Emby suddenly stopped working - "permission denied" errors

[Dehenry]

Hi,

I am getting more and more frustrated with my brand new NAS. I have had it for only one month, but keep piling up problems with Asustor Support, but nothing gets resolved.

The latest problem is that Emby does not play most of my videos and none of my photos. It only plays a handful videos out of hundreds which are all in the same format. It worked for a short time, but then suddenly it didn't show thumbnails anymore, only a broken image placeholder thumbnail. The logs are full of "permission denied" errors. I found that many users had this problem, but apparently for many different reasons and I don't have the knowledge to implement all of the proposed solutions. What I did is uninstall Emby and manually deleted the user homes/Emby folder. But when I reinstall it, it is the same situation, including that it seems to remember the few videos that previously played. So maybe I didn't wipe everything related to Emby, but don't know where else to look.

I have my photos and videos stored in volume1/media/photos and volume1/media/videos. I think media/ is the default folder set up by ADM for this type of files. However, Support tells me that the folders I use are not shared folders and that I should create a new one. That doesn't make sense to me as these are just subfolders within the shared folder media/ and other apps like Photo Gallery work fine. What do you think?

Support didn't even take a look at the Emby logs, but keeps telling me for all my different problems that they are caused by me using a single SSD as volume 1, that I should initialize the SSD based on EXT4 instead of btrfs (which I don't want because I want to be able to use snapshots) and that I should use two SSDs in RAID1. Of course, I understand that two SSDs in RAID1 provide more reliability, but I have found no statement anywhere that technically a single SSD doesn't work. Rather, Asustor commented to a YT video that a single SSD works just fine. I don't want to use more drives than necessary to save power. As regards the file system, IIRC btrfs was the default option when I initialized the NAS. I am a noob and wouldn't make any crazy choices unless I know what I am doing. Support previously checked the SSD's file system and it was ok, but now tells me that previously they had come across an error.

Another problem I have is that the NAS doesn't execute power schedules I set in settings>hardware>power. Neither does it turn off at the set time, nor does it turn on. Again, Support explains this with the single SSD. I'm getting the impression that Support is using the single SSD as a universal excuse for everything without looking into the problems in any detail... Do you have any idea what could be wrong here?

[snapshot]

Although, like you, I can't see any reason for a single drive being a problem, my AS5202T with two HDDs turns on and off as scheduled with complete reliability.

There is a very quiet Emby sub-forum here: viewforum.php?f=103

[Dehenry]

In the meantime I was able to resolve the Emby problem by creating a new Shared Folder for my media and the deleted the folder Media/. It appears that something was wrong with the Media/. I find that a bit worrying as my NAS is only a few weeks old.

The problem that the NAS doesn't go into S3 and doesn't power up and down according to a set schedule still persists. Again, Support blaims the single SSD and that it is formatted in Btrfs. They say that they came across an error message relating to the space cache on the SSD and that these types of errors would "disappear" automatically with two SSDs in RAID1. Otherwise if I continue using a single SSD, it should be initialized in EXT4. Does that make sense to you?

As regards power schedule, what is also strange is that when I change or set up a new schedule and hit "Apply", I get prompted "No settings were changed" even though I did change them. Is this normal? Support also recommended deactivating all installed apps, which I did with no success.

[snapshot]

One step forward at least.
No, I can't see any reason why Btrfs on a single drive should cause problems and a quick google re-enforces that view. However, looking at your original post, I see you want to keep to a single SSD to save power. The amount of power drawn by a second SSD really isn't worth worrying about so I would consider getting one. Just out of interest, what SSD do you have in the NAS?

[Dehenry]

Sorry for the late reply. My SSD is a Lexar NM790.

In the meantime I was able to resolve at least the problem with powering up/down according to a time schedule. In fact, this already worked before. But the schedule was not executed at the set times, but one hour later. The cause was that the "Enable daylight saving time" option was not checked. I didn't notice that because despite the option not being checked, ADM showed the correct time (i.e., daylight saving time) on the logon screen.

What does still not work is that the NAS automatically enters into S3 mode after a set idle time. Does that work on your device?

[snapshot]

Ah, good news on the power up/down problem.
I've just tested S3 shutdown on that NAS and on another with two 2.5" SATA SSDs and two HDDs. It worked as expected on both of them but neither has much background processing going on. There's a long list of apps and conditions that might prevent sleep mode working in the manual. I think only Asustor-supported apps are listed so Emby isn't one of them. If you haven't already tried it, close Emby and see if sleep mode starts working.

[Dehenry]

Many thanks for checking! There are no apps running at the moment and I also tried disabling all installed apps in the App Central with no success. Asustor Support suggested that the single SSD could prevent S3, but didn't provide any real explanation for that.

Just to make sure I have my settings right: I assume you set a time period in the "Sleep Mode" section of the "Energy Control" tab. Did you check the "Specify the time period during which the NAS is able to enter Sleep Mode" box? I tried both and set the time period to 0:00 till 23:59, so essentially all day, with no effect. I have mapped a network drive in Windows to the NAS, but that shouldn't keep it from entering S3, right?

Do you have to sign out from ADM for S3 to take effect or does it also work while you are logged on (but don't access any data)?

[snapshot]

I tried one with a time period set and one without - they both worked.

The mapped drive could be the problem as Windows Explorer might keep checking the connection. Disconnect the mapped drive and see what happens.

[Dehenry]

Even with all apps deactivated, the network drive removed in Windows (and/or the PC being shut down), the network cable being unplugged and me doing nothing with the NAS, a process called actmand still takes write access to the system volume every five minutes according to the Diagnostic Tool. actmand is described as "System Status Query Tools". I guess that this is what prevents the NAS from entering S3. There is also a process called inadyn (described as "NetWork Management Tools") with write access to the system volume, but that only appeared every ca. 30 minutes.

I found frustrated discussions in several forums addressing the same problem. In this thread: viewtopic.php?t=11712&start=10 someone resolved the problem by installing an SSD as volume 1. I have an SSD set up as system volume/volume 1. At the end of that thread it appears that the SSD fix only worked for a limited time.

It would be very interesting to know what is different on your NASes so that S3 works. Does the actmand process appear in your logs and do you have the latest version of ADM installed on both of your NASes?

[snapshot]

I have actmand listed as sleeping on both NAS and also on the third which doesn't give the option of Sleep for some reason. One of the two has two SATA SSDs in RAID1 as volume 1 and two HDDs in RAID1 as Volume 2; the other only has two HDDs in RAID 1. I haven't yet spotted inadyn.

I always have the latest version of ADM installed.

You haven't mentioned which NAS you have.