Sparkbox running in wsl2 on my gaming pc. unable to use hardware transcoding from my intel 15 12600k.

Posted by DMTurbo

My question: Kernel: [public address 1]-microsoft-standard-WSL2 GPU devices: ls: cannot access '/dev/dri': No such file or directory crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 10, 258 Sep 27 02:45 /dev/dxg SparkBox AI replied: That confirms the issue: WSL2 exposes /dev/dxg, but not /dev/dri. SparkBox’s built-in hardware-acceleration setup looks for /dev/dri, so JELLYFINHWACCEL=auto alone can’t give [movie title 2] access to the Intel GPU. The doctor passed, but its checks don’t test GPU access. The reliable route is to run SparkBox on a Linux host where the Intel GPU appears as /dev/dri, then configure hardware acceleration there. I don’t have a documented SparkBox setup for wiring WSL’s /dev/dxg into [movie title 2], so I won’t guess at a custom workaround. If you want to pursue GPU passthrough while staying on WSL2, use Share to demox so Tom can check whether there’s a supported path. Current checks: Containers (gethealth) - sb-tailscale: Up 41 minutes (healthy) - sb-qbittorrent: Up 41 minutes (healthy) - sb-sabnzbd: Up 41 minutes (healthy) - sb-sonarr: Up 41 minutes (healthy) - sb-prowlarr: Up 41 minutes (healthy) - sb-radarr: Up 41 minutes (healthy) - sb-byparr: Up 41 minutes (healthy) - sb-deunhealth: Up 41 minutes (healthy) - sb-bazarr: Up 41 minutes (healthy) - sb-gluetun: Up 41 minutes (healthy) - sb-seerr: Up 41 minutes (healthy) - …(cut here — the full chat went to Tom) What I still need help with: I noticed i was unable to stream anime on my fire tv, but live action shows/movies would load. the anime would also load on other devices. gemini recommended to turn off hardware acceleration and it worked. confirmed with tom ai that sparkbox cant see my iGPU for transcoding. how can i enable this? sparkbox running in wsl2 on windows 11, intel i5 12600k and amd radeon rx 6700, 32gb of ram but i capped wsl at 8gb.

2 replies

Chris wrote:

I’m sorry—the earlier AI answer was too certain about WSL being unsupported and suggested moving to Linux without verifying that was necessary. Your check establishes that WSL exposes /dev/dxg but no /dev/dri; it does not establish whether SparkBox has another supported GPU path on WSL, and I can’t verify one here. Since turning hardware acceleration off restored playback on your Fire TV, leave it off for now rather than rebuilding or changing GPU settings. What SparkBox version is shown in your dashboard? I’ve corrected what I know so we don’t repeat that unverified advice.

Chris wrote:

A correction to my earlier note, and I'm sorry for muddying it: the first answer you got was right. Jellyfin's own hardware-acceleration guide says Intel Quick Sync (QSV) and AMD's encoder (AMF) are not available when Jellyfin runs in Docker on WSL2. WSL2 also gives Linux only /dev/dxg, not the /dev/dri SparkBox needs to hand a graphics chip to Jellyfin. So on this Windows setup there is no supported way to use the i5's graphics (or the RX 6700) for Jellyfin; software transcoding is the right setting. That also explains the Fire TV. With hardware acceleration switched on and no GPU reachable, every video the Fire TV couldn't play as it is failed to convert (anime often carries styled subtitles, a common reason a TV needs that), while the videos it plays directly kept working. Turning it off was the real fix, not a workaround. One check: in Jellyfin's Dashboard, under Playback (Transcoding), Hardware acceleration should read None. If you ever want GPU transcoding, it needs SparkBox on a Linux install where the graphics show up as /dev/dri. What the assistant knows has been corrected, and from SparkBox 1.6.805 the checkup (sudo sparkbox doctor) warns when Jellyfin is set to a GPU it doesn't have, so the next person hears this straight away.