Value cannot be null. (Parameter 'appName')

[ginjaninja 533]

am trying to get back into learning emby api

but i cant even successfully test "/Users/AuthenticateByName" in the swagger interface,

 

if i provide correct "Username/Pw" credentials i get "Value cannot be null. (Parameter 'appName')"

if i provide incorrect credentials, i get "Invalid username or password entered."

 

tested on 4.5.0.6

 

i am probably being dull but just in case, is the swagger interface working or this command?

 

thank you

@@chef

[chef 3745]

Do we still have to pass the password encrypted two different ways? Md5 and Sha ?

[PenkethBoy 2063]

i thought that was removed ages ago

 

pw is now sent in plain text

 

Show us your full text that you have supplied to swagger

[ginjaninja 533]

thanks

 

i have header as

Client='1', Device='2', DeviceId='3', Version='4'

and the json as

 

{
  "Username": "User One",
"Pw": "MyPassword"
}

the help says as of 1st April 2018 only 'Pw' is required (only Pw was required last time i was learning)

[PenkethBoy 2063]

Yep Swagger does not work - doesn't matter what you put in it fails with the same error - i have a suspicion that its because its not adding "?format=json" on after /AuthenticateByName

 

AuthenticateByName does work though outside of swagger - use it almost everyday - or lots of people would be complaining

 

What language are you using/going to use with the api?

[ginjaninja 533]

Yep Swagger does not work - doesn't matter what you put in it fails with the same error - i have a suspicion that its because its not adding "?format=json" on after /AuthenticateByName

 

AuthenticateByName does work though outside of swagger - use it almost everyday - or lots of people would be complaining

 

What language are you using/going to use with the api?

thanks for confirming ..probably will use powershell..

 

did i see on a previous poat you use powershell also?...could you share a template poweshell script to post http and handle a response to/from the api to help get me started? thank you

 

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

[PenkethBoy 2063]

Hi

 

Yes i use Powershell

 

1. I suggest if you are going to do anything significant that you install Powershell 7 (core) - so you benefit from the latest updates (sits alongside PS 5.1 so you can use both as necessary)

2. Also install Visual Studio Code (free) and install the Powershell Module - will make your life a lot easier when learning - avoid using the PS ISE - its very basic and is not part of PS7

3. Swagger is approx 95% correct and works

4. However the best tool in most cases is to do what you want to do in the web app - then look at the Emby log - and you will see how emby does it - also several endpoints are not in swagger but appear in the log

 

5. To authenticate to Emby via Powershell - save this to a ps1 file - can be named anything you like.

 

# Amend for you server and user
$embyServerUrl = "http://192.168.1.56:8096"
$Emby_User_Name = "" # best if this is an admin user - can be a normal user but will be limited on what it can do
$Emby_User_Pwd = '' # Note: if you have a $ in your password "" should not be used as PS will try to evaluate the $ and the login will fail - so use ''


# these can be anything you want - some of this info appears on dashboard and devices pages
$embyClientName = "PS-Testing"
$embyDeviceName = "PowerShell"
$embyDeviceId = "123456"
$embyApplicationVersion = " - 0.0.1 Alpha"


function Get-EmbyAccessToken ($Username, $Pwd)
{
$authUrl = "{0}/Users/AuthenticateByName?format=json" -f $embyServerUrl
$postParams = @{Username=$username;pw=$Pwd} | ConvertTo-Json
$Headers = @{"Authorization"="Emby Client=`"$embyClientName`", Device=`"$embyDeviceName`", DeviceId=`"$embyDeviceId`", Version=`"$embyApplicationVersion`""}

return (Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $authUrl -Method POST -Body $postParams -ContentType "application/json" -Headers $Headers)
}


$authResult = Get-EmbyAccessToken -Username $Emby_User_Name -Pwd $Emby_User_Pwd
$user = $authResult.Content | ConvertFrom-Json
$user | ConvertTo-Json -Verbose -Depth 100 | Out-File "$PSScriptRoot\User-New.json"

Write-Host "User Access Token: "$user.AccessToken

Exit

 

 

To run the ps1 file open a PS console window - navigate to the location of the script and

 

".\User-Test.ps1" - without the quotes

 

will return the User.AccessToken to the screen and save a User-New.json file with all the data returned from Emby in the same location as the script ($PSScriptRoot)

 

To use the access token you need to add the following to the above before  "Exit" - just a random example

 

 

$MediaUrl = $embyServerUrl + "/emby/users/" + $User.User.Id + "/items?Fields=Tags,Genres,Childcount%2CProviderIds%2CRemoteTrailers%2CDateCreated,LocalTrailerCount&Recursive=true&SortBy=SortName&SortOrder=Ascending&IncludeItemTypes=Series" + "&api_key=" + $User.AccessToken

$TestResult = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $MediaUrl -Method Get

$Media = $TestResult.Content | ConvertFrom-Json

$Media | ConvertTo-Json -Verbose -Depth 100 | Out-File "$PSScriptRoot\TVSeries.json"

 

 

Which will give all you TV Series from Emby and save them to a json file

 

Obviously the json files are just for reference and you only need to save them for testing

 

 

Will leave amending an existing item for another day as its more complicated and easy to get wrong and trash the item entry in emby. Suggest you setup a second test server that you can rebuild quickly if things go south.

 

Have fun

 

[ginjaninja 533]

thanks for info again, that will help me get started i am sure..

[PenkethBoy 2063]

Good Luck

[PenkethBoy 2063]

@@ginjaninja

 

If you have questions while you are getting the hang off things post here and i will try and answer them for you

 

Also can you give me an outline of what you are trying to achieve

[ginjaninja 533]

thank you,

i would like to get the path of all my series, so i can download a file  to the root of every series from BASEURL+/TVDBID/TVDBID.xyz

[PenkethBoy 2063]

Each Api endpoint returns by default different amounts of "data" - so what you get is what emby uses in the web app etc

 

But most endpoints also allow you to specify extra data - which in this case you want the path to a the series folder

 

So...

../emby/Items?Recursive=true&Fields=Path&IncludeItemTypes=Series&api_key=<api_key>

will give you all you series with the path - all i did was add "path" to the fields property and limited the types returned to series with includeitemtypes 

 

both are available in swagger so experiment with adding other optional fields (as i showed you in my previous example above) and the other swagger options to limit or target specific things

[ginjaninja 533]

Each Api endpoint returns by default different amounts of "data" - so what you get is what emby uses in the web app etc

 

But most endpoints also allow you to specify extra data - which in this case you want the path to a the series folder

 

So...

../emby/Items?Recursive=true&Fields=Path&IncludeItemTypes=Series&api_key=<api_key>

will give you all you series with the path - all i did was add "path" to the fields property and limited the types returned to series with includeitemtypes 

 

both are available in swagger so experiment with adding other optional fields (as i showed you in my previous example above) and the other swagger options to limit or target specific things

thanks again that makes alot of sense

[ginjaninja 533]

Thanks @@PenkethBoy, , much more fun when you have a bit of help.

i now have a working theme music downloader

 

Had to work out how to iterate through the converted json, extracting variables as you go, so this might help others

$MediaUrl = $embyServerUrl + "/emby/users/" + $User.User.Id + "/Items?Fields=Path,ProviderIds&Recursive=true&SortBy=SortName&SortOrder=Ascending&IncludeItemTypes=Series" + "&api_key=" + $User.AccessToken
$TestResult = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $MediaUrl -Method Get

$Shows = $TestResult.Content | ConvertFrom-Json

Foreach ($show in $Shows.items) {
    
    $ThemeUrl = $themebaseUrl + $show.ProviderIds.Tvdb + ".mp3"
    $Filepath = $show.path + "\Theme.mp3"
    Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $ThemeUrl -OutFile $Filepath
}

[Behinder 0]

I am giving up having the same problem.

I am using Paw to testing API this is really annoying that just first endpoint encountered does not work, hell there is not even 'appNAme' parameter described in the docs, who wrote that API????

it does not even detect parameter set. I wasted 2 days to make it work and since I dont have a master degree from Hogwart looks I stay with Plex little longer.

 

 

Not to mention obvious error here 

 

How the Token can be in 'authenticateByName' header if the token is returned by the response from that endpoint ???? seriously ????

[Luke 37050]

 

 

How the Token can be in 'authenticateByName' header if the token is returned by the response from that endpoint ???? seriously ????

When authenticating the token will be omitted. That required header entry is being displayed for all endpoints generically. Obviously as you've realized, it needs to be slightly adjusted when not yet authenticated.

[jscoys 143]

On 5/18/2020 at 7:12 PM, Behinder said:

I am giving up having the same problem.

I am using Paw to testing API this is really annoying that just first endpoint encountered does not work, hell there is not even 'appNAme' parameter described in the docs, who wrote that API????

it does not even detect parameter set. I wasted 2 days to make it work and since I dont have a master degree from Hogwart looks I stay with Plex little longer.

 

 

Not to mention obvious error here 

 

How the Token can be in 'authenticateByName' header if the token is returned by the response from that endpoint ???? seriously ????

Hum I'm having the same "Value cannot be null. (Parameter 'appName')" than the others, @Luke I'm using POSTMAN, can you explain me exactly what I have to do to make it work?

Here is what I'm declaring in the headers:

 

And here in the body:

 

What I'm doing wrong? Thx.

[jscoys 143]

OK!! I figured it out. Instead of separating the different parameters in the headers, you have to put only one called "Authorization" and put all the other parameters (Client, Device, DeviceId...) in its value as a whole. An example here (In bulk Edit view of PostMan):

Authorization:Emby UserId="blah", Client="MyClient", Device="Samsung Galaxy SIII", DeviceId="123456", Version="1.0.0.0""

You can copy the string above in your bulk edit view in Postman and then switch to Key-Value Edit...

Edited October 3, 2020 by jscoys

[Luke 37050]

Well done.

[deeaamon 0]

Thank you jscoys

I have been looking for answer to this problem for days.  The documentation is very confusing.  This really helped.

 

[Arijit 0]

Thanks @jscoys 
This is really helpful.