Next Episode stopped working

[Cluttered 15]

I run emby server 4.7.14.0  on my iMac (latest Monterey) and up until a few days ago it was fine.

Now I play an episode from 'continue watching', it plays correctly, at the end I get the screen with the 'next episode' button in the lower right.

Again that all looks great, but if I press the 'next episode' button nothing happens, same on the Apple TV. I have to go back to home, then the next episode is shown in the 'continue watching' section, I click on the centre play arrow and off it goes.

I haven't changed anything. If I enable the 'auto play next episode' then that works properly but I prefer to play them one at a time.

Any ideas what is going on?

As I say, it happens from the app on my Mac and from the App on the Apple TV.

[Luke 42077]

Hi, are you able to update to Emby server 4.8?

[Cluttered 15]

No. Every time I tried 4.8 it screwed something up.

The last was to do with live tv, I seem to remember it was something about it ignoring the fact that programmes already existed in the library so it recorded absolutely everything it could find!! My scheduled recordings went from about 6 in a week to dozens, it was ridiculous and unusable.

Live TV is one of the main things I need it for (replaced EyeTV) so I will stick with 4.7 which works. My iMac is stuck on Monterey so I 'll just have to learn to live with older versions.

It's odd that it happened on both Mac & AppleTV which would suggest it's at the server end rather than the clients, but I don't understand why it happened as nothing has changed and it was working fine up until a few days ago.

I tried deleting the temp folder's contents, restarting the Mac (and the server obviously) nothing seems to help. I just wondered if there was some obvious solution. 

[GrimReaper 4739]

5 hours ago, Cluttered said:

Now I play an episode from 'continue watching', it plays correctly, at the end I get the screen with the 'next episode' button in the lower right.

Again that all looks great, but if I press the 'next episode' button nothing happens, same on the Apple TV. I have to go back to home, then the next episode is shown in the 'continue watching' section, I click on the centre play arrow and off it goes.

I can reproduce that on 4.7.14.0/local Web app as well, having "Play next episode" unticked and "Enable next video info during playback" ticked results in filled "Next episode" button and frozen screen at the end of episode. 

Try unticking "Enable next video info" as only with both options disabled I can make it to  behave as it should, return to Home Screen upon playback ends. 

[Cluttered 15]

I have enable next video and autoplay next video both off, some episodes do hang at the end but most were fine. These ones aren't hanging, they go back to the series screen is it? (the first image I posted) with the next button on it. It recognises it is a button as the mouse pointer changes when I hover over it but pressing it any number of times does nothing.

It does sometimes take a while to update the latest episode after one finishes but that never seemed to cause issues using the 'next' button. 

And I don't think I changed anything at all on the server so why did it change suddenly?

 

 

Edited August 19, 2024 by Cluttered

[GrimReaper 4739]

15 minutes ago, Cluttered said:

These ones aren't hanging, they go back to the series screen is it? (the first image I posted) with the next button on it.

 

6 hours ago, Cluttered said:

at the end I get the screen with the 'next episode' button in the lower right.

Nope, they don't go back, that's episode playback screen hanging at the end - though, contrary to that screenshot, my "Next episode" button does get filled and then screen hangs. 

Edit: Try enabling both of those options, play one episode to the end, let second play automatically and then disable them both again, see if there are any changes in behaviour afterwards. 

Edited August 19, 2024 by GrimReaper
Append

[Cluttered 15]

Tried enabling those as suggested, played an episode to the end and then restored the settings. No difference.

It also seems to change per series. 'The Good Place' ends with the button being black as in the image and the image itself dark. 'Red Dwarf' finishes with the button white, the background image normal and I can press the button, but if I do I get a black screen and nothing else. If I tap the remote (appletv) then It shows the details from thew episode just finmished but the sstart and end times are 0.00 and -0.00. 

I have to go back to the home screen for it to update and show the details for the next episode.

[Cluttered 15]

22 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, are you able to update to Emby server 4.8?

Just looking at the fault for the re-recording existing tv shows (I forgot to follow it so missed all the new stuff) and it says it should be addressed in 4.8.4 not 4.9 (there is some mention of the 4.9 beta channel which I think is what I saw and got confused by!).

So is it working normally in 4.8.8.4 i.e. will it check the livetv recordings Library and the TV Shows Library & Movies Library as it does on 4.7? 

There's also some mention of needing to set an option on the TV shows, is that just on the schedule? 

Haven't tried a newer 4.8 yet, I don't want to screw up my 4.7 system.  

I think last time I did it I backed up the "/User/Mark/.config/emby-server" installed 4.8, tried it, put 4.7 back on, restored the emby-server folder and all was well. I think I also used the backup & restore plugin to save and then restore the settings. Does that sound right or is there anything else I need to save? It's a long time since I tried it. My media library is 7TB on a drobo.

 

[Cluttered 15]

Right, installed 4.8.8.4, updated smartplaylists (why is it still not in the catalogue!!) and all seems okay, schedules look right, just recording a programme to check that that is okay. 

Watching an episode of Red Dwarf, when it finished I pressed next episode and it still shows a black screen, if I tap the remote it shows the data for the episode that just finished with start 0:00 and end -0:00 so it hasn't helped with the original problem.

[Cluttered 15]

I'm guessing that this is just a 'feature' that I have to put up with now?

It's very annoying.

[Cluttered 15]

Now Playing updates properly so it knows it has finished. Activity shows the finished watching message but nothing I do will get next episode to actually work.

It fails on every platform I try (AppleTV, iPad, iPhone, iMac, Android tablet). I've cleared out the cache and temp/tmp folders and reinstalled the server app itself.

[Luke 42077]

Hi @Clutteredwe are looking into this. Thanks for reporting.

[Cluttered 15]

That's great news, thank you.

I don't think I did anything, one day it worked the next it didn't. Doesn't work on AppleTV, iPad, iMac or Android (Lenovo M8 & Samsung Galaxy Tab S9+). 

Makes it look like a server issue but 4.7 & 4.8 both do it, I've reinstalled (didn't really expect anything of that) and cleared the caches. It's very odd. Plus others have said it is happening to them too.

It's strange. I don't allow remote entry, none of my VPN or firewall rules have changed, all the hardware is the same etc. etc. I really can't identify any changes. Even the programmes I was watching are the same, it worked for the first few series of Red Dwarf & Midsomer Murders, didn't work for the later ones (or the earlier ones if I go back).

It's one of those things you can't miss, either it plays the next episode or it sits there forever, so it's not possible it broke earlier and I didn't notice.

Anyway, thanks again.

[Cluttered 15]

Hi,

Just put 4.8.9.0 on and it doesn't fix this issue, not sure if it was meant to, just letting you know.

[Cluttered 15]

Any progress on this?

[Luke 42077]

Hi, we are looking into this. Thanks.

[87racer 1]

Problem still exists on latest versions...

[Luke 42077]

HI, this should be resolved in the next update to the app. Thanks.