Solved Error Playing Video on Jellyfin

[pratik]

Hi,

I keep getting this error when trying to play video on jellyfin.
Hosted on Hetzner VPS.

Same video play fine through Emby though.

Log file has a lot of "file name has not been provided"

Nov 29 23:42:02 System.InvalidOperationException: Cannot start process because a file name has not been provided.
Nov 29 23:42:02 at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start()
Nov 29 23:42:02 at MediaBrowser.Api.Playback.BaseStreamingService.StartFfMpeg(StreamState state, String outputPath, CancellationTokenSource cancellationTokenSource, String workingDirectory)
Nov 29 23:42:02 at MediaBrowser.Api.Playback.Hls.BaseHlsService.ProcessRequestAsync(StreamRequest request, Boolean isLive)
Nov 29 23:42:02 at Emby.Server.Implementations.Services.ServiceExecGeneral.GetTaskResult(Task task)
Nov 29 23:42:02 at Emby.Server.Implementations.Services.ServiceHandler.ProcessRequestAsync(HttpListenerHost httpHost, IRequest httpReq, HttpResponse httpRes, ILogger logger, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
Nov 29 23:42:02 at Emby.Server.Implementations.HttpServer.HttpListenerHost.RequestHandler(IHttpRequest httpReq, String urlString, String host, String localPath, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
Nov 29 23:42:05 [18:12:05] [INF] [5] Emby.Server.Implementations.Session.SessionManager: Playback stopped reported by app Jellyfin Web 10.6.4 playing Amélie. Stopped at 0 ms
Nov 29 23:42:21 [18:12:21] [ERR] [4] MediaBrowser.Providers.Movies.MovieMetadataService: Error in ffprobe
Nov 29 23:42:21 System.InvalidOperationException: Cannot start process because a file name has not been provided.
Nov 29 23:42:21 at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start()
Nov 29 23:42:21 at MediaBrowser.MediaEncoding.Encoder.MediaEncoder.StartProcess(ProcessWrapper process)
Nov 29 23:42:21 at MediaBrowser.MediaEncoding.Encoder.MediaEncoder.GetMediaInfoInternal(String inputPath, String primaryPath, MediaProtocol protocol, Boolean extractChapters, String probeSizeArgument, Boolean isAudio, Nullable`1 videoType, Boolean forceEnableLogging, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
Nov 29 23:42:21 at MediaBrowser.Providers.MediaInfo.FFProbeVideoInfo.ProbeVideo[T](T item, MetadataRefreshOptions options, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
Nov 29 23:42:21 at MediaBrowser.Providers.Manager.MetadataService`2.RunCustomProvider(ICustomMetadataProvider`1 provider, TItemType item, String logName, MetadataRefreshOptions options, RefreshResult refreshResult, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
Nov 29 23:42:21 [18:12:21] [ERR] [18] MediaBrowser.Providers.Movies.MovieMetadataService: Error in ffprobe
Nov 29 23:42:21 System.InvalidOperationException: Cannot start process because a file name has not been provided.

Anyone know how to fix it?

[mehdi]

@pratik Do you know the format of this file ? Does it happen only for one specific file, or for all of them ?

[pratik]

@mehdi said in Error Playing Video on Jellyfin:

@pratik Do you know t

Hi @mehdi ,

I have tried mp4, mkv files and it fails with the same error for all of them.

[girish]

https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/4184 and https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/3911 has similar errors and they both suggest that ffmpeg path is not set. I thought this was automatically set in the recent package (@mehdi / @nebulon ?)

[mehdi]

@girish I think nothing ffmpeg-related has been changed in a while. Looking at the dockerfile, it seems it does install the jellyfin-specific build of ffmpeg, so at first glance I don't see a reason for it to not work. I'll give it a try later today

[mehdi]

There is indeed a problem, looks like the new version of the jellyfin package does not know by default the path of ffmpeg installed by the jellyfin-ffmpeg package.

@pratik to work-around for now, you can go to the admin dashboard, the Playback tab, and in the "FFmpeg path" input, paste /usr/share/jellyfin-ffmpeg/

@girish I'm looking for a way to automate this. I think there's a CLI switch. I'll let you know

[mehdi]

@girish Yes there's a CLI switch ! We should add --ffmpeg /usr/share/jellyfin-ffmpeg/ffmpeg to the jellyfin command in start.sh. You guys can do it directly, or should I open an MR ?

[nebulon]

I've released a new package version with the added commandline argument. As far as I can tell I was able to play various video file formats.

[mehdi]

@nebulon I can confirm the new version works out-of-the-box

[pratik]

@mehdi @girish @nebulon Yes, all videos open fine on the latest version.
Thanks for the quick resolution.