Why is Jellyfin not starting?

Posted by brucewayne

My question: Why is Jellyfin not starting? SparkBox AI replied: You updated Jellyfin, and now the web UI just sits on "Server is still starting up" — forever. The container shows as running (or even "healthy") but the actual app returns a 503, and a health check … Full guide: https://tomsparkbox.com/guides/fix-jellyfin-stuck (Answered instantly from the SparkBox knowledge base — if this doesn't quite match your situation, just say so and I'll take a proper look.) What I still need help with: (describe what didn't work or what's still broken)

1 replies

Chris wrote:

Thanks for posting. The usual reason Jellyfin sits on "Server is still starting up" after an update is that the database migration is still finishing — it can look stuck while it's actually working, especially on Windows/WSL where disk access is slower. One first step, and it clears most cases on its own: in your SparkBox Linux terminal, restart the Jellyfin container and then leave it entirely alone for a full five minutes (no refreshes, no repeated restarts): sudo docker restart sb-jellyfin-media If it's still on "starting up" after that, the real error is in the last lines of the container's log, not the repeating StartupCheck lines. Run this and paste back the final 15-20 lines (please redact anything that looks like an address or token): sudo docker logs sb-jellyfin-media --tail 100 That tells us whether it's a slow migration or something else.