"Playback Error: No compatible streams are currently available."

[stealthboy 2]

I'm running the latest version of Emby on my Synology NAS, and one of my users is having this error message with everything they try to play. They can browse the app just fine, but not play anything. 

The device is an LG smart TV, and with the same account they can play back the same movies/shows on different devices. Just not the TV.

No other users are reporting this problem.

Please let me know any troubleshooting steps I can take, or if there's any more information I can provide. Thank you!

[Luke 37064]

@stealthboy 

 

Hi there, let's look at an example. Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue. Thanks!

 

[stealthboy 2]

@LukeSorry for the delay. I was finally able to follow up with this user about this issue and do some investigation, and I believe the problem was simply that the LG TV in question was such an old model that it didn't have the minimum required firmware version for Emby to run properly.

I see in this blog post that Emby is supported on LG Smart TV's running Web OS 3.0 or newer. The TV having problems is over 10 years old and unable to update to this firmware version. I also strictly require secure connections to my server, and I know some older TVs are incompatible with modern security protocols, so that may have been a factor as well.

Hopefully this follow-up can be helpful to anyone else who encounters this problem and is searching for an explanation!

[Luke 37064]

Hi, actually we are in the store for Web OS 1.0 and above, just FYI.

[stealthboy 2]

@Luke Ah. Well, shoot

I ended up giving this user access to my Plex server since Emby wasn't working, and Plex worked, but it did give a warning message that the TV was so old that it wasn't going to be able to properly update. Following that lead, I did some background research on secure connection concerns with older firmware and came to the conclusion I stated above. But if Emby is supposed to work for versions as old as 1.0, I guess we can't be certain that this was related to the problem.

Unfortunately I was working with a very limited amount of information. The user who reported this problem to me was actually doing so on behalf of their parents, so coordinating communication was challenging. The parents were uncomfortable doing any amount of troubleshooting, and I didn't know the timeframe of when anything was occurring in order to check logs. Not ideal.

In any case, a workaround was found so all is well. Thank you, Luke