tv.emby.media vs app.emby.media

[ebgasolinedream024 6]

Hi,

Apologies if this has been covered somewhere else.  Neither Google or the emby forums seemed to have any mention of this issue.

About 3 years ago I was looking for a replacement for my windows media server as it was End Of Life (EOL).  After a lot of searching and trying different things I came across Emby and "voila!" my media server needs were answered.

Truthfully, the major selling point for me was the GUI presented by tv.emby.media.  This is kind of difficult to explain but the graphical user interface presented by tv.emby.media was bigger.  More like the "10 foot user interface" that I was looking for in a media server.  The regular view when connecting to my server directly was the same but smaller.  I didn't know why there were two different views but didn't think too hard about it, used tv.emby.media to connect to my server and all was good in the land.

Until there was an update.  Or something.  6 months or so later tv.emby.media stopped connecting.  No matter what I did or what I tried I always received a "connection failure" web page when trying to connect.  Connecting manually using tv.emby.media didn't work.  Emby connect didn't work.  The only way I could connect to my server was using the IP address and port or I could also use app.emby.media but the resulting GUI was the same for both:  Smaller than the one presented when connecting to tv.emby.media.

I've been just working around this forever.  Today I had some time to gather some screen shots and post here in the hopes that maybe someone could provide some insight into the difference between tv.emby.media and app.emby.media and maybe how to get tv.emby.media working again.

Thanks!

[Dickydodah! 128]

I can't say that I can answer you question but as a guess you may be looking for the Windows desktop app. 

app.emby.media Is I believe the Emby Connect URL for connecting remotely. If you are connecting your Windows PC directly to your TV the you probably want to use Emby theatre app.

https://emby.media/emby-theater.html

[ebgasolinedream024 6]

Hi!  Thanks for responding.  I'll check out the desktop app.

Might anyone know why tv.emby.media no longer functions?  The URL is still referenced via google:

https://emby.media/emby-theater-web.html

I guess another way of stating the question is the Emby Theater Web App still functioning?  Seems that tv.emby.media makes a call to that web app.  I know at one point you could make this call locally on your network and it "just worked".  I never quite understood how emby was doing the redirection or what was going on at the server level to make it work.  I took a wireshark of the comms but that didn't reveal much in the way of figuring out what network level magic was at work.  Seems something changed during a server update which broke the original functionality of calling this url locally.  Locally = me on my home network at my pc using tv.emby.media to connect to my local Emby server on my home network.

tv.emby.media resolves to:

> tv.emby.media
Server:  ns1.e4viridian.local
Address:  192.168.5.82

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    tv.emby.media
Addresses:  2600:3c02::f03c:91ff:fed7:7fa8
          173.230.139.54

But somehow calls to that public IP still connected to my emby server on my home (private IP) network.  I never had to setup firewall port forwarding or do anything.  It just, at one point in the past, worked.

[Dickydodah! 128]

The URL on that page is https://tv.emby.media/ which then allows you to connect remotely to your server using Emby Connect. Is remote connection where your having problems or is it just getting the "10 foot user interface" on your LAN? If the latter then Emby Theatre running on a windows machine on your LAN should do it. I haven't used it for some time but I do remember it giving a "bigger" interface.

[GrimReaper 3308]

Lots of (mis)information in those several posts there, will try to shed some light:

22 hours ago, ebgasolinedream024 said:

Hi,

Apologies if this has been covered somewhere else.  Neither Google or the emby forums seemed to have any mention of this issue.

About 3 years ago I was looking for a replacement for my windows media server as it was End Of Life (EOL).  After a lot of searching and trying different things I came across Emby and "voila!" my media server needs were answered.

Truthfully, the major selling point for me was the GUI presented by tv.emby.media.  This is kind of difficult to explain but the graphical user interface presented by tv.emby.media was bigger.  More like the "10 foot user interface" that I was looking for in a media server.  The regular view when connecting to my server directly was the same but smaller.  I didn't know why there were two different views but didn't think too hard about it, used tv.emby.media to connect to my server and all was good in the land.

Until there was an update.  Or something.  6 months or so later tv.emby.media stopped connecting.  No matter what I did or what I tried I always received a "connection failure" web page when trying to connect.  Connecting manually using tv.emby.media didn't work.  Emby connect didn't work.  The only way I could connect to my server was using the IP address and port or I could also use app.emby.media but the resulting GUI was the same for both:  Smaller than the one presented when connecting to tv.emby.media.

I've been just working around this forever.  Today I had some time to gather some screen shots and post here in the hopes that maybe someone could provide some insight into the difference between tv.emby.media and app.emby.media and maybe how to get tv.emby.media working again.

Thanks!

You likely don't have SSL set-up on your server, hence your tv.emby.media is failing as per your screenshots you're trying to connect to https://tv.emby.media :

(btw, tv.emby.media works on both http:// and https://, with Connect or with manual connection); connect to http://tv.emby.media, just as you are connecting to http://app.emby.media, not https://app.emby.media (all visible from lock icon in your browser address bar).

 

12 hours ago, Dickydodah! said:

app.emby.media Is I believe the Emby Connect URL for connecting remotely

That is only partially correct, as you don't have to connect through Connect to use app.emby.media (or tv.emby.media, for that matter; that is hosted web app, the one you load from Emby's servers) but you can still make manual connection, press Skip on landing page.

 

2 hours ago, ebgasolinedream024 said:

Might anyone know why tv.emby.media no longer functions?  The URL is still referenced via google:

Explained above.

 

2 hours ago, ebgasolinedream024 said:

I guess another way of stating the question is the Emby Theater Web App still functioning?  Seems that tv.emby.media makes a call to that web app.  I know at one point you could make this call locally on your network and it "just worked".  I never quite understood how emby was doing the redirection or what was going on at the server level to make it work.  I took a wireshark of the comms but that didn't reveal much in the way of figuring out what network level magic was at work.  Seems something changed during a server update which broke the original functionality of calling this url locally.  Locally = me on my home network at my pc using tv.emby.media to connect to my local Emby server on my home network.

tv.emby.media resolves to:

> tv.emby.media
Server:  ns1.e4viridian.local
Address:  192.168.5.82

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    tv.emby.media
Addresses:  2600:3c02::f03c:91ff:fed7:7fa8
          173.230.139.54

But somehow calls to that public IP still connected to my emby server on my home (private IP) network.  I never had to setup firewall port forwarding or do anything.  It just, at one point in the past, worked.

ALL client-server connections are always direct, you're just loading hosted Web app instead of local Web app (the one that comes with your server).

 

2 hours ago, Dickydodah! said:

Is remote connection where your having problems or is it just getting the "10 foot user interface" on your LAN? If the latter then Emby Theatre running on a windows machine on your LAN should do it. I haven't used it for some time but I do remember it giving a "bigger" interface.

All three client apps: Emby Theater, local Web app (IP:port, domain) or hosted Web app (app.emby.media, tv.emby.media) have same views; you can have "10 foot UI" by selecting appropriate Display mode in your user settings (the one you want is TV mode); Process is same in all client apps, (tv.emby.media just loads you directly into TV mode whereas app.emby.media or local Web app nor Theater do):

 

Edited December 25, 2022 by GrimReaper

[Luke 37099]

To answer the questions about the difference, they are the same thing, except that tv.emby.media defaults to TV display mode. You can configure app.emby.media to look the same way in Display settings.

@ebgasolinedream024 does the previous response help you get connected?

[ebgasolinedream024 6]

 

Hi!

To provide more specifics, it is the connection piece of the process that is failing.  I connect to tv.emby.media and can then either use emby connect or connect manually to my server.  The conection part of the process is what fails.

Thanks much for the great information and this helps to confirm what I found out while tshooting today.  I did a lot of looking with wireshark on my client and server and then got into the networking panel on Chrome since wireshark didn't actually show any of my connection attempts.  Chrome is blocking the connection:

Mixed Content: The page at https://tv.emby.media/#!/startup/manualserver.html' was loaded over HTTPS, but requested an insecure resource 'http://x.x.x.x:8096/emby/system/info/public'. This request has been blocked; the content must be served over HTTPS.

So that explains why it worked fine until I updated Chrome.  More specifically:

http://tv.emby.media <-> http://x.x.x.x:8096

https://tv.emby.media <-> http://x.x.x.x:8096

would work when I first installed emby in 2020.

But a Chrome update broke https://tv.emby.media <-> http://x.x.x.x:8096

And now this doesn't work either:

http://tv.emby.media <-> http://x.x.x.x:8096 doesn't work either.

Access to fetch at 'http://x.x.x.x:8096/emby/system/info/public' from origin 'http://tv.emby.media' has been blocked by CORS policy: The request client is not a secure context and the resource is in more-private address space `private`.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to assist me with resolving this.  It looks like I need to get SSL setup on my server to make chrome happy and will look into doing that.

This works just fine:  http://x.x.x.x:8096.  That's what I've been using since the Chrome update broke how I used to connect.

I'll post here when/if I can figure out how to get this working with Chrome.

Edited December 26, 2022 by ebgasolinedream024

[Luke 37099]

Does it work with app.emby.media as an alternative?

[Luke 37099]

Quote

But a Chrome update broke https://tv.emby.media <-> http://x.x.x.x:8096

it is new restrictions blocking private network access. We have applied for an exemption for now for app.emby.media but have not done this for tv.emby.media, since we don't really publish that url anymore.

[ebgasolinedream024 6]

Hi,

Summarizing the issue and solution here:

1.  This is not an "emby" issue.  This is a chrome issue.

2.  This is an issue using the chrome browser because of increased security measures implemented in updated versions of the chrome browser.  Chrome blocks the following comms:

    a.  https://tv.emby.media <-> http://x.x.x.x:8096

In this example chrome is actually blocking two items although it only reports one in the debug.    Chrome will block ssl (secure) <-> 80 (insecure).  Chrome will also block public IP <-> private IP comms.

Message as seen in the chrome debug:

Mixed Content: The page at https://tv.emby.media/#!/startup/manualserver.html' was loaded over HTTPS, but requested an insecure resource 'http://x.x.x.x:8096/emby/system/info/public'. This request has been blocked; the content must be served over HTTPS.

     b.  http://tv.emby.media <-> http://x.x.x.x:8096

In this example chrome will block public IP <-> private IP comms.

Message as seen in the chrome debug:

Access to fetch at 'http://x.x.x.x:8096/emby/system/info/public' from origin 'http://tv.emby.media' has been blocked by CORS policy: The request client is not a secure context and the resource is in more-private address space `private`.

What Chrome wants to see:

https://tv.emby.media <-> https://public-ip:8096

This would require setting up SSL on Emby as well as port forwarding on your firewall or telco provided gateway if it supports that funcionality.  I have not verified this setup and I have not seen a firewall that likes hairpin traffic but, depending on the gear involved this setup might work.

http://tv.emby.media <-> http://public-ip:8096

This setup would require port forwarding on your firewall or telco provided gateway if it supports that funcionality.  I have not verified this setup and I have not seen a firewall that likes hairpin traffic but, depending on the gear involved this setup might work.

How I got this to work:

I'm running my own DNS server so I put in A record for tv.emby.media to on my DNS server to resolve the private IP of my emby server.  So now I've got:

http://tv.emby.media:8096 (private IP) <-> http://x.x.x.x:8096

This solution could also be achieved adding an entry to the hosts file on your client.

Also, as Luke stated above, app.emby.media has been included in Chrome's exclusion list so Chrome is not blocking comms when using this URL.  The display settings of your server can be modified to TV mode so you can have the desired view presented when using app.emby.media to connect to your server.

Thanks everyone :)!

Edited December 26, 2022 by ebgasolinedream024

[Luke 37099]

Yes, new chrome restrictions, but you'll probably have better luck with app.emby.media instead of tv.emby.media for the reasons I mentioned above.

[ebgasolinedream024 6]

Thanks very much Luke.  Noted.