Emby app hangs for 30 seconds when rejoining WiFi from cellular

[shortstrawfate 1]

Hi all,

I have an Emby Server set up with Caddy as a reverse proxy on the same machine, and with Emby inaccessible on the internal network except via the proxy. I have my own domain emby.xyz.com which Caddy handles SSL for and I use the same public DNS name on the internal network and when out and about on cellular data. A CNAME record forwards my Emby hostname to the dynamic DNS maintained by my home router and for the most part this works brilliantly - the public DNS name of my server reserves to the same IP address internally and externally, and for internal traffic my home router routes web traffic for my public IP back to my server.

Speedwise everything is fantastic, but switching networks is a pain - specifically when rejoining my home WiFi. The steps I go through to recreate this are as follows:

1. Connect to home WiFi.
2. Launch the Emby app - all OK, playing media, etc.
3. Turn WiFi off and move onto cellular data.
4. A second or two at most, sometimes with '?' images on some of the libraries, then it refreshes and the app is working fine on cellular data, playing media, all OK.
5. Rejoin the WiFi.
6. A delay of about 30 seconds (I've timed it from when I turn WiFi back on) where no content will load at all, can't browse the library and the library images are just grey, not even the '?' image which usually means it'll sort itself out shortly.
7. The app starts working fine again.

I understand that switching networks while playing media is on the 'to do list', but the above happens even when I'm not playing media. The fact that I timed it to almost exactly 30 seconds makes me think something is timing out, but why only when I move to the internal WiFi connection from cellular, and not the other direction? It only happens with the app, if I move my laptop between WiFi and hotspot it recovers pretty quickly.

Is the Emby app trying to connect directly on the LAN because it knows it's "home"? Has anyone else had this?

Edited June 13, 2024 by shortstrawfate
Clarification

[Luke 42077]

Hi, what happens when you switch networks is that current network requests may time out and fail. It's waiting for this that causes the delay. After that, the network switch to the new address is usually very fast. This is something that we are constantly working on improving.

[shortstrawfate 1]

Thanks for the reply! Totally get that all software is a 'work-in-progress'. Any ideas why it would be so much worse specifically when reconnecting to WiFi though? The scenario above is consistent and once the 30 seconds has passed it works perfectly again.

Or is there somewhere I can adjust the timeout? Once it's settled again it never takes more than a split second to respond so for us at least 30 seconds seems far too long.

[shortstrawfate 1]

For those interested, I've tested this at work this morning and the 30 second delay/time-out happens there as well, so it seems to be WiFi connections in general that are affected, not just being on the home network.