Emby Theater for Linux

[smoothquark 5]

On 20/08/2024 at 12:51, alucryd said:

@SkuldThere seems to be some issues between newer flatpak runtimes and our builds, not limited to the steam deck. We are currently working on a complete overhaul, hopefully we can put something out soon.

I have pretty much given up on Emby Theater for Linux - Electron apps seem to cause a lot of issues. Hopefully the "complete overhaul" moves away from Electron...

[alucryd 233]

3 hours ago, smoothquark said:

I have pretty much given up on Emby Theater for Linux - Electron apps seem to cause a lot of issues. Hopefully the "complete overhaul" moves away from Electron...

Yes it does

[them8os235 45]

On 9/4/2024 at 8:13 AM, alucryd said:

Yes it does

Thumbs-up.

Q: Will that be the case on Windows too?  While Electron seems far better there than Linux, it's got its warts too.

Edited September 13, 2024 by them8os235

[Luke 39659]

On 9/13/2024 at 4:31 PM, them8os235 said:

Thumbs-up.

Q: Will that be the case on Windows too?  While Electron seems far better there than Linux, it's got its warts too.

Hi, the new windows app currently in beta testing no longer uses electron.

[them8os235 45]

17 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, the new windows app currently in beta testing no longer uses electron.

Thanx.  Pardon my not going to look for it first.  It just didn't occur to me there is a beta of it.  I'll go look for it and give it a try (assuming it's an open beta; I'll see shortly  ).

edit: p.s. I sent you the PM requested

Edited September 15, 2024 by them8os235

[softworkz 4495]

On 9/4/2024 at 2:13 PM, alucryd said:

On 9/4/2024 at 10:57 AM, smoothquark said:

I have pretty much given up on Emby Theater for Linux - Electron apps seem to cause a lot of issues. Hopefully the "complete overhaul" moves away from Electron...

Yes it does 

Not entirely, but it's a very different app, using the same code base as the new Windows and Xbox apps.
The current ET for Linux uses an age-old version of Electron, which also means an age-old version of Chromium. The latter is  the major source of issues that you are seeing, because web technologies are advancing fast and it's hard to keep our development compatible with old browser versions. Sticking to the old version was required for keeping the current method of video playback working.

The new ET Linux uses a different method for video playback and this allows it to use a recent version of Electron/Chromium. The other difference is that it's a .net application and Electron is only used for having a browser window and environment.

So, it does not fully move away, but it will eliminate most of the current shortcomings.

Edited September 19, 2024 by softworkz

[Arcau 7]

5 hours ago, softworkz said:

Not entirely, but it's a very different app, using the same code base as the new Windows and Xbox apps.
The current ET for Linux uses an age-old version of Electron, which also means an age-old version of Chromium. The latter is  the major source of issues that you are seeing, because web technologies are advancing fast and it's hard to keep our development compatible with old browser versions. Sticking to the old version was required for keeping the current method of video playback working.

The new ET Linux uses a different method for video playback and this allows it to use a recent version of Electron/Chromium. The other difference is that it's a .net application and Electron is only used for having a browser window and environment.

So, it does not fully move away, but it will eliminate most of the current shortcomings.

Is there an ETA for the linux package?

[__mk01 2]

On 5/10/2024 at 6:18 PM, smoothquark said:

I have installed Emby Theatre for Linux on a minimal Debian 12 installation. Starts up fine and works in stereo as long as pulseaudio is installed. I just cannot seem to get passthrough to work even with playing with the passthrough settings in the Emby Electron app as well as via pavucontrol. Whenever passthrough is used, I just get the dreaded spinning blue wheel.

 

I tried only 3.0.19 and .21 and both have broken mpv/libmpv in terms of alsa. what I did is I simply replaced it. this are the hints to broken alsa:

[   0.078][v][ao/alsa] buffersize: 0 samples
[   0.078][v][ao/alsa] period size: 0 samples
[   0.080][e][ao/alsa] Device buffer size not set.

the simplest option wouold be to configure external player - to use apt installed debian package, but you will loose the UI integration with emby. so the option is to compile own libmpv. to mimic the original bundle (skip the fighting with ld preloads etc), you go with all the stuff linked to mpv/libmpv statically. normally that can go messy but mpv is fortunatelly providing everything. so instead of grabbing the usual source of mpv, you take their mpv-builder. https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv-build.git

readme is quite easy to follow you basically just need some libXXX-dev dependencies, the hard stuff (like ffmpeg sources / compilation) it will do for you automatically. I think there is even an script included which will create dummy deb for the needed dependencies which you the installs via "apt install" (not dpkg install as this would not install the dependencies, just the package). once you have this, you specify few options for ffmpeg features and mpv features you want to have, which depends on you hw and media library needs, but perhaps you can start with mine. so you create two files, mpv_options and ffmpeg_options:

mpv_options

-Dlibmpv=true
-Dvulkan=disabled
-Ddrm=enabled
-Dpipewire=enabled
-Dpulse=enabled
-Dx11=enabled
-Dlua=enabled

ffmpeg_options

--enable-libx264
--enable-libmp3lame
--enable-libfdk-aac
--enable-libx265
--enable-gpl
--enable-libass
--enable-opengl
--enable-libvorbis
--enable-gnutls
--enable-libaom
--enable-libxml2
--enable-libxvid
--enable-libvpx
--enable-libdrm
--enable-libglslang

definitelly you will need the shaders support (glslang), x264, x265, gnutls for online (inet) ssl playback. I disabled vulkan for libmpv as with my nvidia binary drivers it was causing issue - emby never closed the playback UI after stop. didn't investigate it further, so just disabled it. you could also skip the pulse/pipewire if you use your emby machine like a media box (meaning it is not desktop). alsa itself will play whatever you give it, just with most default setups it won't allow simultaneuos playback from more clients. long story short, you the run

./build

what you get after few minutes is mpv binary + libmpv with the ffmpeg stuff linked. don't run the install command as per the readme, just take the mpv and libmpv and replace the emby-theater ones with those. replace mpv file in /opt/emby-theater/bin and libmpv.so.2.3.0 in /opt/emby-theater/lib. start emby and enjoy all the 4k with Atmos/DTSX whatever bitstream to your HiFi.

(btw just to be clear - this options sets will give you software decoding, you can add libva support, but this doesn't support 4k/HDR properly, or you can add cuda/nvdec headers for nvidia support if you are asking for bitstream audio and have standard Bookworm - you seem not to have some a "smallish" rpi/imx/whatever (to really needing hwdecoding) so save yourself some time and skip that)

Edited September 20, 2024 by __mk01

[softworkz 4495]

4 minutes ago, __mk01 said:

x264, x265

These are encoders and not needed for playback.

And without Vulkan, there's no gpu-next IIRC.

[__mk01 2]

12 minutes ago, softworkz said:

These are encoders and not needed for playback.

And without Vulkan, there's no gpu-next IIRC.

oh yes, but the guy is not able to enjoy his library AT ALL at the moment, so I think he can skip the burden of details for the starter. nothing more nothing less.

but you are right, let me put there disclaimer that that post should not be understood as general fixup steps for any issues users encounter.

Edited September 20, 2024 by __mk01

[softworkz 4495]

Looking for Testers! 

Please see here:

[SHSPVR 121]

1 hour ago, softworkz said:

Looking for Testers! 

Please see here:

Wouldn't that be because the .NET and the lack of DirectX support under Linux, So you have to rely on a different method in order to make it work?.

[softworkz 4495]

42 minutes ago, SHSPVR said:

Wouldn't that be because the .NET and the lack of DirectX support under Linux, So you have to rely on a different method in order to make it work?.

No, that's not a problem. The video player component in current Emby Theater is MPV and the video player in the new Emby clients is MPV as well. That applies to both, Windows and Linux, and MPV supports a wide range of ways for video output on each platform.

(.net and DirectX are two completely separate and different things, btw).

The difference is the way of integration. Previously, MPV was used as a browser plugin (like Flash and others in earlier days), but this way is no longer supported (see my post above https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/42868-emby-theater-for-linux/&do=findComment&comment=1387613)

The new method of integration is much superior to the earlier one, but the behavior of Linux window managers makes it difficult to get it behave nicely everywhere (without testing). 
If you apply for the testing, you'll get more details.

 

[Skuld 1]

On 8/20/2024 at 1:51 PM, alucryd said:

@SkuldThere seems to be some issues between newer flatpak runtimes and our builds, not limited to the steam deck. We are currently working on a complete overhaul, hopefully we can put something out soon.

So, it almost has been two month, how is it going with the overhaul ?

On 9/15/2024 at 4:53 AM, Luke said:

Hi, the new windows app currently in beta testing no longer uses electron.'

Is that Beta accessable ?

Edited October 15, 2024 by Skuld

[Luke 39659]

45 minutes ago, Skuld said:

So, it almost has been two month, how is it going with the overhaul ?

Is that Beta accessable ?

 

[cyruspy 5]

arrived late to the engineering preview party, have high hopes on it

[TheIronPirate 1]

What's the latest on this? I just happened to upgrade my previous flatpak installation and I'm seeing a strange interface issue on LiveTV.
The stream itself plays fine, but the window locks up and the controls are not available. This issue seems isolated to just live TV.
[Found a thread with exact issue, delete me]

Edited March 3 by TheIronPirate

[kenny7062 1]

just getting started with ubuntu installed latest version.

if i use the emby theater app  3.0.16 from ubuntu it works fine with no problems

if i use the latest download of app 3.0.21 the app opens fine but wont play any video both live and files

both connect to my qnap server which hosts the emby server

 

ollie

[volkmarg 0]

As of today (April 5th, 2025) the packaged emby-theater electron app on Arch Linux stopped working for me. It begins to start, but hangs indefinitely at the splash screen with the emby logo. On the emby server, there is absolutely no trace of a connection attempt in the server logs.

I can connect to emby from the same Linux machine through UPnP/DLNA and through the web interface of the emby server. Also, when I boot the same PC into Windows instead of Linux, I can connect from the same IP address through the Windows version of emby-theater. The Android app works fine as well.

Since the app stopped working almost exactly at midnight CEST, would it be possible that some certificate/validation shipped with the app has expired and needs to be renewed?

[Luke 39659]

27 minutes ago, volkmarg said:

As of today (April 5th, 2025) the packaged emby-theater electron app on Arch Linux stopped working for me. It begins to start, but hangs indefinitely at the splash screen with the emby logo. On the emby server, there is absolutely no trace of a connection attempt in the server logs.

I can connect to emby from the same Linux machine through UPnP/DLNA and through the web interface of the emby server. Also, when I boot the same PC into Windows instead of Linux, I can connect from the same IP address through the Windows version of emby-theater. The Android app works fine as well.

Since the app stopped working almost exactly at midnight CEST, would it be possible that some certificate/validation shipped with the app has expired and needs to be renewed?

Hi, apologies for the disruption. Please follow along here: 

Thanks.

[volkmarg 0]

Many thanks, its up and running again!

To be honest, having just spent the money for an unlimited Emby Premiere license and then not getting any media being played on the main home theater PC was a little bit irritating...

[Luke 39659]

On 4/6/2025 at 3:20 PM, volkmarg said:

Many thanks, its up and running again!

To be honest, having just spent the money for an unlimited Emby Premiere license and then not getting any media being played on the main home theater PC was a little bit irritating...

Apologies for the disruption. We are working on a new Linux app with everything self contained and then this will never happen again. Thanks.

[ZR1000A1 1]

I also paid for lifetime Emby Premiere license and Emby Theater for Linux does not work for me. I tried v3.0.21 and v3.0.16. I can browse libraries, but movies don't start playing. For every movie I see the error like (when I start emby-theater from terminal):

fs access result for path: Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, access '/mnt/share1/Movies/English/xxxxxx.mkv'

The path is the correct library/file path on the server. If it matters my embyserver is running in a docker.

All over clients (Windows, all browsers, Roku, etc.) work without any problems. 

Please, fix it!

Thank you

Edited April 11 by ZR1000A1