I'm having a very strange issue with the Jellyfin app for Android (using a Samsung Galaxy S23). Any time I have the player set to the built-in web player, the video will freeze every second or so, then pick up in a few seconds. While it's "frozen," tapping on the screen to bring up the scrollbar will start it playing again. So the video plays fine as long as I keep tapping on the screen every second or so; obviously this won't work. It's not a bandwidth issue; it happens even when I drop the bitrate to 360p.

If I open a web browser and log into Jellyfin on the same device, it plays perfectly. It's only when I use the web player built-in to the app.

I tried using the built-in ExosPlayer, and it gives me a blank screen when I'm transcoding HDR->SDR with tone mapping. Using an external player (VLC) works, but it doesn't transcode at all; it just direct streams everything, which is no good when I need to play Dolby Vision content or drop the bitrate to stream over my internet connection.

I can certainly just use Jellyfin through a web browser, but it would be nice to be able to get the app working.

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[–] PriorProject@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't have great suggestions for improvement, but I can verify that I sometimes have to flip around between players to get a particular video to work properly. It's rare that I have to go all the way to VLC, but your report doesn't flat out shock me. Some ideas:

Try https://github.com/jarnedemeulemeester/findroid as an alternative. I have both installed and flip back and forth between the official player and findroid. They're both nice. Findroid may have different nuances in codec support though and maybe they'll play in your favor.
Fiddle with any hw/sw decoding settings you can find.
Fiddle with the transcoding settings (sounds like you have... but try all the options)
If necessary, reencode the file on disk on the Jellyfin server... at least as a test to see if you can get ANY codecs to work reliably.

I use both apps all the time, and I'd generally say they work great. But occasionally I get a weirdly encoded file I have to mess around to get to play on mobile. I haven't tracked which codecs cause trouble though.

[–] corroded@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel like a bit of an idiot. I have tried everything to get this working... except for re-installing Jellyfin on my phone. I cleared data, uninstalled the app, re-installed it, and magically it now works perfectly. I really should have tried that a long time ago.

[–] PriorProject@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

If it works it counts no matter how dumb you feel. Glad it's sorted, good luck and have fun.

[–] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago

Seconded regarding Findroid. Its the main client for my daughter since its a lot more reliable in my experience than the offical app, which sometimes lags weirdly. Not a problem for me but very much a problem for a toddler who wants to watch Paw Patrol.

[–] Powerbomb@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I have had the exact same thing with a Samsung Galaxy Tab S8. You are right in that it's the web player builtin to the app that's causing you the issues.

Open Jellyfin app.
Select the menu Settings under the User header
Chose Client Settings
ChangeVideo player type to Internal player. Or use an external one, if you'd fancy that.

I've come to love the internal player very much, as in mt instantly loads the subtitles I choose to activate. The web player being slow and messy about it is my one big gripe with Jellyfin.