaf46dc169dfc39...jEzSUDzSsP

I just checked my TrueNAS and one interesting discovery is that every time I start the stream on Android TV, the connection between my Jellyfin Server and TrueNAS is completely saturated. This only happens when I stream from Android TV but not when I stream from the browser. I attached the screenshot, the pink spikes is when I start the stream on Android TV. In between the pink spikes I was starting several streams on my browser which only results in little traffic between my Jellyfin Server and TrueNAS.

[TheDreadPirate]

In the Jellyfin app on your TV, what is the audio output setting set to? Direct or downmix? And how about your refresh rate scaling? Disabled, scale on device, or scale on TV?

Do you have trickplay support enabled on the CCwGTV?

[Curler1]

In the Jellyfin app on your TV, what is the audio output setting set to?  Direct or downmix?  And how about your refresh rate scaling?  Disabled, scale on device, or scale on TV?

Do you have trickplay support enabled on the CCwGTV?

I just checked. Audio autput is set to direct, refresh rate scaling is disabled and trickplay support in developer options is also disabled.

I just also tried to play around with all of these settings, but the loading times did not change noticeably. Any special combination of settings I could try?

I'll also try completely resetting the CC device again.

[Curler1]

In the Jellyfin app on your TV, what is the audio output setting set to?  Direct or downmix?  And how about your refresh rate scaling?  Disabled, scale on device, or scale on TV?

Do you have trickplay support enabled on the CCwGTV?

I just checked. Audio autput is set to direct, refresh rate scaling is disabled and trickplay support in developer options is also disabled.

I just also tried to play around with all of these settings, but the loading times did not change noticeably. Any special combination of settings I could try?

I'll also try completely resetting the CC device again.

Resetting the device again did not change anything.

But I might have found the problem. I checked the main Jellyfin logs again and saw, if I interpret the logs correctly, that the subtitle extraction process takes more than a minute before playback starts:

Code:

[2025-02-17 10:55:09.858 +08:00] [INF] [26] MediaBrowser.MediaEncoding.Subtitles.SubtitleEncoder: "/usr/lib/jellyfin-ffmpeg/ffmpeg" "-i file:\"/data/media/movies/REDACTED.mkv\" -copyts -map 0:4 -an -vn -c:s copy \"/config/data/data/subtitles/0/09cd679b-efa3-7d84-3f7b-a8aada8540f9.srt\""
[2025-02-17 10:56:18.366 +08:00] [INF] [62] MediaBrowser.MediaEncoding.Subtitles.SubtitleEncoder: ffmpeg subtitle extraction completed for "file:\"/data/media/movies/REDACTED.mkv\"" to "/config/data/data/subtitles/0/09cd679b-efa3-7d84-3f7b-a8aada8540f9.srt"

Am I interpreting the logs correctly? Could this be the problem?

I already turned off "Allow subtitle extraction on the fly" and set "Disable different types of embedded subtitles" to "Allow None" for every library, but nothing changed.

Update: Ok I also had to rescan all libraries while replacing all metadata. Now all the embedded subtitles do not show up anymore and playback on Android TV starts quickly again. I'll mark this as solved. Thank you for your help @TheDreadPirate

[TheDreadPirate]

Good catch. You can install the Subtitle Extract plugin then go to Dashboard > Scheduled Tasks and run the job for this plugin to pre-extract subtitles. This way it no longer has to do the extraction on the fly.