Trouble with FireTV

[Joseph Gleason]

I have a jellyfin server that I don't use super frequently so not sure when it stopped working.

All clients seem to be fine except my FireTV cube.

Server Jellyfin version: 10.9.6
jellyfin-android 0.16.11

When I try to play it just shows a black screen with the UI elements (fast forward, play, etc) and just hangs.  Normally this is where the transcoding starts up and things go in a few seconds, but right now nothing.

In the log when I hit play I just see:
[02:02:27] [INF] [96] Jellyfin.Api.Helpers.MediaInfoHelper: User policy for fire. EnablePlaybackRemuxing: True EnableVideoPlaybackTranscoding: True EnableAudioPlaybackTranscoding: True

The nothing.

$ ps ax|grep ffmpeg
1843257 ?        Ssl    0:21 /jellyfin/jellyfin --ffmpeg /usr/lib/jellyfin-ffmpeg/ffmpeg
1849082 pts/3    S+    0:00 grep ffmpeg

For whatever it is worth, jellyfin is latest from dockerhub.

[Cognicom]

Presumably this problem happens even when trying to play a file which doesn't need transcoding?

I've in the past experienced a couple of issues with an Android TV client which similarly refused to behave sanely; clearing the app's data and cache brought it back to functionality again.

[Joseph Gleason]

I honestly don't know what needs transcoding or not. I was just doing files that I absolutely have had work before (from makemkv).

And I did clear the data on the FireTV app and that didn't help.

[Cognicom]

I've only had VERY limited experience with FireTV (only ever been exposed to one at a friend's place, and that was for a total of five minutes while I initially set the Jellyfin client up for them), so am far from an authority on the subject.

The only remaining thing I can think of to try is to go into the app settings and change the medial player - Settings -> Client Settings -> Video Player Type. Try each of the options in turn (it'd probably be a good idea to shut the app down after changing the setting, before coming back in to see if it will play).

[Joseph Gleason]

Extra detail..the load average on my server was 600. After stopping jellyfin, it is dropping down to reasonable.
$ uptime
07:50:00 up 104 days, 17:50, 1 user, load average: 32.50, 365.62, 554.52

And this is with no noticeable CPU usage in top. I've never seen that high of a load average without noticable CPU usage. Very strange.

[TheDreadPirate]

In the Jellyfin app on your FireTV, try changing the preferred player to libVLC.

[Joseph Gleason]

In the Jellyfin app on your FireTV, try changing the preferred player to libVLC.

I tried that just now, didn't help.

I also cleared the jellyfin cache.

[ThomasPGH]

When I try to play it just shows a black screen with the UI elements (fast forward, play, etc) and just hangs.

I've had this a few times too but with a normal Android TV, not a Fire TV.
If other films play it could be the audio codec. On my TV not all codecs work, in which case I usually convert the audio to <= 640 kbps AC3 Lav. If I don't do that I get a black screen with the UI elements only but nothing happens. The intro usually plays, by the way.
At other times no film played after the intro. Restarting the TV helped.

[Joseph Gleason]

I have some further information.
This is still happening, but it isn't what I thought. It is just taking a really really long time to start.
Like 30sec to a minute. In this fast paced world, long enough where I assume it is broken forever and I give up in dispare.
Then it starts playing and once it starts, it is fine.
And on a TV show, going to the next episode is the same minute delay to start.

[TheDreadPirate]

What are your server specs and what linux distro? Can you share your server logs via pastebin?