Transcoding not used for external storage

[drhirn]

As the Memories config page states, transcoding will not be used for external storage. Why?

And what to do, if i have local files and files on a remote storage? If I enable transcoding, all videos on the external storage can't be played anymore.

[pulsejet]

As the Memories config page states, transcoding will not be used for external storage.

To transcode a file, you need download the whole file locally first. This is problematic for large video files on external storage, so it is explicitly disabled.

If I enable transcoding, all videos on the external storage can't be played anymore.

That's possibly a bug. Do you get any error?

[drhirn]

Nothing in the logs (debug). Nextcloud just tells me "The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported." and "Transcoding failed, check the logs".

[pulsejet]

Can you play if you set the quality of the video as "Direct"?

[drhirn]

Doesn't change anything.

[drhirn]

Trying to play from a read-only SMB-share

[pulsejet]

Does your browser support the video to begin with? A simple test would be to disable transcoding and try playing the same video.

[drhirn]

Yes. No problems when disabling transcoding.

[pulsejet]

Are you 100% sure? Disabling transcoding and setting quality to direct are exactly the same thing in the code ...

[drhirn]

Hehe. I assumed the same. But yes, I'm 100% sure. Just double-checked.

This is what the developer tools show when playing with enabled transcoding (quality: direct):

SW registered:  
ServiceWorkerRegistration { installing: null, waiting: null, active: ServiceWorker, navigationPreload: NavigationPreloadManager, scope: "https://example.com/apps/memories", updateViaCache: "imports", onupdatefound: null, pushManager: PushManager }
memories-main.js:2:3177869
Source map error: Error: request failed with status 404
Resource URL: https://example.com/custom_apps/memories/js/memories-main.js?v=808481ed-0
Source Map URL: memories-main.js.map?v=0b6b2008f363bc70e4b7
Will-change memory consumption is too high. Budget limit is the document surface area multiplied by 3 (2045952 px). Occurrences of will-change over the budget will be ignored. 04
VIDEOJS: WARN: The element supplied is not included in the DOM memories-vendors-node_modules_plyr_dist_plyr_min_js-node_modules_plyr_dist_plyr_css-node_modules_video-6ca800.js:2:371545
VIDEOJS: WARN: videojs.mergeOptions is deprecated and will be removed in 9.0; please use videojs.obj.merge instead. memories-vendors-node_modules_plyr_dist_plyr_min_js-node_modules_plyr_dist_plyr_css-node_modules_video-6ca800.js:2:371545
XHRGET
https://example.com/apps/memories/api/video/transcode/vdlsaebzm600/423453/index.m3u8
[HTTP/2 403 Forbidden 27ms]

VIDEOJS: ERROR: (CODE:4 MEDIA_ERR_SRC_NOT_SUPPORTED) The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported. 
Object { code: 4, message: "The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported." }
memories-vendors-node_modules_plyr_dist_plyr_min_js-node_modules_plyr_dist_plyr_css-node_modules_video-6ca800.js:2:371545
PsVideo: Direct video stream could not be opened. memories-main.js:2:3016916
PsVideo: Trying HLS stream memories-main.js:2:3016985
XHRGET
https://example.com/apps/memories/api/video/transcode/vdlsaebzm600/423453/index.m3u8
[HTTP/2 403 Forbidden 28ms]

VIDEOJS: ERROR: (CODE:4 MEDIA_ERR_SRC_NOT_SUPPORTED) The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported. 
Object { code: 4, message: "The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported." }
memories-vendors-node_modules_plyr_dist_plyr_min_js-node_modules_plyr_dist_plyr_css-node_modules_video-6ca800.js:2:371545
PsVideo: HLS stream could not be opened. memories-main.js:2:3016620
Uncaught (in promise) DOMException: The media resource indicated by the src attribute or assigned media provider object was not suitable. memories-vendors-node_modules_plyr_dist_plyr_min_js-node_modules_plyr_dist_plyr_css-node_modules_video-6ca800.js:2
Source map error: Error: request failed with status 404
Resource URL: https://example.com/custom_apps/memories/js/memories-vendors-node_modules_plyr_dist_plyr_min_js-node_modules_plyr_dist_plyr_css-node_modules_video-6ca800.js?v=1de1918b548ccbfe9249
Source Map URL: memories-vendors-node_modules_plyr_dist_plyr_min_js-node_modules_plyr_dist_plyr_css-node_modules_video-6ca800.js.map?v=1de1918b548ccbfe9249
MouseEvent.mozPressure is deprecated. Use PointerEvent.pressure instead. memories-vendors-node_modules_plyr_dist_plyr_min_js-node_modules_plyr_dist_plyr_css-node_modules_video-6ca800.js:2:380951

[gymnae]

I'm transcoding videos from an external storage, both playing in auto and direct mode just fine.
My external storage is an rclone volume mounted as local external storage into a docker volume. It even has to decrypt the file and it works

[drhirn]

You're right. If I mount the smb-share locally and use "local external storage", it's working fine.

[vitis586]

I encountered this on my testing instance but @drhirn was faster to issue it. Is there going to be a way to enable transcoding for SMB storage? Is transcoding disabled only for SMB storage? I am running Nextcloud in Docker and mounting user data as external SMB storage with authentication even though the storage is local. This way I have the correct owner on the files that I write through Nextcloud and I can also access the files directly. It was working fine for me so far.

I can understand that the poor performance can affect the experience in case of WebDAV or Amazon S3 as these are usually not on the same machine as the Nextcloud/Memories instance.

[pulsejet]

Not right now. ffmpeg works best when the file is locally available; to support anything else we probably need another wrapper.

[ChildLearningClub]

Are you 100% sure? Disabling transcoding and setting quality to direct are exactly the same thing in the code ...

I do think there is something going on as well, I was able to see no noticeable difference between any of the 3 settings within the admin panel for ffmpeg transcoding. My very rough test consisted of disabling transcoding, reloading the page, having the video play in original quality, then repeating the process of disabling and refreshing the page between changing settings.

It would go from the native resolution to what appeared to be the same transcoded resolution even with the transcoding enabled, and Direct (without transcode) option set.

Video Reference

[pulsejet]

The admin settings only define the default quality. The user can still select whatever quality they desire, and that will be persisted per-user.

[ChildLearningClub]

The admin settings only define the default quality. The user can still select whatever quality they desire, and that will be persisted per-user.

I apologize as this is now irrelevant to the current issue, but for the life of me I can’t find that user setting?

[pulsejet]

Bottom right during video playback:

If this is not visible, that likely means the video isn't transcoding to begin with. There might be errors in the go-vod logs (/tmp/go-vod/<instance-id>.log) or some permissions errors (in the memories admin interface).

[ChildLearningClub]

@pulsejet thank you, I see it on desktop now.

iOS Safari on the other hand only displays captions and speed. Logs show no error and it is clearly being transcoded.

Unless I’m missing something else I will open a new ticket for this?

[pulsejet]

@ChildLearningClub the iOS player doesn't support switching quality, but indeed it's a bug that there's no way to switch between transcoded and direct video. I opened a tracker at #650

[ChildLearningClub]

I apologize for getting everyone of topic, but I think this can be closed? transcoding does work for external storage, and looks like it was just an issue with how to storage was being mounted?

You're right. If I mount the smb-share locally and use "local external storage", it's working fine.

Is anyone else still having this issue?

[pulsejet]

Well not really. The way go-vod works is by picking up files from the filesystem directly. To fully support external storage, we need to access the filesystem through Nextcloud, which will e.g. also allow transcoding files on S3