[Support]: Performance and MSE Issues on Chromium-Based Browsers

[Drarox]

Checklist

• I have updated to the latest available Frigate version.
• I have cleared the cache of my browser.
• I have tried a different browser to see if it is related to my browser.
• I have tried reproducing the issue in incognito mode to rule out problems with any third party extensions or plugins I have installed.

Describe the problem you are having

Hi,

After 3 days of testing and research, I’ve decided to open this GitHub issue to share some problems I’m encountering with Frigate — mainly related to Chromium-based browsers.

Summary of Issues:

1. Slow Stream Loading in Live View:

   • All my camera streams take a long time to load in Live View (anywhere from 3 to 15 seconds).
   • This happens even after properly configuring the keyframe interval on the cameras and using go2rtc with H.264.
   • The behavior is similar across both Firefox and Chromium, except for two cameras (Garage_Oben and Eingang_Steve in the config) that won’t load via MSE on Chrome. After about 30 seconds, they fall back to jsmpeg. On Firefox, MSE works fine for those same cameras and loads much faster (under 30 seconds).

2. MSE Freezing on Firefox:

   • On Firefox, one camera (Garage_Oben) freezes in MSE mode and only refreshes a single frame every 3–5 seconds.

3. Incorrect Aspect Ratio in Chrome:

   • One camera (Hinten) displays with an incorrect aspect ratio only on Chrome in Live View. The same camera shows correctly in recordings and in Firefox.

Additional Info:

• I’ve tested across multiple platforms: Windows, macOS, and Android.
• The issues are consistent between Chrome and Firefox across all platforms.
• The server running Frigate has plenty of resources available (CPU, RAM, etc.), so I don’t think this is a performance bottleneck.

Main Concern:

The long loading time for Live View is my biggest issue with Frigate right now. Otherwise, I’m loving it! I recently migrated from ZoneMinder, and with ZoneMinder all the same cameras loaded instantly (under 1 second).

Questions:

• Any ideas why I’m seeing these behaviors specifically on Chrome?
• Are there any optimizations or configuration tweaks to improve Live View loading time?

Thanks for your work on Frigate — it’s a great project, and I really hope to resolve this so I can fully enjoy it.

Steps to reproduce

Version

0.15.0-6cb5cfb

In which browser(s) are you experiencing the issue with?

All latest chromium browsers

Frigate config file

database:
  path: /db/frigate.db

#======================================
#          go2rtc Config
#======================================
go2rtc:
  streams:
    Schweinchen:
      - rtsp://XXX:[email protected]:554/stream1
    Schweinchen_sub:
      - rtsp://XXX:[email protected]:554/stream2
    
    Eingang:
      - rtsp://XXX:[email protected]:554/11
    Eingang_sub:
      - rtsp://XXX:[email protected]:554/12
    
    Pool:
      - rtsp://XXX:[email protected]:554/stream1
    Pool_sub:
      - rtsp://XXX:[email protected]:554/stream2
    
    Hinten:
      - rtsp://XXX:[email protected]:554/H264/ch1/main/av_stream
      #- ffmpeg:Hinten#video=h264
    Hinten_sub:
      - rtsp://XXX:[email protected]:554/H264/ch1/sub/av_stream
    
    Garage_Oben:
      - rtsp://XXX:[email protected]:554/11
      #- "ffmpeg:Garage_Oben#video=h264"
    Garage_Oben_sub:
      - rtsp://XXX:[email protected]:554/12
    
    Garage_Unten:
      - rtsp://XXX:[email protected]:554/onvif1
    Garage_Unten_sub:
      - rtsp://XXX:[email protected]:554/onvif2
    
    Haus_Steve:
      #- rtsp://XXX:[email protected]:554/udp/av0_0
      - "ffmpeg:rtsp://XXX:[email protected]:554/udp/av0_0#input=rtsp/udp#video=h264"
    
    Eingang_Steve:
      - rtsp://XXX:[email protected]:554/11
    Eingang_Steve_sub:
      - rtsp://XXX:[email protected]:554/12
    
    Garage_Steve:
      - rtsp://192.168.1.196:554/realmonitor?channel=0&stream=0.sdp


#=====================================================================
#               CAMERAS CONFIGURATION
#=====================================================================
cameras:

#===================================================================== 
  Schweinchen:
#===================================================================== 
    enabled: true

    ffmpeg:
      inputs:
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/Schweinchen
          roles:
            - record
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/Schweinchen_sub
          roles:
            - detect

    snapshots:
      enabled: true
      timestamp: true
      bounding_box: true

    detect:
      enabled: false
      width: 1280
      height: 720
      fps: 5

    motion:
      enabled: false

    record:
      enabled: true
      retain:
        days: 1
        mode: all

#===================================================================== 
  Eingang:
#===================================================================== 
    enabled: true

    ffmpeg:
      inputs:
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/Eingang
          roles:
            - record
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/Eingang_sub
          roles:
            - detect

    snapshots:
      enabled: true
      timestamp: true
      bounding_box: true

    detect:
      enabled: false
      width: 1280
      height: 960
      fps: 5

    motion:
      enabled: false
      mask:
        - 1114,547,1280,560,1280,960,693,960,674,738,648,548,739,508,939,547
        - 1280,0,1280,32,978,31,980,0

    record:
      enabled: true
      retain:
        days: 60
        mode: all

#===================================================================== 
  Pool:
#===================================================================== 
    enabled: true

    ffmpeg:
      inputs:
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/Pool
          roles:
            - record
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/Pool_sub
          roles:
            - detect

    snapshots:
      enabled: true
      timestamp: true
      bounding_box: true

    detect:
      enabled: false
      width: 1280
      height: 960
      fps: 5

    motion:
      enabled: false

    record:
      enabled: true
      retain:
        days: 60
        mode: all

#===================================================================== 
  Hinten:
#===================================================================== 
    enabled: true

    ffmpeg:
      inputs:
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/Hinten
          roles:
            - record
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/Hinten_sub
          roles:
            - detect

    snapshots:
      enabled: true
      timestamp: true
      bounding_box: true

    detect:
      enabled: false
      width: 1280
      height: 720
      fps: 5

    motion:
      enabled: false

    record:
      enabled: true
      retain:
        days: 60
        mode: all

#===================================================================== 
  Garage_Oben:
#===================================================================== 
    enabled: true

    ffmpeg:
      inputs:
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/Garage_Oben
          roles:
            - record
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/Garage_Oben_sub
          roles:
            - detect

    snapshots:
      enabled: true
      timestamp: true
      bounding_box: true

    detect:
      enabled: false
      width: 1280
      height: 960
      fps: 5

    motion:
      enabled: false

    record:
      enabled: true
      retain:
        days: 60
        mode: all

#===================================================================== 
  Garage_Unten:
#===================================================================== 
    enabled: true

    ffmpeg:
      inputs:
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/Garage_Unten
          roles:
            - record
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/Garage_Unten_sub
          roles:
            - detect

    snapshots:
      enabled: true
      timestamp: true
      bounding_box: true

    detect:
      enabled: false
      width: 1280
      height: 960
      fps: 5

    motion:
      enabled: false

    record:
      enabled: true
      retain:
        days: 60
        mode: all

#===================================================================== 
  Haus_Steve:
#===================================================================== 
    enabled: true

    ffmpeg:
      inputs:
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/Haus_Steve
          roles:
            - record
            - detect

    snapshots:
      enabled: true
      timestamp: true
      bounding_box: true

    detect:
      enabled: false
      width: 1280
      height: 720
      fps: 5

    motion:
      enabled: false

    record:
      enabled: true
      retain:
        days: 60
        mode: all

#===================================================================== 
  Eingang_Steve:
#===================================================================== 
    enabled: true

    ffmpeg:
      inputs:
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/Eingang_Steve
          roles:
            - record
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/Eingang_Steve_sub
          roles:
            - detect

    snapshots:
      enabled: true
      timestamp: true
      bounding_box: true

    detect:
      enabled: false
      width: 1280
      height: 720
      fps: 5

    motion:
      enabled: false

    record:
      enabled: true
      retain:
        days: 60
        mode: all

#===================================================================== 
  Garage_Steve:
#===================================================================== 
    enabled: true

    ffmpeg:
      inputs:
        - path: rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/Garage_Steve
          roles:
            - record
            - detect

    snapshots:
      enabled: true
      timestamp: true
      bounding_box: true

    detect:
      enabled: false
      width: 1280
      height: 720
      fps: 5

    motion:
      enabled: false

    record:
      enabled: true
      retain:
        days: 60
        mode: all


#======================================
#          Camera Groups
#======================================
camera_groups:
  Haus_21:
    order: 1
    icon: LuHome
    cameras:
      - Schweinchen
      - Eingang
      - Hinten
      - Pool
      - Garage_Oben
      - Garage_Unten
  Haus_23:
    order: 2
    icon: LuUsers2
    cameras:
      - Garage_Steve
      - Eingang_Steve
      - Haus_Steve
  Birdseye:
    order: 3
    icon: LuEye
    cameras: birdseye


#======================================
#          Settings
#======================================

objects:
  track:
    - person
    - car
    - cat
    - bicycle
    - motorcycle
    - dog
    - horse

record:
  enabled: true
  retain:
    days: 60
    mode: all
  alerts:
    retain:
      days: 60
    pre_capture: 10
    post_capture: 10
  detections:
    retain:
      days: 60
    pre_capture: 10
    post_capture: 10

ui:
  time_format: 24hour

mqtt:
  enabled: false

birdseye:
  enabled: true
  mode: continuous
  width: 1920
  height: 1080

auth:
  enabled: true
  session_length: 157784760 #seconds
  failed_login_rate_limit: "1/second;5/minute;20/hour"
  trusted_proxies: #only used for rate limiter
    - 172.17.0.0/16
    - 172.31.0.0/16

proxy:
  auth_secret: "XXX"

tls:
  enabled: false
  
version: 0.15-1

docker-compose file or Docker CLI command

-

Relevant Frigate log output

-

Relevant go2rtc log output

-

Operating system

Debian

Install method

Docker Compose

Network connection

Wireless

Camera make and model

Annke, Jennov, Oriscam

Screenshots of the Frigate UI's System metrics pages

Any other information that may be helpful

No response

[NickM-27]

Hi, a few things to note here:

1. What you describe does not quite add up, Frigate frontend will fall back to secondary streams after 3 seconds if stream data does not come through.
2. The next version of Frigate (0.16) includes stream stats and other debugging info in the UI that would make debugging this easier
3. I would suggest configuring webrtc so that Frigate can use webrtc as a backup instead of jsmpeg https://docs.frigate.video/configuration/live#webrtc-extra-configuration
4. Do you have an iGPU? This is recommended for decoding streams more efficiently using hwaccel. If you do have an iGPU then you should add #hardware to the go2rtc stream for Haus_steve so the GPU is used to transcode to h264 instead of the CPU

[Drarox]

I tested both locally (without reverse proxy) and remotely, on Windows, macOS, and Android, and I'm seeing the same behavior across all platforms and between Chrome and Firefox.

Thanks for the chrome://media-internals tip, that was helpful. Here's what I found:

It looks like Chrome is trying to create the player, but then destroys it after 5 seconds, and repeats this process about 4 times (so ~20 seconds total) before finally falling back to jsmpeg. And the reason why it doesn't work seems to be "Unrecognized video codec profile", interesting, since Chrome is usually more compatible than Firefox in that regard.

[NickM-27]

yes, that would definitely point to the problem. If you run ffprobe what does it say the profile is?

[Drarox]

Here is the ffprobe output of the RTSP stream from this camera:

Metadata:
  title           : 10
  Duration: N/A, start: 0.080000, bitrate: N/A
  Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (High), yuvj420p(pc, bt470bg/bt470bg/bt709, progressive), 2560x1920, 12.50 fps, 12.50 tbr, 90k tbn

The two cameras that don’t work both use yuvj420p, but so do other cameras where MSE works, so this doesn’t really make sense.

MSE does work when I transcode the stream using ffmpeg in go2rtc, but that comes at the cost of high CPU usage, since I don’t have a GPU available. And on firefox it works without it.

Also, I don't know why the fallback from the frigate frontend takes that long (20+ seconds).

[NickM-27]

The profile is high. Maybe your camera has an option to use main profile instead.

[Drarox]

I changed the camera to use the Main profile:

Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (Main), yuvj420p(pc, bt470bg/bt470bg/bt709, progressive), 2560x1920, 12.50 fps, 12.50 tbr, 90k tbn

But unfortunately, it doesn’t make a difference, the browser still reports "Unrecognized video codec profile."