I can't play some videos on iOS

[AlexShavkunov]

The bug

Recently I've deployed Immich to my server and discovered some videos don't play on iOS. For example, I can have two videos on iPhone and I try to play one and that works but the second doesn't.

So I decided to test on different platforms and I used a direct ip and a domain address and I figured out the problem is only on iOS in the app and in a browser (I tested Google Chrome and Safari)

I tried to change "Video Transcoding Settings": video codec - hevc, target resolution - 1080p, constant rate factor - 28, preset - faster. But it can't help and I reset the settings.

Platforms: MacOS (Google Chrome), Android (Google Chrome and the app), iOS (Google Chrome, Safari, the app)
MacOS and Android videos download and play very fast and they don't have any problems

I made a video recording - https://youtube.com/shorts/tLcghvUStyI
What can I do this situation? Help

The OS that Immich Server is running on

Ubuntu 24.04

Version of Immich Server

1.124.2

Version of Immich Mobile App

1.124.0 build. 187

Platform with the issue

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

Your docker-compose.yml content

services:
  immich-server:
    container_name: immich_server
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-server:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}
    # extends:
    #   file: hwaccel.transcoding.yml
    #   service: cpu # set to one of [nvenc, quicksync, rkmpp, vaapi, vaapi-wsl] for accelerated transcoding
    volumes:
      - ${UPLOAD_LOCATION}:/usr/src/app/upload
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
    env_file:
      - .env
    ports:
      - 2283:2283
    depends_on:
      - redis
      - database
    restart: always

  immich-machine-learning:
    container_name: immich_machine_learning
    # For hardware acceleration, add one of -[armnn, cuda, openvino] to the image tag.
    # Example tag: ${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}-cuda
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-machine-learning:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}
    # extends: # uncomment this section for hardware acceleration - see https://immich.app/docs/features/ml-hardware-acceleration
    #   file: hwaccel.ml.yml
    #   service: cpu # set to one of [armnn, cuda, openvino, openvino-wsl] for accelerated inference - use the `-wsl` version for WSL2 where applicable
    volumes:
      - model-cache:/cache
    env_file:
      - .env
    restart: always

  redis:
    container_name: immich_redis
    image: docker.io/redis:6.2-alpine@sha256:e31ca60b18f7e9b78b573d156702471d4eda038803c0b8e6f01559f350031e93
    healthcheck:
      test: redis-cli ping || exit 1
    restart: always

  database:
    container_name: immich_postgres
    image: docker.io/tensorchord/pgvecto-rs:pg14-v0.2.0@sha256:90724186f0a3517cf6914295b5ab410db9ce23190a2d9d0b9dd6463e3fa298f0
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_USER: ${DB_USERNAME}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${DB_DATABASE_NAME}
      POSTGRES_INITDB_ARGS: '--data-checksums'
    volumes:
      - ${DB_DATA_LOCATION}:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    healthcheck:
      test: pg_isready --dbname='${DB_DATABASE_NAME}' || exit 1; Chksum="$$(psql --dbname='${DB_DATABASE_NAME}' --username='${DB_USERNAME}' --tuples-only --no-align --command='SELECT SUM(checksum_failures) FROM pg_stat_database')"; echo "checks>
      interval: 5m
      # start_interval: 30s
      # start_period: 5m
    command: ["postgres", "-c" ,"shared_preload_libraries=vectors.so", "-c", 'search_path="$$user", public, vectors', "-c", "logging_collector=on", "-c", "max_wal_size=2GB", "-c", "shared_buffers=512MB", "-c", "wal_compression=on"]
    restart: always

volumes:
  model-cache:

Your .env content

# You can find documentation for all the supported env variables at https://immich.app/docs/install/environment-variables

# The location where your uploaded files are stored
UPLOAD_LOCATION=./library
# The location where your database files are stored
DB_DATA_LOCATION=./postgres

# To set a timezone, uncomment the next line and change Etc/UTC to a TZ identifier from this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones#List
# TZ=Etc/UTC

# The Immich version to use. You can pin this to a specific version like "v1.71.0"
IMMICH_VERSION=release

# Connection secret for postgres. You should change it to a random password
# Please use only the characters `A-Za-z0-9`, without special characters or spaces
DB_PASSWORD=postgres

# The values below this line do not need to be changed
###################################################################################
DB_USERNAME=postgres
DB_DATABASE_NAME=immich

IMMICH_SERVER_URL=https://holy-photos.duckdns.org
IMMICH_WEB_URL=https://holy-photos.duckdns.org

Reproduction steps

1. Open the app or a browser
2. Just start any video
3. Some of the videos play

Relevant log output

The first video json:
{
  "id": 8658,
  "remoteId": "1b47da8a-60a1-420c-9017-c9d222918226",
  "localId": "N/A",
  "checksum": "H0jh8fs6voZpxix9i18WmEYfT84=",
  "ownerId": -5118120626529609837,
  "livePhotoVideoId": "N/A",
  "stackId": "N/A",
  "stackPrimaryAssetId": "N/A",
  "stackCount": "0",
  "fileCreatedAt": "2025-01-20 15:20:48.000",
  "fileModifiedAt": "2025-01-20 15:20:58.000",
  "updatedAt": "2025-01-20 15:42:50.237",
  "durationInSeconds": 8,
  "type": "AssetType.video",
  "fileName": "IMG_4367.MOV",
  "isFavorite": false,
  "isRemote": true,
  "storage": "AssetState.remote",
  "width": 1920,
  "height": 1080,
  "isArchived": false,
  "isTrashed": false,
  "isOffline": false,
}

The second video json: 
{
  "id": 7272,
  "remoteId": "5d3ca683-eb3f-495c-a5c6-9d46fe81b714",
  "localId": "N/A",
  "checksum": "q5UNs1/EUXjepG1k65yanJV1wUU=",
  "ownerId": -5118120626529609837,
  "livePhotoVideoId": "N/A",
  "stackId": "N/A",
  "stackPrimaryAssetId": "N/A",
  "stackCount": "0",
  "fileCreatedAt": "2025-01-20 15:20:00.000",
  "fileModifiedAt": "2025-01-15 15:22:22.000",
  "updatedAt": "2025-01-20 15:35:22.667",
  "durationInSeconds": 8,
  "type": "AssetType.video",
  "fileName": "IMG_1258.MOV",
  "isFavorite": false,
  "isRemote": true,
  "storage": "AssetState.remote",
  "width": 1920,
  "height": 1080,
  "isArchived": false,
  "isTrashed": false,
  "isOffline": false,
}

The third video:
{
  "id": 1450,
  "remoteId": "a7a18022-d828-40ee-bc09-e92d98a6afe3",
  "localId": "N/A",
  "checksum": "9AscUGk9pbMjhmGtRlsS8AVN9Tw=",
  "ownerId": -5118120626529609837,
  "livePhotoVideoId": "N/A",
  "stackId": "N/A",
  "stackPrimaryAssetId": "N/A",
  "stackCount": "0",
  "fileCreatedAt": "2025-01-20 12:36:00.000",
  "fileModifiedAt": "2025-01-15 15:22:19.000",
  "updatedAt": "2025-01-20 15:26:35.257",
  "durationInSeconds": 12,
  "type": "AssetType.video",
  "fileName": "IMG_1072.MOV",
  "isFavorite": false,
  "isRemote": true,
  "storage": "AssetState.remote",
  "width": 1920,
  "height": 1080,
  "isArchived": false,
  "isTrashed": false,
  "isOffline": false,
}

Additional information

No response

[mmomjian]

This doesn’t seem like a bug to me, more likely an encoding issue, but I’ll see if someone else can chime in.

[AlexShavkunov]

@mmomjian okay, sorry for sending the report to the wrong place. But how can I decide it?

[bo0tzz]

How are you connected to the Immich server? Any reverse proxy, extra authentication, etc? After messing with the transcoding settings, did you rerun the transcoding job for these assets?

[AlexShavkunov]

@bo0tzz I connected to a direct ip address and a domain name. I use Nginx Proxy Manager, but I tried to stop NPM on a docker and it didn't help me. No, I didn't rerun the transcoding job. I'll be later to answer it helps or not

[AlexShavkunov]

@bo0tzz I've added the transcoding settings again and then re-ran and it doesn't work at all. All videos which didn't play before still don't play

These are my settings on screenshots

[alextran1502]

If it doesn't work on the web as well, I suggest you set the transcoding settings back to default, retranscode them, and try again. If it doesn't work, then the video might be the issue

[AlexShavkunov]

Unfortunately the default or the custom settings are not working and I think videos have not any issues because they work on iCloud or Google Photos correctly and fast. While there are freezes only in Immich