Offline and Syncing in Emby Theatre

[swhitmore 781]

Hi everyone. Firstly I was to say a big thank you for getting offline working in ET. This is a feature I've been hope to use for a long long time. It always seemed to be 'sort of working', but always too much trouble, or never quite syncing correctly.

 

I do a lot of travelling for my job, with frequent 5 hour flights. I normally just copy a bunch of videos on my SP4, but recently I decided to try offline again. I was really impressed how simply everything downloaded and played correctly. Thank you so much! This has made my long flights so much nicer, and I actually even got comments from people sitting next to me asking me what I was using. They were also really impressed when I spoke about Emby.

 

Having said that... there are still a few things that are missing for offline mode to be feature complete.

1. The biggest one is playstates. When I'm offline, there is no way to track playstates and watched status. This also means that when returning home I have to manually check what I watched when I was away.
2. Missing images. Some of the show covers and poster images didn't save.
3. Crashing when playing next episode. Every time I tried to play the next episode in a playlist the app would crash. 
4. The 'Downloaded Media" UI could use a bit of love. It seems that it the home screen hasn't really been thought out. I'm happy to do  mock up of something if you like, but it just needs to be a simple with some nice collection images. Recent items needs to be limited and probably stacked.
5. Update the download list when manually checking a watch status. Example: I set 'Vikings' to download the most recent 10 episodes. After they all copied over, I realised that I hadn't watched the most recent episode that was checked. I unchecked it in the Emby web client, but for the life of me I couldn't get that episode to download offline. The only way to do I was to cancel the sync (which deleted all 10 episodes) and download them all again.

I think that was everything. This is such an amazing feature. Thank you all again.

 

Cheers,

 

Scott

Edited June 12, 2017 by swhitmore

[Luke 39361]

@@swhitmore for #3, what do you mean by playlist? What playlist were you using in an offline context?

[Luke 39361]

Also I've added some image fixes. Once you have the update that contains the fixes, just be aware that it will only apply to new content downloaded going forward. thanks.

[swhitmore 781]

@@swhitmore for #3, what do you mean by playlist? What playlist were you using in an offline context?

 

Hi Luke,

 

Thanks for taking a look. By playlist I just meant that I hit the 'Play All" button on a TV Show Season. The app would crash when playing the next video.

 

I'm also getting a lot of crashes in the UWP Emby Theatre while online also. Where do I find the logs for the app? I'll make a separate bug report.

Edited June 16, 2017 by swhitmore

[Luke 39361]

There aren't any but i get the crash reports. Just make sure to describe them in detail. Thanks.

[swhitmore 781]

Hey @@Luke. Is it possible to please take a look at offline playstates in the near future?

Edited June 25, 2017 by swhitmore

[Luke 39361]

@switmore, I tested this and it "sort of" worked fine. 

 

If you stop an offline video halfway through, the playstate gets correctly synced to the server on the next background sync. So that is good.

 

The part that is currently missing is that the playstate does not get saved into the offline database, which means if you return offline a second time then you don't get to see the resume progress bar. Also now that I think of it, if you resume on the server, then the playstate should also get resynced down from the server on the next background sync. So that will be another thing to look at.

 

Does that answer your question for now?

[swhitmore 781]

Thanks Luke,

 

Is that a recent change? I don't think the playstates and watched status were saving to the server for me after my last trip (2 weeks ago). I'll try again tonight. I'm not sure how most people are using offline, but for me when travelling, it would be great to be able to stay offline for the whole trip and not have to worry about connecting to the server. I usually binge watch a series while I'm away, so saving watched status will be really handy.

 

Thanks for taking a look.

Edited June 26, 2017 by swhitmore

[Luke 39361]

it's not recent, no.

[swhitmore 781]

it's not recent, no.

 

Hmm ok, I'll test again tonight. I don't think it worked last time on the Windows Store version. Should the watched status be saving offline? How does the background sync know what to update? 

[Luke 39361]

Yes it saves offline, you just don't see it reflected in the offline ui.

[swhitmore 781]

Yes it saves offline, you just don't see it reflected in the offline ui.

 

Ah ok. Would this be hard to do?

[Luke 39361]

It's on our to do list for the app, thanks.

[swhitmore 781]

Hey @@Luke Do you know of any way to only allow syncing via local network? I didn't realise my tablet was downloading while I was tethering my phone. Got a bit of a shock on my data plan

[Luke 39361]

@@swhitmore, so i am guessing while tethering, the actual network connection on the device was considered to be wifi, correct?

[swhitmore 781]

@@swhitmore, so i am guessing while tethering, the actual network connection on the device was considered to be wifi, correct?

 

That's correct. My phone was tethered via wifi. If I set that connection as 'metered' in the windows 10 settings, would that help? (I just realised I should do that anyway, but I forgot with this new phone). Otherwise it would be great if there was an option to limit syncing to a local connection only.

Edited July 2, 2017 by swhitmore

[swhitmore 781]

No sure why, but a bunch of the TV shows, and 2 movies removed themselves off my tablet while I was away (which was a bummer as I was hoping to watch them on the plane home). Once I got home, they started syncing again. Any idea what could cause that?

[Luke 39361]

Perhaps the files were removed by the device, because if Emby intentionally removed them then it wouldn't resync afterwards.

[swhitmore 781]

Hmmm strange. They were just on an SD card. I can't seem to find a reason they were removed. Anything I could look for in the logs?

Edited July 4, 2017 by swhitmore

[Luke 39361]

@@swhitmore were these items you synced at a folder level using the option to remove when watched?

[swhitmore 781]

Hey @@Luke the TV Shows were, but there was 2 movies also

Edited July 16, 2017 by swhitmore

[BarryAmerika 24]

That's correct. My phone was tethered via wifi. If I set that connection as 'metered' in the windows 10 settings, would that help? (I just realised I should do that anyway, but I forgot with this new phone). Otherwise it would be great if there was an option to limit syncing to a local connection only.

 

I have a few android apps that use the SSID to restrict activity or use local IPs instead of dynamic dns to connect. I'd love this feature too. For me it is not even the mobile connection, just Australian internet in general and uploads counting on my home plan.

 

While I am here, I'm setting up a windows laptop and considering making the switch from android, where do I find the sync options in Emby Theatre - it doesn't seem to show up for my device? If I select sync I get "It looks like you don't currently have any apps that support offline downloading."

[Luke 39361]

You just click the download buttons all throughout the app.

[swhitmore 781]

@switmore, I tested this and it "sort of" worked fine.

 

If you stop an offline video halfway through, the playstate gets correctly synced to the server on the next background sync. So that is good.

 

The part that is currently missing is that the playstate does not get saved into the offline database, which means if you return offline a second time then you don't get to see the resume progress bar. Also now that I think of it, if you resume on the server, then the playstate should also get resynced down from the server on the next background sync. So that will be another thing to look at.

 

Does that answer your question for now?

Hi @@Luke Did this ever make it to release?

[Luke 39361]

Yes it did.