How to auto connect to gateway ip for the emby server

[josetann 0]

Here's what I'm trying to do.

I have one of those Carlinkit boxes that have a sim card and a micro sd slot. Runs Android (13 I think).

I have successfully installed the emby server (pulling media from the sd card) and the emby app on it, emby is set to connect to localhost, I have no issues.

I can connect via hotspot using another device (iphone, android phone, firetv stick, etc.) and if I put in the ip address of the carlinkit device as the emby server to connect to, everything works great! I can't believe my luck, such a cheap device that can play movies on my car's display (when parked to charge, not in motion) and stream to everyone else in the car via emby (no Netflix subscription required)! Except...

The ip address of the carlinkit is always changing. It's always 192.168.x.x, but it could be 192.168.43.37 one time, and 192.168.54.37 the next time...no rhyme or reason. Searching shows that this is just a known thing with newer Android versions since maybe version 8 or 9?

I'm hoping someone knows a workaround. Just need a way to tell the emby app to always try to connect to the gateway ip, whatever that might be. This setup would work perfectly if I can figure out how to do that.

Edited January 30, 2025 by josetann

[Luke 42077]

Hi, in emby server network settings, you could try setting the "local ip address" option.

[Luke 42077]

@josetannhas this helped?

[josetann 0]

No, I don't think emby server can force android to use a particular ip...even if it could it'd be in addition to whatever the hotspot doled out, so I'd be configuring each client to use both dhcp and manual...which may not even be possible.

Was kinda hoping for something like "in android you can use %gateway% to make it use whatever the gateway ip happens to be". I haven't found such a workaround.

In the interim I bit the bullet and am using a standalone 4g router that, while it can't set static ips, does allow me to use a static ip on a client. So the ai box (weird name for these devices) has a static ip that I can use in the emby client, and all works well. Unless the router didn't boot up right and needs to be unplugged/replugged, but it does work great otherwise. Well, it did give quite a bit of trouble for the initial indexing of all the files, but as long as I set it to save the nfo and artwork alongside the media files, and go through each one to set manually, it works great on subsequent runs. Not going to complain, I am asking it to work in a way not originally intended.

I will ask for one feature, which I think might help. In normal use I haven't seen an issue, but when emby server is working hard (indexing new files, serving to others) it just quits sometimes. It might be crashing, though I think android may just be killing a background process. Perhaps an option to have a notification so android won't try to kill it? I don't believe the notification would actually be visible, but if Android believes there is one, it shouldn't try to kill the process.

[Luke 42077]

Are you not able to set a static LAN ip for it?

[josetann 0]

Not for Android that you're using as hotspot unless you're rooted. I CAN set an ip manually if it's a client, which is my workaround for now.

[Luke 42077]

What clients are you using?