OMV + Emby - Container Transcoding / Constant Driver update issues

You are not alone...

I experience the same problem continuously and have been trying to determine what causes it, because it is incredibly disruptive. Best I can tell is that this occurs whenever there is a linux kernel update. Other miscellaneous updates do not affect the configuration.

My working theory is that certain Nvidia driver versions are not compatible with certain kernel versions, or at least not compatible for a period of time until updates are made to correct the incompatibility. You can uninstall/reinstall the Nvidia drivers to no avail until either the Nvidia drivers are updated, or a new kernel version shows up that supports the drivers.

Because of this, I really don't think this is an OMV issue per se... I think it is a Debian/Nvidia issue. I have said in past postings that I regret not using an Intel CPU for my server, which would negate the need for a dedicated GPU.

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I'm struggling to find a "benchmark" or graphic showing me the "transcoding power" of the various Intel CPU's. Any ideas you might have?

My old and modest Intel Pentium Gold did 1080 transcoding HEVC->264 at 150 fps approx with dual channel RAM with Jellyfin (having dual channel RAM almost doubles fps). My new Intel i5 6 core 12 gen does about the same but probably at better quality, not in position to say.

My Pentium Gold could easy handle 4-5 simultaneously, didn't test beyond that. Considering it is transcoding 6x real time (assuming 25 fps movies) it will transcode and save in a temp buffer therefore a 1 hour movie in 10 mins. Unless you have a large number of users starting to watch at the same time you don't need a lot of CPU/GPU power.

Quote from ks09aao

It looks like (I think), an Intel Arc A380 gpu might be less painful - looks like it just needs a kernel update to work with emby, not the backports / toolkits I need today.

I think for me the questions are now;

1) Is there a quick and easy way to skip NVIDIA driver updates

2) Is an Intel CPU more than enough for 3 emby transcodes, video conversions and some HD camera streams?
3) Or is the Intel ARC required for this setup - and does it work as "plug and play" as it appears to me?

I run an arc380 in my system and it handles kernel updates fine because the driver is in the kernel as of 6.2. The nvidia drivers are not in the kernel and have to be compiled against the kernel version, so a kernel update changes the version that the driver needs to be re-compiled.

I helped a buddy set up a system with an nvidia 1650 in there, and we ran into the same issues a few times. Ultimately, I put a hold on his kernel and kernel headers to keep from getting hit by this problem all the time. He has been running for about a year now without a problem.

I have him running the proxmox 6.5 kernel, but as a disaster fallback I also have a debian 6.1 kernel installed. I have held both kernels as well as their associated headers

If you are not comfortable with the cli for holding packages, you can use the omv-extras kernel tool and apt tool plugins. Simply use the search function in the apt tool to find the kernel and headers matching the version you are running in the kernel tool. Once found, add them to the packages page (the + button at the top), then go to the packages page, find them again and then use the wrench icon above and select hold.

Quote from ks09aao

Thanks so much, that's extremely interesting reading and sounds like just what I need.

Longer term - Really good to know about the arc380 - I think I will be going down that route, as I would prefer peace of mind knowing I've got the "compute" needed to future-proof my setup. (planning to add a few cameras / users in the future as well as convert media).

Short-term, I could pause updates to the kernel as you've suggested - my only hesitation would be, how much of a security issue is that these days? Am I worrying for nothing?

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I don't think it's a major security risk, particularly if you are sensible about other measures, like not having the system wide open on the internet. It's not uncommon for linux server to be a few kernel versions behind the latest. System admins, while they generally do like to be fairly current, usually like to plan updates to ensure everything is going to work without breaking something and perhaps even schedule a time to update when it will not impact ongoing work.

Keeping that in mind, you can still update the kernel, but you can do it in a controlled manner where you know you have to do an nvidia re-install, instead of being blind sided by a kernel update that snuck into a big list and broke stuff.