Playlist of photos doesn't work on Roku

[vlad_bezden 0]

Hi,

I have Emby version 4.8.8.0 running on my Synology NAS, and I stream content to my Roku using the Emby app. My main goal is to view and play my collection of pictures. I can access and play my pictures from the collection, which works well. However, when I create a playlist and try to play it by selecting "Play All," I encounter a "Playback Error." Additionally, when I navigate to the list of pictures on the left side and press "play" or "play all from here," the loading circle spins indefinitely.

The playlist works on iPhone 15 Pro Max with iOS 17.6.1 and on the Safary browser. It looks like the only issue is with the Roku. I bought another Roku Ultra, installed the Emby server there, and tried it there, and it's the same behavior.

The log file looks like the type of file cannot be identified. It says "unknown  item."

Please advise.

Thanks, and keep up the good work.

embyserver.txt

[ebr 16169]

Hi.  The Roku doesn't currently support a playlist containing photos.  We'll have to look at that.

10 hours ago, vlad_bezden said:

Additionally, when I navigate to the list of pictures on the left side and press "play" or "play all from here," the loading circle spins indefinitely.

Exactly where are you doing this?  In what context/view?

[vlad_bezden 0]

Thank you, team, for your response. Are you saying it doesn't work because of a bug, and you are planning to fix it, or the feature doesn't exist at all, and you are planning to add it?

I would love to have that feature!

Quote

Exactly where are you doing this?  In what context/view?

When I navigate to my photo playlist, I see a list of photo names on the left side without any previews. When I select a photo and press play or play all from here, I encounter an infinite spinning wheel instead of the expected action.

Thanks again.

Edited September 12, 2024 by vlad_bezden

[ebr 16169]

It is a feature that just doesn't exist in the app and we'll have to look at how to implement it.  This is the first time I can recall anyone creating a playlist of photos .

1 hour ago, vlad_bezden said:

When I navigate to my photo playlist

Okay, so within the context of the playlist of photos.  So same issue as above - the app simply isn't expecting to encounter photos in a playlist.

Thanks for reporting.

[vlad_bezden 0]

This feature works on iPhone (iOS) applications in the Safari browser. I thought if it works there, it should work on Roku too.

The reason for creating a playlist of photos is that I need to create a folder or container that has pictures located in different folders. For instance, I have 10,000 pictures and they are located in folders by year. I would like to have photos of all my travels. In this case, I just go to each year, find the folder with the travel pictures, and add it to the playlist. Now, I have all my travel pictures in one playlist. An alternative would be to create a separate folder and copy photographs there, but that would create duplicate pictures.

Can you recommend any other ways to organize photos without copying them?

Thanks again.

[ebr 16169]

Your use case is valid it is just the first time I've heard of someone doing it and the app simply isn't expecting it at this time.

[vlad_bezden 0]

2 hours ago, vlad_bezden said:

Can you recommend any other ways to organize photos without copying them?

Please advise. Thanks.

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

3 hours ago, vlad_bezden said:

This feature works on iPhone (iOS) applications in the Safari browser. I thought if it works there, it should work on Roku too.

The reason for creating a playlist of photos is that I need to create a folder or container that has pictures located in different folders. For instance, I have 10,000 pictures and they are located in folders by year. I would like to have photos of all my travels. In this case, I just go to each year, find the folder with the travel pictures, and add it to the playlist. Now, I have all my travel pictures in one playlist. An alternative would be to create a separate folder and copy photographs there, but that would create duplicate pictures.

Can you recommend any other ways to organize photos without copying them?

Thanks again.

I think collections would do the job for you. But I have never tested photo collections so i do not know for sure.

Also your phrasing leads me to think that you may be using the folder view. If they are all in one library then the photo view puts them (the photos) all in the same view and you can use favorites to isolate a set of folders. 

If you are not able to use one library then collections will, probably, work for what you want. But I cannot confirm that works and I know that TV and Movie collections do not have an alpha picker and i suspect that a photo collection will not have one either.

I will make a quick test and let you know.

Edit: I tested and photo collections do work, mostly. Once created they cannot be viewed in the web interface. That is they show as collections but the contents are not show unless you "play" the collection.
On the Roku they appear to work fine and the contents are shown and pressing play makes them play kind of like a playlist but it always starts with the first photo in the collection and it takes two play presses to get the collection playing.

Roku needs to do a lot of work on their photo functionality but collections might work for what you want until the collection/playlist functionality gets fixed or, as they have done with other things before, gets removed or fixed like taking the dog to the vet to have him "fixed." 

I hope that helps a bit.

As a last test I tried to select and show a single photo from a collection on my Roku but no matter which photo I choose the first photo in the collection is the one shown and play always starts from the first photo.

The collection function for photos is broken but it is a workaround for photo playlists. Fortunately, for me, my photos are either "favorites" or not and if I limit the display to favorites and I play from the regular photo display with favorites on I can play the favorites and start wherever in the list I want.

Edited September 12, 2024 by Gilgamesh_48
Additition

[speechles 2055]

We have added this to our tracker. This wasn't intentional. We will get this into the app soon.

Reference: Issue #1637: Support photos in playlist

Edited September 13, 2024 by speechles

[vlad_bezden 0]

18 hours ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

I think collections would do the job for you. But I have never tested photo collections so i do not know for sure.

Also your phrasing leads me to think that you may be using the folder view. If they are all in one library then the photo view puts them (the photos) all in the same view and you can use favorites to isolate a set of folders. 

If you are not able to use one library then collections will, probably, work for what you want. But I cannot confirm that works and I know that TV and Movie collections do not have an alpha picker and i suspect that a photo collection will not have one either.

I will make a quick test and let you know.

Edit: I tested and photo collections do work, mostly. Once created they cannot be viewed in the web interface. That is they show as collections but the contents are not show unless you "play" the collection.
On the Roku they appear to work fine and the contents are shown and pressing play makes them play kind of like a playlist but it always starts with the first photo in the collection and it takes two play presses to get the collection playing.

Roku needs to do a lot of work on their photo functionality but collections might work for what you want until the collection/playlist functionality gets fixed or, as they have done with other things before, gets removed or fixed like taking the dog to the vet to have him "fixed." 

I hope that helps a bit.

As a last test I tried to select and show a single photo from a collection on my Roku but no matter which photo I choose the first photo in the collection is the one shown and play always starts from the first photo.

The collection function for photos is broken but it is a workaround for photo playlists. Fortunately, for me, my photos are either "favorites" or not and if I limit the display to favorites and I play from the regular photo display with favorites on I can play the favorites and start wherever in the list I want.

It only works if I have collection of photos, and not folders. For instance I traveled in three different places in 2024, so I have 

2024

    Travel Canada

        Montreal

        Quebec

        Toronto

    Travel Argentina

         xxx

         yyy

    Travel Cambodia

    Other Folders

 

I need to be able to create a playlist named "Travel 2024" and add folders from different countries to it. This works on my phone and in Safari, but it doesn't work on Roku. I also tried creating a collection and adding the folders to it, but that didn't work on Roku either because the collection only supports folders, not pictures. So, I still have to navigate to the folder and play the content from there, just like any other folders.

Thanks

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

1 hour ago, vlad_bezden said:

It only works if I have collection of photos, and not folders. For instance I traveled in three different places in 2024, so I have 

2024

    Travel Canada

        Montreal

        Quebec

        Toronto

    Travel Argentina

         xxx

         yyy

    Travel Cambodia

    Other Folders

 

I need to be able to create a playlist named "Travel 2024" and add folders from different countries to it. This works on my phone and in Safari, but it doesn't work on Roku. I also tried creating a collection and adding the folders to it, but that didn't work on Roku either because the collection only supports folders, not pictures. So, I still have to navigate to the folder and play the content from there, just like any other folders.

Thanks

You can, with a bit of trouble to get naming correct add any photo you can see in Emby to any collection including new ones created in any way Emby allows. Collections are not listed always correctly but they can be used and even photos from different libraries are included. If you want to add the entire contents of a folder to a collection you can go into the library involved (It does not matter if it is showing as folders or photos) then go into the folder you want to add the photos from and then select the first photo (small circle at the top left of the poster) and then scroll to the last photo and select it with shift+click. That will select all photos in the folder the, using the three dot menu in the upper right choose "add to collection and then from the list select the collection you want the photos in or create a new collection.

That seems a bit involved but it really quite easy. Then, after creating the collection, you can navigate to the collection you used (I use the collection library that I display on the home screen (a photo library does not have a collection tab) ) and enter it and play the entire collection by simply pressing play on your Roku remote or any another client's remote. 

I do not use playlists as i find collections, since an item can be in many different collections, work much better. The one thing to keep in mind is that, in the web interface as opposed to the clients, collections do not display well for photos at all. You can create and populate collections in the web interface but they do not display or play the same as they do on clients like the Roku. 

I use collections for everything that I would want a playlist for and I find collections the superior method.
It is not perfect but it works and from your description it would work for you. 

Lastly if you use "automatic collection generation" in TV or Movie libraries and you have a good number of videos you will have a ton of nearly useless collections and it may be quite hard to find a collection. I do not recommend using the automatic collections feature as it just clutters things up too much and, at least for me, groups movies stupidly. 

As I said collections are far from perfect for this use but they do work and provide a work around until Emby fixes photo playlists.