Websocket Timeout

[Bagul 146]

Hello,

Is it possible that in a version of emby a "ping pong" is performed in websocket to maintain a connection via a reverse proxy?

Let me explain. Apart from reverse proxies such as caddy or traefik (for those I know) there is no real timeout for websockets.

For reverse proxies like haproxy or nginx, the timeout is defined either by default or by the user.

In the case of haproxy or nginx, if someone pauses a video that lasts more than an hour (a movie, for example), the websocket timeout will occur before the end of the movie.

Or if, when playing an episode of a series lasting 40 minutes, the viewer pauses the video for 20 minutes, the connection will be closed before the end of the episode.

Having the client send a message and the server reply every X seconds/minutes would eliminate the problem and prevent the connection from staying open for 1 hour for no reason, as in the nginx configuration. 

Also, I saw a message saying that if a connection was closed unexpectedly, for resource reasons, there was no attempt to reconnect. Why not set up a number of reconnection attempts? 

For example, the client tries to reconnect 3 times, and if none of the attempts work, the connection is aborted. This would, I think, allow better websockets management and avoid connections being open for hours. Or even when changing networks (LTE->wifi or wifi->LTE), this would make it easier to re-establish the connection than quitting the application and reopening it.

 

To avoid sending just a "ping" and a "pong", useful information can be sent through websockets when the client supports them, such as the position of the video playback (which is currently sent via http), because a request via websocket is faster than an http request and sends, with the same information in the body, less data than an http request.

Edited October 20, 2023 by Bagul

[Luke 37068]

Hi, the client does reconnect, as long as you are actively using the app.

[Bagul 146]

9 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hi, the client does reconnect, as long as you are actively using the app.

The client reconnects when the application is navigated. Does it reconnect during video playback?

And if a client reconnects, this uses more resources and is slower than keeping the connection open, isn't it?

[Bagul 146]

This is what happens with a 1-minute timeout.
 

[Bagul 146]

The same thing happens on android tv

 

[SShzin 1]

Also seeing a similar issue, which does not allow the admin to stop the stream. This is happening quite often and with no way to "kill" the stream, I have to go into the user settings, and disable and re enable to stop it. There is no option to stop or pause after a short period of time. One of these started playing and within a couple minutes into it, the option to stop or pause disappears. A photo of how it should look at all times is included.

 

[Bagul 146]

3 minutes ago, SShzin said:

Also seeing a similar issue, which does not allow the admin to stop the stream. This is happening quite often and with no way to "kill" the stream, I have to go into the user settings, and disable and re enable to stop it. There is no option to stop or pause after a short period of time. One of these started playing and within a couple minutes into it, the option to stop or pause disappears. A photo of how it should look at all times is included.

 

You can modify the timeout in your reverse proxy configuration and increase it to limit websocket disconnection (if your reverse proxy accepts websockets).

 

The purpose of this FR is to apply Emby's own websocket management to prevent connections from being open for 1 hour or more on the various reverse proxies.

[Cr8iveLosr 53]

100% keeping an eye on this thread, that will be ignored or fall into developmental hell for decades

thanks for the well thought out idea and posting the FR. repped

[Bagul 146]

Just for example, Jellyfin send request every 30 seconds to keep alive websocket connection

[Bagul 146]

 

I'm going up the thread. (And I'm with Caddy so no timeout is set)

Edited November 18, 2023 by Bagul

[sross44 233]

This would be insanely helpful actually. I travel often for work and am constantly connecting to my server remotely which I have setup behind Nginx. Great and well flushed out idea. 

[exus 10]

+1 following this topic

[Kezine 16]

+1 This would be usefull.