Casting music to Chromecast functionality not working recently

[Oldjuju 4]

Hi all,

Not sure if this is the right area.

Emby server 4.8.10.0 running on Unraid
Media is stored on a QNAP and mounted via samba.
Android 15 with Emby for Android 3.4.20

I've been using Emby for years for all media.
I constantly cast my music to my chromecast speaker group and the functionality suddenly changed about a week ago.

I can still cast from my mobile (and Fire tablet) to the speaker group, but I can no longer control the playback.
The android media control behaves differently.
Sometimes I can see the media and pause/resume.
Sometimes I can't see what's playing.
I've just realised that this behaviour is dependent on if Emby on my mobile is attached to the session. Although I'm pretty sure that this used to work if I started the session from the Fire tablet.
If I ask google assistant to pause the music, it says it "can't find anything playing right now". This is even if the android media control works.

Sometimes the Emby session on the mobile loses connection and I can no longer control or reconnect to the session.

I've tried to use the Emby API and pause via the SessionService.
This works fine if playing from my android phone, but when I've cast the audio to the Chromecast speaker group, it sees the session (Client: Emby for Chromecast), and the POST command returns a 204, but nothing happens.
I can see the API calls in the log and there are no errors reported.

There's no issues playing videos on my Nvidia shield.

I'm at a loss.
Any assistance would be amazing.

thanks,

Cam

embyserver.txt

Edited November 20, 2024 by Oldjuju
Added extra information

[Luke 42078]

Hi @Oldjujucan you try this again? Are you still having an issue with this?

[Oldjuju 4]

Hi Luke, just tried again. This is still an issue.

I played around with the Emby API to play/pause through node-red. It works fine while casting youtube music, but doesn't work with casting Emby.

[skippa78 3]

This is an issue for me to. I cannot control playback by the speaker controls, Home App and over the Chromecast implementation in FHEM, IoBroker and Homeassistant. Setting volume does work. Play and pause does not. This worked perfectly until recently. It maybe that it worked before the upate to 4.8.x.. My children always used the button on the JBL Portable to pause and play. I thought the buttons were damaged until I realised that this is a problem with emby. 

I tested jellyfin to test if this is a general problem. But the implementation in jellyfin works fine with chromecast. Spotify, Youtube and other apps also don't habe a problem. I can pause them over Home app, FHEM, ioBroker and Homeassistant and the button also works.

Edited December 10, 2024 by skippa78

[skippa78 3]

I have to correct: It seems that it worked until 4.8.10, 4.8.9 or 4.8.8.

And additionally the play-Status cannot be seen in the Chromecast implementation for HA, FHEM and ioBroker. Even in Android you cannot get the playstatus in the Home app or in the Status. This works perfectly with everey other media App I use (Youtube, Spotify, mutliple Webradio-Apps, Jellyfin (as test) ...).

Edited December 10, 2024 by skippa78

[Oldjuju 4]

Thanks Skippa. (kinda) glad it's not just me.

I took all the other components out of the equation to work out which piece was the problem.

Home Assistant, zigbee buttons with zigbee2mqtt. But using these and just replacing the music source (YTM or jellyfin instead of Emby), every other music source cast to the same speaker group was controllable. Just Emby.
 

[Luke 42078]

Hi, we're looking into this. Thanks for reporting.

[nono56 1]

Idem, même symptômes...

Google home ne voit pas la diffusion de la musique sur mes enceintes qui se mettent en veille au bout d'une dizaine de minutes... Les boutons de l' enceinte sont inutilisables, le bluetooth pour contourner le problème mais plus de multiroom... La loose 

Fonctionne bien avec plex, youtube, Deezer.... Mais ni jellyfin, ni navigateur chrome...

Help je l'utilise énormément !

[bellstrom 0]

How are your audio files encoded?  MP3 or something else?

[Luke 42078]

@nono56?

[nono56 1]

On 30/01/2025 at 21:15, Luke said:

@nono56?

MP3 et autres... Toujours les mêmes symptômes...

[Luke 42078]

Hi, can you try this again? Thanks.

[skippa78 3]

On 12/13/2024 at 5:07 AM, Luke said:

Hi, we're looking into this. Thanks for reporting.

Is there news about this? Seems that it should not be a big problem hence it worked at a time. Casting is very essential for a toll like emby, at least I would think so. Thanks. 

[Luke 42078]

37 minutes ago, skippa78 said:

Is there news about this? Seems that it should not be a big problem hence it worked at a time. Casting is very essential for a toll like emby, at least I would think so. Thanks. 

Hi, yes we are still looking at it, thanks.

[Luke 42078]

Hi, please try this again and let us know if your issue is resolved. Thanks.

[nono56 1]

Victoire !!! Le problème semble résolu

Le problème devait venir de google...

Merci a vous

[skippa78 3]

If the problem was with google, I'd really like to know, why of around 15 Mediaplayer-Apps we use, only emby was affected. That seems weird. 

Edited May 12, 2025 by skippa78

[Luke 42078]

16 hours ago, skippa78 said:

If the problem was with google, I'd really like to know, why of around 15 Mediaplayer-Apps we use, only emby was affected. That seems weird. 

@skippa78Hi, please try this again and let us know if your issue is resolved. Thanks.

[skippa78 3]

I did and it works, thanks. The question is, what was it now?

[Luke 42078]

8 hours ago, skippa78 said:

I did and it works, thanks. The question is, what was it now?

It was an issue we identified in our chromecast receiver. Thanks.

[skippa78 3]

Ok. So the stament above from nono56 was not correct as I thought. 

Thank you very much!