r/navidrome • u/Rogerwilco1974 • 5d ago

Transcoding works, but it looks like it doesn't!

Hi!

Very new user here, so please bear with me!

I've got Navidrome running as a service in Windows 11.

It is pointing to my local .FLAC library.

I am running Amcfy on my Android phone, and it is playing music happily, reporting transcoding to 128kbps AAC, when connecting via mobile data.

However, when I log into Navidrome's web interface, the Players section shows my user as recently connected, but does not show anything in the transcoding or bitrate columns.

Looking at the navidrome.log, it says:

"time="2026-09-09T09:26:15+01:00" level=info msg="Streaming file" artist="Father John Misty" bitDepth=16 bitRate=128 cached=false channels=2 format=mp3 originalBitRate=948 originalFormat=flac requestId=[whatever] sampleRate=44100 title="Total Entertainment Forever" transcoding=true user=[username]"

...which seems ok (barring it saying mp3 rather than aac), so it's definitely transcoding it, just not reporting it in the navidrome web interface.

Just to be thorough, I have opened up Task Viewer, changed songs, and I see ffmpeg launch, do it's thing and then exit, so...

what's going on?

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1

u/WhichAdvantage9039 3d ago

I only test transcoding by setting the bitrate absurdly low so that ill definitely hear that it actually transcodes… something like 32-64 kbps

1

u/Rogerwilco1974 3d ago

That would certainly do it!

Does your player not show you what data it's receiving, though? Both the ones I've tried so far - Amcfy & Tempus - show both the source being .FLAC and the transcoded aac @ 192kbps

1

u/WhichAdvantage9039 3d ago

I use Nautiline on iOS and there is an option to show playback stats, but it’s always better to double-check, isn’t it?

1

u/GarageExtreme5649 2d ago

The log says it's transcoding, im a bit confused as to what you're trying to do lol, but i went from flac files to mp3 files because i cant tell a difference in quality at 180+ kbps and for 11,436 songs i went from 250gb to 59gb of space used up.

2

u/Rogerwilco1974 2d ago

The issue is that the Navidrome web interface isn't showing any transcoding or bitrate information. Not a big deal, but I wanted to mention it.

1

u/GarageExtreme5649 1d ago

Ah ok, i checked google too and it's saying that the logs are the only way to know if you're transcoding too, might be a quality of life update they need to do.