No Library Thumbnail Images

[nx6]

TrueNAS 13.3U1 / FreeBSD 13.3 Jail
Version 10.10.3

Clients: Web / Android TV (official) / Findroid

I haven't had any library thumbnails since 10.10.0 I believe. I guess I figured it would be ironed out in a bugfix but it's been awhile now.

There isn't any issue with getting metadata/posters/backdrops for content, it's just the library cards themselves that aren't getting the occasionally-rotating choice in a backdrop image for the thumbnail.

I've tried setting up a brand-new server in a different jail (13.4 Jail, Jellyfin 10.10.3 again) and I remade my Movies library in it. The metadata for all the titles has loaded already but there is still no thumbnail for the library >12 hours later.

I also turned on the auto-collections feature in the new server, and I'm not getting any images for the collections, but that might be a separate problem.

[Thefrank]

Missing posters/backdrops are usually because LibSkiaSharp.so is missing/broken.
Missing thumbnails are usually because ffmpeg failed to generate them. Do the logs give any hit about what might be happening?

[nx6]

Well I see these:

[2025-01-24 21:57:02.114 -06:00] [ERR] [87] Jellyfin.Drawing.Skia.SkiaEncoder: Unable to determine image dimensions for "/var/db/jellyfin/metadata/library/89/896e22b02400aae2887e3ae2e4f0e2c6/poster.jpg": InvalidInput
[2025-01-24 21:57:02.115 -06:00] [ERR] [87] Jellyfin.Drawing.Skia.SkiaEncoder: Unable to determine image dimensions for "/var/db/jellyfin/metadata/library/b1/b13eadeb184e30ad4575ca122f099366/poster.jpg": InvalidInput
[2025-01-24 21:57:02.115 -06:00] [ERR] [87] Jellyfin.Drawing.Skia.SkiaEncoder: Unable to determine image dimensions for "/var/db/jellyfin/metadata/library/7b/7b97d28bb5d23d15d48295d3161e5fa1/poster.jpg": InvalidInput
[2025-01-24 21:57:02.121 -06:00] [ERR] [60] Jellyfin.Drawing.Skia.SkiaEncoder: Unable to determine image dimensions for "/var/db/jellyfin/metadata/library/04/046fd6d3b48c84515a249677ca34e032/poster.jpg": InvalidInput
[2025-01-24 21:57:02.121 -06:00] [ERR] [60] Jellyfin.Drawing.Skia.SkiaEncoder: Unable to determine image dimensions for "/var/db/jellyfin/metadata/library/58/58d9dfe1a9df06c119a0cae457a0e316/poster.jpg": InvalidInput
[2025-01-24 21:57:02.121 -06:00] [ERR] [60] Jellyfin.Drawing.Skia.SkiaEncoder: Unable to determine image dimensions for "/var/db/jellyfin/metadata/library/34/3492cc535997f8e0ea72639db28d915f/poster.jpg": InvalidInput
[2025-01-24 21:57:02.578 -06:00] [ERR] [19] Jellyfin.Drawing.ImageProcessor: Error encoding image
System.IO.InvalidDataException: Skia unable to read image /var/db/jellyfin/metadata/library/69/69ff5b5bc53d8013a02d25226d5c85ee/poster.jpg
   at Jellyfin.Drawing.Skia.SkiaEncoder.EncodeImage(String inputPath, DateTime dateModified, String outputPath, Boolean autoOrient, Nullable`1 orientation, Int32 quality, ImageProcessingOptions options, ImageFormat outputFormat)
   at Jellyfin.Drawing.ImageProcessor.ProcessImage(ImageProcessingOptions options)
[2025-01-24 21:57:02.616 -06:00] [ERR] [96] Jellyfin.Drawing.ImageProcessor: Error encoding image
System.IO.InvalidDataException: Skia unable to read image /var/db/jellyfin/metadata/library/9a/9a6e512f1ab111aaefa752f3ec28aa1c/landscape.jpg
   at Jellyfin.Drawing.Skia.SkiaEncoder.EncodeImage(String inputPath, DateTime dateModified, String outputPath, Boolean autoOrient, Nullable`1 orientation, Int32 quality, ImageProcessingOptions options, ImageFormat outputFormat)
   at Jellyfin.Drawing.ImageProcessor.ProcessImage(ImageProcessingOptions options)

But they are all for individual item images.

The only ffmpeg error I have is for it failing when trying to read an external sub file for one movie.
Checked the previous (rolled over) log file and the only ffmpeg file is the same.

[Thefrank]

I guess the next question: Is it actually creating the thumbnails?
If not, then we have an issue. If they are being generated then I am pretty confused.

The Skia poster errors, as long as it is only for a few items, are rare. For whatever reason a poster/actor headshot/whatever will be in a format that Skia does not like or Skia can use but your viewing application can not.

Other considerations:

• If you mounted in an old dataset, double check Jellyfin has atleast read permissions to all of the paths
• Make sure library monitoring is OFF
• If you use both IPV4 and IPV6 make sure the jail can use both.

[nx6]

I guess the next question: Is it actually creating the thumbnails? If not, then we have an issue. If they are being generated then I am pretty confused.

Does it actually create thumbnails? I thought it just picked a backdrop and loaded it into for a set period of time. Where are these files stored so I can check them?

Other considerations:

* If you mounted in an old dataset, double check Jellyfin has atleast read permissions to all of the paths

I duplicated the same mount points of my old jail.
If it didn't have read permissions at least I wouldn't be getting any library contents. I have it as read/write because I have been having local copies of artwork saved for other uses.

* Make sure library monitoring is OFF

Yes, that's off.

* If you use both IPV4 and IPV6 make sure the jail can use both.

Nope. Only IPv4.

[Thefrank]

I duplicated the same mount points of my old jail.
If it didn't have read permissions at least I wouldn't be getting any library contents. I have it as read/write because I have been having local copies of artwork saved for other uses.

Double check the metadata and caching locations: /var/db/jellyfin and /var/cache/jellyfin if these were mounted in as well. The errors don't really clarify if its "I can not access this" vs "This image is bad". A large number of errors is usually the former. If what you pasted were all of them, then it is likely the later.

Are you using the "Screen Grabber" along with things like "Image Fetcher (library type)"? Jellyfin might be thinking ffmpeg is hung when using the grabber and killing it. This usually requires a very slow CPU + very large video + remote file. This likely won't show up in ffmpeg logs but the Jellyfin logs should show it. dmesg also might show a killed process depending on system configuration. It will usually be something like System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException: A task was canceled

[nx6]

Double check the metadata and caching locations: /var/db/jellyfin and /var/cache/jellyfin if these were mounted in as well.

Not sure what you mean my "checking if they were mounted in" since they are directories in the jail's own filesystem.

/var/cache/jellyfin/ has a folder with a bunch of webp images that seem to be the logo images from movies. Everything else is json documents referencing assets from the metadata providers.
/var/db/jellyfin/ is the main server folder where the log file folder is.

Both are there and the jellyfin account has read/write permissions to all folders from what I could see.

Are you using the "Screen Grabber" along with things like "Image Fetcher (library type)"?

I'm not doing anything special in my config here. TMDB and TVDB are my primary metadata sources and I have Fanart.tv added, too. All my media has it's own images. Backdrops are present on movies/shows when they exist. The issue is just Jellyfin displaying a black card on the home screen instead of one of those images. That's all run by Jellyfin.

[nx6]

Looking over the first log files of the new server, I can see some odd errors regarding not having access to some scattered files in my movies directory. Not the movies themselves, but extras and image metadata:

[2025-01-23 19:10:00.698 -06:00] [ERR] [35] MediaBrowser.Providers.Manager.ProviderManager: UnauthorizedAccessException - Access to path "/mnt/odds_pool/movies/Austin Powers - The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)/logo.png" is denied. Will retry saving to "/var/db/jellyfin/metadata/library/75/75747fbfaff449990669fbcb481be75c/logo.png"

This is weird since the logo.png file was created by Jellyfin to start with (it was downloaded by my original server), so it has the same owner/group as this one.

I can also see a small number of the timeout errors, but they are for accessing the extras for movies:

MediaBrowser.Common.FfmpegException: ffmpeg image extraction timed out for file:"/mnt/odds_pool/movies/Offence, The (1973)/Interviews/Costume Designer Evangeline Harrison.mkv" after 10000ms
 ---> System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException: A task was canceled.

62 occurrences, in a log file of over 60,000 lines.

Because of these I've gone over the movie media folders and reapplied the file permissions to them all to make sure Jellyfin has read/write access, but these failures are just making Jellyfin save the assets internally instead of to the media's folder and it's only for a small number of items.

[Thefrank]

Well, the first set do appear to be permission related but it should just copy those (if able) and use them locally. This can cause all of the images to not load if both remote and local storage are not writable, but you would also see errors about that too.

The second set are certainly time-outs. You can increase the timeout threshold (ImageExtractionTimeoutMs in system.xml) and rerun. This will cause SOME of the images not to load.

Neither of those should cause ALL of the thumbnails to fail with the behavior you are seeing.

I guess my final question would be: Are the images that it IS generating valid and not black?

I will make some time this weekend to try and figure out what else can cause this.

[nx6]

I also turned on the auto-collections feature in the new server, and I'm not getting any images for the collections, but that might be a separate problem.

This part is fixed. I didn't have the TMDB Box Sets plug-in installed (didn't remember needing it the last time I used the auto-collection feature, on a server long ago deleted). Movie Collections all have posters/logos/backdrops now. The Collections library itself has now gone to a black thumbnail like the Movie library on the new testing server.

I've been changing some image metadata since I reapplied permissions and confirmed the new posters/backdrops/etc I'm choosing getting saved into the movie folders. The test server picked up the files that were already there from my normal server, but filled in it's own auto-selections where there were none.

You can increase the timeout threshold (ImageExtractionTimeoutMs in system.xml) and rerun. This will cause SOME of the images not to load.

The current value is 0 on that. Will change to 20000 and see if any change.

I guess my final question would be: Are the images that it IS generating valid and not black?

Where are these images stored? All the image assets I can find are in directories with strings of numbers for name, so I can't tell which are internal copies of movie metadata and which would be the images used for the thumbnail used on the home page.

[vgerpub]

I have the exact same problem. Running jellyfin 10.10.3_1 in a 13.3 jail (though I have tested running 14.1 and 14.2 with identical results) using Freebsd 14.2-RELEASE as host. I have noticed this with every version post 10.9.6 that I've installed and my log files are spammed with the "Unable to determine image dimensions" messages as well. 10.9.6 doesn't exhibit this behavior at all. Beyond that, the software works perfectly so I've just been ignoring it. Just commenting to let OP know they're not crazy (or we both are) and hoping to find a solution.

[manubop]

TrueNAS 13.3U1 / FreeBSD 13.3 Jail
Jellyfin 10.10.3_1
libskiasharp 2.88.3_2

Ran into the exact same problem after upgrading from Jellyfin 10.9.6. Additionally, suspicious entries started popping up in the logs, such as:
[2025-01-28 01:24:08.410 +01:00] [ERR] [51] Jellyfin.Drawing.Skia.SkiaEncoder: Unable to determine image dimensions for "/var/db/jellyfin/metadata/library/4d/4d85eb5b552db374042632bbc0900382/poster.jpg": InvalidInput
[2025-01-28 01:24:08.468 +01:00] [ERR] [35] Emby.Server.Implementations.Library.LibraryManager: Cannot compute blurhash for "/var/db/jellyfin/metadata/library/b3/b3e35ca841819725b45c81e397cd3483/folder.jpg"
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at BlurHashSharp.SkiaSharp.BlurHashEncoder.Encode(Int32 xComponent, Int32 yComponent, String filename, Int32 maxWidth, Int32 maxHeight)
at Jellyfin.Drawing.ImageProcessor.GetImageBlurHash(String path, ImageDimensions imageDimensions)
at Emby.Server.Implementations.Library.LibraryManager.UpdateImagesAsync(BaseItem item, Boolean forceUpdate)

Replaced system-installed libskiasharp.so with @Thefrank 's cutom-build. Library thumbnails are back (after waiting for a refresh) and no more suspicious log entries.

Probably related to #89 (comment)

[nx6]

The bug filed against libSkia is marked as fixed as of last December, but unknown if that is really shipped in anything. Looks like there was some reverting in the handling.

[Thefrank]

Hypothetically, there should be no (significant) difference between my libSkiaSharp and the ports version. Ports version >= 2.88.3_1 should work fine. Ports has 10.10.5 of jellyfin and it should appear on pkg mirrors for latest soon-ish too.

[nx6]

Hypothetically, there should be no (significant) difference between my libSkiaSharp and the ports version.

I shut down the testing server I made and replaced the libSkiaSharp with your build. Just checked it again after ignoring the server for a couple days and the home screen library thumbnails are working now.

So there does seem to be something not working still with the one included by the port. Edit: in 10.10.3 at least. Will wait to see what happens after 10.10.5 is installed and given a couple days to stew.

[RobTheGob]

I had also been having issues with missing thumbnails in My Media, after one of the updates in the fall. The thumbnails disappeared gradually and were eventually completely missing. I had lots of "Jellyfin.Drawing.Skia.SkiaEncoder: Unable to determine image dimensions for" errors in the logs - but everything else was working fine, so I didn't really investigate much more, until I saw this thread.

Thanks to these great instructions: #89 (comment), I switched over to TheFrank's custom libSkiaSharp build and the errors disappeared.

I'm not sure if it was going to automatically update the images (it hadn't after a number of hours), so I clicked "Edit Images" on each library, removed the blank image and told it to rescan for changes. All good after that.

I'm still on Jellyfin 10.10.3_1.