Playing Emby MP3's on Alexa speakers

[Traction Tim 11]

I had previously managed to get this working with playlists, by asking “Alexa, ask M.B.Home to play playlist Music.“, and with other playlists too.

Now when I try it, Alexa tells me it is going to play the first track of the chosen playlist (It mentions the name of the first track), but no sound comes out of the Alexa speaker. Has something changed with Emby or Alexa that could stop this working ? The synology DDNS Letsencrypt cerificate looks OK (Green padlock closed and has future date). Oh, and it will play to the Win10 pc.

Log looks like this when I tried to play a playlist at 13:00:

2022-11-13 13:00:14.294 Info Server: http/1.1 POST https://host6/emby/Sessions/Capabilities/Full. UserAgent: AWS Alexa

2022-11-13 13:00:14.295 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 204 to host11. Time: 1ms. https://host6/emby/Sessions/Capabilities/Full

2022-11-13 13:00:31.604 Info Server: http/1.1 POST https://host6/emby/DisplayPreferences/Alexa_888f8e37f9ce3151c635203e68188ae1?Client=Alexa&UserId=c6599919c2354bea85299c06c253e71a. UserAgent: AWS Alexa

2022-11-13 13:00:31.605 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 204 to host11. Time: 1ms. https://host6/emby/DisplayPreferences/Alexa_888f8e37f9ce3151c635203e68188ae1?Client=Alexa&UserId=c6599919c2354bea85299c06c253e71a

2022-11-13 13:00:35.061 Info Server: http/1.1 POST https://host6/emby/Sessions/Capabilities/Full. UserAgent: AWS Alexa

2022-11-13 13:00:35.063 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 204 to host11. Time: 1ms. https://host6/emby/Sessions/Capabilities/Full

2022-11-13 13:00:35.607 Info Server: http/1.1 POST https://host6/emby/Sessions/Playing/Stopped?ItemId=115408&MediaSourceId=115408&PositionTicks=0&PlaySessionId=fd6102f0fc9546d3b54ac2b1454809a6. UserAgent: AWS Alexa

2022-11-13 13:00:35.609 Info SessionManager: Playback stopped reported by app Alexa 1.1 playing My heart is in here. Stopped at 0 ms

2022-11-13 13:00:35.610 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 204 to host11. Time: 3ms. https://host6/emby/Sessions/Playing/Stopped?ItemId=115408&MediaSourceId=115408&PositionTicks=0&PlaySessionId=fd6102f0fc9546d3b54ac2b1454809a6

2022-11-13 13:00:38.232 Info Server: http/1.1 POST https://host6/emby/Sessions/Capabilities/Full. UserAgent: AWS Alexa

2022-11-13 13:00:38.233 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 204 to host11. Time: 1ms. https://host6/emby/Sessions/Capabilities/Full

2022-11-13 13:00:38.761 Info Server: http/1.1 POST https://host6/emby/Sessions/Playing/Stopped?ItemId=115408&MediaSourceId=115408&PositionTicks=0&PlaySessionId=fd6102f0fc9546d3b54ac2b1454809a6. UserAgent: AWS Alexa

2022-11-13 13:00:38.763 Info SessionManager: Playback stopped reported by app Alexa 1.1 playing My heart is in here. Stopped at 0 ms

2022-11-13 13:00:38.763 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 204 to host11. Time: 2ms. https://host6/emby/Sessions/Playing/Stopped?ItemId=115408&MediaSourceId=115408&PositionTicks=0&PlaySessionId=fd6102f0fc9546d3b54ac2b1454809a6

Anything obvious ?

[Traction Tim 11]

I just found time to look into this again after weeks of complaints from my Missus. On the Synology NAS I can see the DDNS name, and the certificate was showing as valid until early next year, so all is well ? Nope. When I click on the "Remote WAN Access" https://myname.synology.me:443 hyperlink from Emby dashboard, it opened in Chrome with a security warning. I went past that to verify my DDNS address was working, and it is. What was obvious though was the   warning at the top of the Chrome screen. Clicking on the "Not Secure" hyperlink opened a page with the correct details, but showing the certificate had timed out in October:

Can you tell me why the NAS thinks the cert is in date (appears to be automatically updating, and I did a manual renewal too and saw the date go even further into 2023) but the WAN is showing it to be completely out of date ?

Merry Christmas all 

[Traction Tim 11]

Anybody ? It was working, but I guess it stopped when the Let's Encrypt certificate timed out. Since it looks OK on the Synology NAS it it being blocked elsewhere ? What can I check ?

This test shows the certificate to have expired too. Do I need to manually do ***something*** every time the certificate automatically updates ?

I also have an automatically updating Let's Encrypt certificate on my Asus router for a DDNS address for Blue Iris. Would it be simpler to use that ?

Lifetime Emby Premiere member here, and I'm not feeling the love 

[Luke 37090]

Hi, is the certificate configured directly in Emby Server? If yes, then after you renewed your certificate you may have also needed to update the certificate file used by emby server.

[Traction Tim 11]

Thanks Luke, that sounds about right. I'll have another look there. I thought it was all automated 

Happy New Year to all.

[Luke 37090]

Let us know how you get on. Thanks.

[Traction Tim 11]

Hi Luke,

Exporting the working certificate from the NAS and converting it to PK12 then placing it in the "Custom SSL certificate path" folder for Emby to read did work, but only after rebooting the NAS. I kept trying over an hour or so thinking it might ripple through the system and suddenly burst into life, then realised the SSL certificate had been valid for a few days already, and it was just Emby that hadn't read the updated PK12 version of the certificate.

After rebooting the NAS, I noted that clicking the "Remote WAN Access" https://myname.synology.me:443 hyperlink from Emby dashboard was now OK in Chrome. I tried the “Alexa, ask M.B.Home to play playlist Music.“ and it did play on Alexa. But it only played the first track from the playlist, then it stopped. I started it again, and said "Alexa, next", and it played the next track.

My next questions are:

1. Will I have to manually update the PK12 cert every 90 days AND reboot the NAS to get Emby to read it ?

2. I have seen mention of a script to automate the creation of the PK12 certificate, but would I still need to reboot the NAS ?

3. First track only. I tried this with a couple of playlists last night, and it did the same thing. This morning it seems to be working normally on various playlists !

[Seger 110]

2 hours ago, Traction Tim said:

Das Exportieren des Arbeitszertifikats vom NAS und Konvertieren in PK12, dann Ablegen im Ordner „Benutzerdefinierter SSL-Zertifikatspfad“, damit Emby es lesen kann, hat funktioniert, aber erst nach dem Neustart des NAS

Would love to get involved in this talk. Can you explain to me how you went about it and I'm interested in your open question to Luke as well....

Thanks

Seger

 

[Traction Tim 11]

OK, here are my notes. This is working for me, and I expect it to do so until the 90 day period is up. At that time, I will need to export the automatically updated certificate from the NAS, and get the PK12 version to paste back in to the Emby folder. Hopefully this makes sense. It's like 1000 small bits of info pushed into one place.Forum version_Play MP3s on Alexa.pdf

Obviously details such as the address for your NAS Emby folders may differ, but I think this should make it clear.

Luke: If I am not allowed to post this file, please delete it and let me know. I have removed identifying features from it.