Emby Theater for Linux

[acnp77 60]

Please correct me if I am wrong, but the main purpose of the ET client is to play media/movies. As far as I have found, electron stands in the way here when it comes to supporting different architectures. It also presents a lot of overhead, which is not typical for a Linux app. What criteria have been considered when deciding to build ET on electron?

Edited April 9, 2023 by acnp77

[acnp77 60]

Hi. I used the official 32-bit Raspberry Pi OS 2023-02-21 release and managed to get HW decoded playback in the emby web app in chromium browser on a rpi 400, 4gb. During extensive use of the in-movie emby-gui, I got a maximum of 3 frames dropped while playing a h.264 1080p 20 mbps movie, which I consider a good performance. But then, after 5 minutes the playback froze.

But with the ET I can not find ANY combination of settings/images/packages to makie it work. If some one could tell me that the ET app is not yet capable of hw playback on rpi 4(00), at least I could give up for now, so I am looking for any clear statments here: Is is possible at the moment, has anyone managed to get hw playback on rpi4 and ET?

I really want to make this work.

BTW: ET .deb package on a Intel Xeon E3-1240 with NVIDIA Quadro K2200 is really great. CHEERS

[0x086A 0]

Should we be reporting issues with Emby Theater Linux to the Emby-Theater-Electron repo (https://github.com/MediaBrowser/emby-theater-electron) on Github? 

I recently upgraded to Debian (12.0) Bookworm and found that Emby Theater Linux has stopped working, even on a fresh install. The application will launch and I can connect to my emby server but if I try to play to play video/audio files, it either hangs forever or gives me a playback error. Using the web client through Chrome on these same hosts has worked out fine, it's just the Ember Theater client that doesn't seem to be working.

I was hoping to troubleshoot myself I bit more, but was unable to find any log files related to Emby Theater, does it log information to a file?

The hosts are all amd64/x86_64 running Mate desktop. 

 

[alucryd 216]

@0x086AYes I believe that repo is the right place, but here is fine as well. I'll create a bookworm VM to see what's going on.

[starisme 1]

Probably a super edge case but I tried installing the emby theater flatpak to steamdeck and it works but Chinese characters render as just blank boxes. I have east asian fonts installed and if I access my Emby server through Firefox in the steamdeck the characters are fine. Not sure what the issue is.

[alucryd 216]

Hmm, sounds like a fontconfig issue, will need to check how electron handles east asian fonts.

[screamor 0]

Hi i am just setting up a Emby Theater on Debian.

I got everything running, but there is no way the Emby-theater plays anything without ran in sudo.
Error log without sudo

/usr/bin/emby-theater: 10: ldconfig: not found
readlink: fehlender Operand
„readlink --help“ liefert weitere Informationen.
/usr/bin/emby-theater: 10: [: -gt: unexpected operator
libGL error: MESA-LOADER: failed to open iris: /opt/emby-theater/extra/lib/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found (required by /usr/lib/dri/iris_dri.so) (search paths /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri:\$${ORIGIN}/dri:/usr/lib/dri, suffix _dri)
libGL error: failed to load driver: iris
libGL error: MESA-LOADER: failed to open iris: /opt/emby-theater/extra/lib/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found (required by /usr/lib/dri/iris_dri.so) (search paths /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri:\$${ORIGIN}/dri:/usr/lib/dri, suffix _dri)
libGL error: failed to load driver: iris
libGL error: MESA-LOADER: failed to open swrast: /opt/emby-theater/extra/lib/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found (required by /usr/lib/dri/swrast_dri.so) (search paths /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri:\$${ORIGIN}/dri:/usr/lib/dri, suffix _dri)
libGL error: failed to load driver: swrast
Initializing cec-client...

{
  cecExePath: 'cec-client',
  cecEmitter: EventEmitter {
    _events: [Object: null prototype] {},
    _eventsCount: 0,
    _maxListeners: undefined
  },
  cecHdmiPort: 'null'
}
cec-client exited with code 1

UDP Client listening on 0.0.0.0:39420
starting udp receive timer with timeout ms: 1000
Message from: xxxxxxxxxxx
ServerDiscovery message received
Server discovery json: {"Address":"http://xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"}

ServerDiscovery message received

cec-client exited with code 1
timer expired 2 servers received
[
  {
    Address: 'http://xxxxxxxxxxxxx
    Id: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
    Name: 'xxxxxxxxx
    EndpointAddress: 'xxxxxxxxxxxx
  },

 

 

with sudo:

Initializing cec-client...

{
  cecExePath: 'cec-client',
  cecEmitter: EventEmitter {
    _events: [Object: null prototype] {},
    _eventsCount: 0,
    _maxListeners: undefined
  },
  cecHdmiPort: 'null'
}
UDP Client listening on 0.0.0.0:39420
starting udp receive timer with timeout ms: 1000
Message from: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
ServerDiscovery message received
Server discovery json: {"Address":"http://xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"}

ServerDiscovery message received

cec-client exited with code 1
timer expired 2 servers received
[
  {
    Address: 'http://xxxxxxxxxxxxx
    Id: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
    Name: 'xxxxxxxxx
    EndpointAddress: 'xxxxxxxxxxxx
  },
 

Anybody an idea how to run this without sudo?

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by screamor

[alucryd 216]

What debian version is that? It looks like debian hides the ldconfig binary from normal users, because debian...... That's very unfortunate. Are you able to locate that binary and look at the permissions on it? As root you should be able to do that with `ls -lah $(which ldconfig)`

[flower1024 1]

Hello,

I am using Emby Theather as a flatpak on NixOS with KDE with multiple screens. Whenever i maximize the emby app to fullscreen I can't focus any other windows.

Well I kinda can focus them (they come to the front) but i can't type. Keyboard focus stays within emby theater.

Any solution for this?

[them8os235 16]

Hey there all.  Reaching out for assistance.  Has anyone here successfully run the latest 3.0.19 (or even any previous version if you did) of Emby Theater OS image (the 1Gig image) on a Raspberry Pi (3 or 4) along with a DAC HAT (my case it's a HiFiBerry DAC2 Pro) and importantly along with video out to an official 7" display, not HDMI?  (p.s., in these turn-key devices I'm making for a friend I'm using Emby Theater in this case for only music, absolutely no music videos, movies, live TV, etc.)

I've run into an issue I can't get past, documented here where I requested assistance by Luke, but happy to get anyone's assistance: https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/122644-how-to-send-emby-theater-for-rpi-audio-to-my-dac-hat-shell-access/&do=findComment&comment=1294146  Additional background in the posts above.  

In a nutshell if I output video to HDMI my configurations to output audio via the DAC HAT works.  However if I use the 7" display (which is mandatory in this use case), no audio is output by the DAC HAT ... even though the "green activity light" on the DAC lights up when I play music and goes off when I stop it, and aplay -l lists the only sound card is my DAC, and /usr/bin/pactl list shows the song and correct "stats" I am playing by emby-theater, and alsamixer all looks good, etc.  

There is a lot of experience across the board here.  So hopping someone may know what needs to go into the "special sauce" in configuring the OS/ ALSA / PulseAudio / whatever else, so that I can use EmbyTheater along my DAC HATs along with a 7" display the same as when I use an HDMI display.  Here and eager to supply any additional info anyone needs to assist; my config.txt is already shared at that link above. Thanks much for all replies.

 

 

Edited November 1, 2023 by them8os235
typos

[them8os235 16]

Please disregard the post immediately above this.  The frig'n HiFiBerry's analog output buffer sections failed!  On both of my DAC2 Pros!  That's why I wasn't getting audio out! 

More here if desired.  I also provide the config.txt I'm using to run Emby Theater as a turn-key music player on a 2 Gig RPi4 using an official 7" display with audio output thru an Allo Boss DAC HAT, if anyone would like to do the same easily.

 

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by them8os235

[them8os235 16]

At risk of cross posting, I would like to place a request for assistance rotating the Emby Theater display on a Raspberry Pi, which I posted here in the Raspberry Pi section: 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/123305-cant-get-emby-theater-display-to-rotate-need-help/

Hoping to get more eyeballs on it from people that may frequent or follow this thread but not the RPi section.

Thanx

[Luke 37057]

2 hours ago, them8os235 said:

At risk of cross posting, I would like to place a request for assistance rotating the Emby Theater display on a Raspberry Pi, which I posted here in the Raspberry Pi section: 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/123305-cant-get-emby-theater-display-to-rotate-need-help/

Hoping to get more eyeballs on it from people that may frequent or follow this thread but not the RPi section.

Thanx

Hi, we’ll help you in your topic. Thanks.

[adrianwi 237]

Does anyone have this working on a Raspberry Pi 5 running Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm?

I've followed the Debian Arm64 instructions and the App installs but fails to launch.

 

[alucryd 216]

This will probably need some additional work on our end to get RPi 5 support, it's a new SoC with a new GPU so hardware acceleration will most likely not work with the current packages.

[electricwildflower 12]

Just a quick shout out for support but Emby Theatre on Linux Mint seems to be a little slow when loading music IE i select a song and about 5/10/15/20 seconds later it will start the song. Also when i do the following and go to shut down from the menu i get the following error. Exiting, signing out etc seems to work fine though just shutdown that's the issue. 

[Luke 37057]

12 hours ago, electricwildflower said:

Just a quick shout out for support but Emby Theatre on Linux Mint seems to be a little slow when loading music IE i select a song and about 5/10/15/20 seconds later it will start the song. Also when i do the following and go to shut down from the menu i get the following error. Exiting, signing out etc seems to work fine though just shutdown that's the issue. 

Hi, we'll take a look at that. Thanks for reporting.

[KeithA 0]

Hello,

I have installed Emby Theater on a PC running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.  ET runs fine however I have ran into an issue I have been unable to solve.  It involves the use of Alsa for Pass-through.  It would seem that MPV is configured improperly.  I have been successful using pass-through on this system using Kodi.  When Kodi is playing a file I have verified the device in use.  Are there any special settings I should be entering into mpv.conf?  I have already tried the audio-device parameter choosing from the list of devices generated by MPV (see below) however it always produces an error stating "failed to initialize audio driver".  Any suggestions to get this working are appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

List of detected audio devices:
  'auto' (Autoselect device)
  'alsa' (Default (alsa))
  'alsa/samplerate' (Rate Converter Plugin Using Samplerate Library)
  'alsa/speexrate' (Rate Converter Plugin Using Speex Resampler)
  'alsa/jack' (JACK Audio Connection Kit)
  'alsa/oss' (Open Sound System)
  'alsa/upmix' (Plugin for channel upmix (4,6,8))
  'alsa/vdownmix' (Plugin for channel downmix (stereo) with a simple spacialization)
  'alsa/plughw:CARD=NVidia,DEV=3' (HDA NVidia, HDMI 0/Hardware device with all software conversions)
  'alsa/plughw:CARD=NVidia,DEV=7' (HDA NVidia, HDMI 1/Hardware device with all software conversions)
  'alsa/plughw:CARD=NVidia,DEV=8' (HDA NVidia, HDMI 2/Hardware device with all software conversions)
  'alsa/plughw:CARD=NVidia,DEV=9' (HDA NVidia, HDMI 3/Hardware device with all software conversions)
  'alsa/hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0' (HDA NVidia, HDMI 0/HDMI Audio Output)
  'alsa/hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=1' (HDA NVidia, HDMI 1/HDMI Audio Output)
  'alsa/hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=2' (HDA NVidia, HDMI 2/HDMI Audio Output)
  'alsa/hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=3' (HDA NVidia, HDMI 3/HDMI Audio Output)
  'alsa/dmix:CARD=NVidia,DEV=3' (HDA NVidia, HDMI 0/Direct sample mixing device)
  'alsa/dmix:CARD=NVidia,DEV=7' (HDA NVidia, HDMI 1/Direct sample mixing device)
  'alsa/dmix:CARD=NVidia,DEV=8' (HDA NVidia, HDMI 2/Direct sample mixing device)
  'alsa/dmix:CARD=NVidia,DEV=9' (HDA NVidia, HDMI 3/Direct sample mixing device)
  'alsa/usbstream:CARD=NVidia' (HDA NVidia/USB Stream Output)

[pmsys 0]

Hello,

I tried to use the this version of ET for Raspberry Pi: https://github.com/MediaBrowser/emby-theater-electron/releases/download/3.0.16/emby-theater-rpi_3.0.16_arm64.img.xz.

But I got the same error here:

And in addition to this, I can't play any video files. (Mostly encoded with H264). It gets stuck at the spinner right after playback starts.
I used RPI 3/4 and a wired network connection. How can I solve this?

And btw.: Is ET still in development? The last release is more than one year ago and the GitHub repo seems to only get chore commits.

 

Thanks

 

[pmsys 0]

Hello,

I got ET running. What I did:

- Install official latest RasbianOS
- Follow this guide: https://emby.media/emby-theater-linux.html#deb
- Setup autologin and autostart of ET (everything is done in the raspi-config GUI)

So, that means (at least for me): The official ET RPI images are broken. (https://emby.media/emby-theater-rpi.html)

But my question remains: Is ET still in development?

Greetz

[them8os235 16]

@pmsys, can I ask perhaps a silly question?  Why did you go with version 3.0.16 of ET when the latest bug fixed version is 3.0.19?  

I recently built a few ET 'kiosk' style devices using Raspberry PI 4 w/the official 7" display and DAC HATs successfully (they are intended as music players, not planned for use viewing video).  Though there were a few times when it didn't initialize correctly on first boot and I needed to start over and re-burn the SD and re-customize the config file; can't explain the reason for that.  But all in all, I had good success with with the current build of Emby Theater, 3.0.19: https://github.com/MediaBrowser/emby-theater-electron/releases/tag/3.0.19

Edited April 8 by them8os235

[pmsys 0]

Hi @them8os235,

I used the official .deb file.

In my first attempt, I setup RaspianOS with nodejs and clones the ET git repo. But this didn't work out for me... Couldn't play any video files.
Therefore I used the official ET .deb files. And the latest here is 3.0.16.

So, for me it's ok for now.

[Luke 37057]

On 4/9/2024 at 4:47 AM, pmsys said:

Hi @them8os235,

I used the official .deb file.

In my first attempt, I setup RaspianOS with nodejs and clones the ET git repo. But this didn't work out for me... Couldn't play any video files.
Therefore I used the official ET .deb files. And the latest here is 3.0.16.

So, for me it's ok for now.

Hi, where exactly do you see 3.0.16 as the latest?

[pmsys 0]

On 4/14/2024 at 11:12 PM, Luke said:

Hi, where exactly do you see 3.0.16 as the latest?

Exactly here: https://emby.media/emby-theater-rpi.html

-> Link: "Emby Theater RPI for Arm64" is pointing to: https://github.com/MediaBrowser/emby-theater-electron/releases/download/3.0.16/emby-theater-rpi_3.0.16_arm64.img.xz

And this is, what I need for the RPI 4.