Emby Theater 3.0.20 hang on Splash Screan

[softworkz 5066]

8 minutes ago, anacondo said:

Is that why Emby Theater takes about 250MB of disk space while the Windows App takes 900MB?

 

The 900 MB figure is really an unfortunate story. It is actually the sum of sizes of the Windows x64, Windows x86 and Xbox x64 app packages. No idea why the MS Store shows the total sum.

The actual Windows x64 app package is  390 MB. The reason for that size is that we ship our own version of the WebView2 runtime (that's the Chromium-based browser engine for apps from MS).  The usual way is that apps use the WebView2 version that is currently installed on each machine, but we are shipping a specific WebView2 version to make sure that our app is independent from whichever "security" updates MS and Google will add to their browsers and which could disrupt Emby client operation. Also, when using the system WebView2 runtime, it always keeps running in the background (msedgewebview2.exe) while ours shuts down with the app and doesn't do any other things like the system-installed version.

The usage of that fixed WebView2 runtime accounts for the longer startup time. 

8 minutes ago, anacondo said:

Is that why Emby Theater takes about 250MB of disk space while the Windows App takes 900MB?

If that is true, how come Theater takes 5s to launch and show my videos while the Windows App takes 20s and everything it needs to launch is available offline? That doesn't make any sense to me

Pull networks plugs, power down your router  or whatever: The new Window app will start, connect to a local Emby server and work with it.

[softworkz 5066]

25 minutes ago, anacondo said:

That doesn't make any sense to me, and it's the reason I won't consider the Windows App in its current state.

If you are unsure, I recommend SysInternals' Process Monitor.
It can record everything that an application does in terms of: File operations, Registry Access, Network Communication and process execution.

The Emby Windows app has nothing to hide and unlike most other contemporary applications, it doesn't have any built-in telemetry.
(excepting beta versions)

[Volodesi 11]

I'd totally switch over to the Windows Store version if it wasn't for the fact that it has a Title bar. 

 

Is it possible to add an option to make it look like the Emby Theater App? I usually watch everything in 1920x1080 window on my 4k display. So I can do other stuff while it's on screen. It's not really a big issue since I can use the Theater app, but it seems like it may be sun-setted at some point?

 

[softworkz 5066]

1 minute ago, Volodesi said:

I'd totally switch over to the Windows Store version if it wasn't for the fact that it has a Title bar. 

There are three ways to get into full-screen (rather than just maximized):

• Double-Click somewhere in the top 10% area of the window content
• The full-screen button is always visible at the right top (unless display mode is set to TV)
• Press F11 key

Most importantly: If you exit the app in full-screen mode, it will start in full-screen mode next time!

[Volodesi 11]

1 minute ago, softworkz said:

There are three ways to get into full-screen (rather than just maximized):

• Double-Click somewhere in the top 10% area of the window content
• The full-screen button is always visible at the right top (unless display mode is set to TV)
• Press F11 key

Most importantly: If you exit the app in full-screen mode, it will start in full-screen mode next time!

 

I don't mean to be rude. But did you even read the rest of my post?

[softworkz 5066]

6 minutes ago, Volodesi said:

I don't mean to be rude. But did you even read the rest of my post?

My fault. I had been primed by several questions about full-screen mode in this and another conversation and a request for the app showing without title bar in windowed mode is a bit off from typical questions (actually: nobody has ever asked for it  )

So I'm afraid, but the answer is that this isn't possible.

Thanks

[TheLaceySods 3]

I've started to explore the windows store version.

Once I set the display mode to TV, it was a familiar feel again.

I can now launch from my ancient MCE remote using the green button by mapping a keyboard shortcut.

I'm prepared to give this a go, despite what I said earlier.

[Theodore 136]

42 minutes ago, softworkz said:

There are three ways to get into full-screen (rather than just maximized):

• Double-Click somewhere in the top 10% area of the window content
• The full-screen button is always visible at the right top (unless display mode is set to TV)
• Press F11 key

Most importantly: If you exit the app in full-screen mode, it will start in full-screen mode next time!

If you are going to quote me (and others) and post this same reply, please go back to Windows documentation and read and understand what we are saying. Full Screen does NOT equal Maximized. Maximized fills the screen yes, but it still shows the title bar. Full Screen (aka Kiosk) is as you describe here, but as I and others have said previously (several times), we use Theater on an HTPC and you do not interact with them via mouse or keyboard so this "solution" is absolutely NOT a solution. 

Now I will grant that the display mode of TV vs Auto did fix the presentation/menu aspect of the Store version, but that is it. Not the screensaver and NOT the title bar.

[softworkz 5066]

8 minutes ago, Theodore said:

Full Screen (aka Kiosk) is as you describe here, but as I and others have said previously (several times), we use Theater on an HTPC and you do not interact with them via mouse or keyboard so this "solution" is absolutely NOT a solution. 

Please go back to my reply and read the last sentence. There's nothing in this regard that ET does and the new app doesn't. 

After a fresh install of ET it opens in windowed mode. So how do you bring that to full-screen? It doesn't support F11, so what remains are the other two options (or the maximize control button, but that requires mouse/kbd as well)

Once it is in full-screen it will open in full-screen next time.

Same does the new Windows app.

Edited April 6, 2025 by softworkz

[anacondo 4]

1 hour ago, softworkz said:

The usage of that fixed WebView2 runtime accounts for the longer startup time. 

That's unfortunate, I'd love to have an option with fast startup. How much RAM are we talking about for the official MS WebView version that's always running in the background? In my own personal use case, I don't mind dedicating a chunk of available RAM just for Emby as that's 90% of the use for the machine running my client anyway.

 

1 hour ago, softworkz said:

Pull networks plugs, power down your router  or whatever: The new Window app will start, connect to a local Emby server and work with it.

I'm not worried about privacy or the Windows App phoning home, I think we consumers lost that battle long along anyway. I'm only worried about usability and reliability, which is why I prefer Emby Theater (as long as it keeps working and there's no more issues like the one we just had). The fact that's only 1/3 the size of the Windows App is just a bonus, and I don't even like Electron! Give me a native Windows .NET App that loads in under 5s and doesn't ever break and I will gladly give it a go, even if I have to download 2TB of data.

[looking111 30]

7 hours ago, looking111 said:

Reinstalled ET (DEB package from here), removed the whole configuration under "/home/$USER/.config/Emby Theater", rebootet Emby Server, Emby server is found automatically, re-logged in. But playback is not yet possible.

I get these strange messages on the CMD from Emby Theater on the Linuxclients. Does this refer to the server or to the client?

fs access result for path: Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, access '\\data.tux.lan\Videos\Fantasy\some-movie.mp4'
fs access result for path: Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, access '/home/Movies1/MUSICVideos/Metal/some-video.mp4'

The first path is nonsense, it doesn't exist in this form under Linux. The second is correct and is also present on the server, they are all SAMBA amounts. In any case, it works normally with the WebUI.

On the serverlog i get this on the same time: 

2025-04-06 12:38:57.754 Info MediaInfoService-0HNBKHJPBPG5E:0000000D: http/1.1 POST http://‌‍‍192.168.1.6‌:8096/emby/Items/12348237/PlaybackInfo?UserId=eb2d11c9828b40ff9c4c6fe31676f948&StartTimeTicks=0&IsPlayback=true&AutoOpenLiveStream=true&AudioStreamIndex=1&MediaSourceId=mediasource_12348237&MaxStreamingBitrate=200000000&X-Emby-Client=Emby Theater&X-Emby-Device-Name=clientpc-peter&X-Emby-Device-Id=clientpc-peter&X-Emby-Client-Version=3.0.21&X-Emby-Token=‌c255686ec74938p8a685cbec281fd16f‌&X-Emby-Language=de&reqformat=json. Source Ip: ‌‍‍192.168.1.7‌, UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) EmbyTheater/3.0.21 Chrome/83.0.4103.122 Electron/9.4.4 Safari/537.36
2025-04-06 12:38:57.754 Info MediaInfoService-0HNBKHJPBPG5F:0000000A: http/1.1 POST http://‌‍‍192.168.1.6‌:8096/emby/Items/12348237/PlaybackInfo?UserId=eb2d11c9828b40ff9c4c6fe31676f948&StartTimeTicks=0&IsPlayback=false&AutoOpenLiveStream=false&MaxStreamingBitrate=200000000&X-Emby-Client=Emby Theater&X-Emby-Device-Name=clientpc-peter&X-Emby-Device-Id=clientpc-peter&X-Emby-Client-Version=3.0.21&X-Emby-Token=‌c255686ec74938p8a685cbec281fd16f‌&X-Emby-Language=de&reqformat=json. Source Ip: ‌‍‍192.168.1.7‌, UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) EmbyTheater/3.0.21 Chrome/83.0.4103.122 Electron/9.4.4 Safari/537.36
2025-04-06 12:38:57.757 Info App: User policy for peter. EnablePlaybackRemuxing: True EnableVideoPlaybackTranscoding: True EnableAudioPlaybackTranscoding: True
2025-04-06 12:38:57.757 Info SessionManager: Adding playSession 96ab0fe1b51d413fa7ef48225e689969 to session 2a9333fd9f5efa28d5c56962b9569040
2025-04-06 12:38:57.757 Info MediaInfoService-0HNBKHJPBPG5E:0000000D: http/1.1 Response 200 to ‌‍‍192.168.1.7‌. Time: 3ms. POST http://‌‍‍192.168.1.6‌:8096/emby/Items/12348237/PlaybackInfo?UserId=eb2d11c9828b40ff9c4c6fe31676f948&StartTimeTicks=0&IsPlayback=true&AutoOpenLiveStream=true&AudioStreamIndex=1&MediaSourceId=mediasource_12348237&MaxStreamingBitrate=200000000&X-Emby-Client=Emby Theater&X-Emby-Device-Name=clientpc-peter&X-Emby-Device-Id=clientpc-peter&X-Emby-Client-Version=3.0.21&X-Emby-Token=‌c255686ec74938p8a685cbec281fd16f‌&X-Emby-Language=de&reqformat=json
2025-04-06 12:38:57.757 Info App: User policy for peter. EnablePlaybackRemuxing: True EnableVideoPlaybackTranscoding: True EnableAudioPlaybackTranscoding: True
2025-04-06 12:38:57.757 Info MediaInfoService-0HNBKHJPBPG5F:0000000A: http/1.1 Response 200 to ‌‍‍192.168.1.7‌. Time: 3ms. POST http://‌‍‍192.168.1.6‌:8096/emby/Items/12348237/PlaybackInfo?UserId=eb2d11c9828b40ff9c4c6fe31676f948&StartTimeTicks=0&IsPlayback=false&AutoOpenLiveStream=false&MaxStreamingBitrate=200000000&X-Emby-Client=Emby Theater&X-Emby-Device-Name=clientpc-peter&X-Emby-Device-Id=clientpc-peter&X-Emby-Client-Version=3.0.21&X-Emby-Token=‌c255686ec74938p8a685cbec281fd16f‌&X-Emby-Language=de&reqformat=json

Am I missing a step?

I had to delete the client computer on the server under devices. Now it is working again.

[Luke 42077]

1 hour ago, Theodore said:

If you are going to quote me (and others) and post this same reply, please go back to Windows documentation and read and understand what we are saying. Full Screen does NOT equal Maximized. Maximized fills the screen yes, but it still shows the title bar. Full Screen (aka Kiosk) is as you describe here, but as I and others have said previously (several times), we use Theater on an HTPC and you do not interact with them via mouse or keyboard so this "solution" is absolutely NOT a solution. 

Now I will grant that the display mode of TV vs Auto did fix the presentation/menu aspect of the Store version, but that is it. Not the screensaver and NOT the title bar.

Isn't it a one-time change to go fullscreen?

[raymondjpg 16]

6 hours ago, softworkz said:

The truth is that I don't know what happened.

To me this is very strange. I would have thought that knowing what happened would be integral to the speed with which it was fixed. For that, thank you team!

[softworkz 5066]

 

9 minutes ago, raymondjpg said:

7 hours ago, softworkz said:

The truth is that I don't know what happened.

To me this is very strange. I would have thought that knowing what happened would be integral to the speed with which it was fixed. For that, thank you team!

 

 

If you would have quoted the whole line I posted:

7 hours ago, softworkz said:

The truth is that I don't know what happened. I've seen this  conversation for the first time about 30min ago.

 

Then it should be very clear that my message doesn't mean anything like "we have no clue", but it rather means just that I - personally - do not know what happened because I wasn't involved in this matter.

 

[raymondjpg 16]

8 minutes ago, softworkz said:

Then it should be very clear that my message doesn't mean anything like "we have no clue", but it rather means just that I - personally - do not know what happened because I wasn't involved in this matter.

 

I'm still none the wiser. Do you know now, and if so, could you share that with those of us who would like to know?

TIA!

[softworkz 5066]

6 minutes ago, raymondjpg said:

I'm still none the wiser. Do you know now

No, I don't, but anyway it's up to @Luketo comment on that.

I can only say: Prepare for saying "farewell"  to ET Desktop. It uses Electron 11.5 which corresponds to Chromium 87 from 4-5 years ago, that means that it's vulnerable to every browser security hole from the past 5 years. There's no future in this direction - alone for technical reasons.

[Theodore 136]

6 hours ago, softworkz said:

Please go back to my reply and read the last sentence. There's nothing in this regard that ET does and the new app doesn't. 

After a fresh install of ET it opens in windowed mode. So how do you bring that to full-screen? It doesn't support F11, so what remains are the other two options (or the maximize control button, but that requires mouse/kbd as well)

Once it is in full-screen it will open in full-screen next time.

Same does the new Windows app.

You are getting stuck on this and I don't know why, so let me be as clear as possible (because I am reading your responses in full) -- Full Screen is NOT the same as Maximized. Maximized is when you make a program display take up the entire monitor like by hitting the square in the upper right corner next to the X to close the app. Full Screen, aka Kiosk, is when it does this AND does not display a title bar AND overlaps the taskbar without hiding it separately, which is what Theater does right now when you fill the screen. Attached are screenshots of the title bar for both, see the difference? In the MS Store app "Emby" is in the title bar the entire time even during playback which ruins the experience as it keeps drawing eyes back to it - and this doesn't even touch covering the task bar for an immersive experience. So no, the app and Theater are NOT the same.

[Theodore 136]

7 hours ago, Volodesi said:

I'd totally switch over to the Windows Store version if it wasn't for the fact that it has a Title bar. 

 

Is it possible to add an option to make it look like the Emby Theater App? I usually watch everything in 1920x1080 window on my 4k display. So I can do other stuff while it's on screen. It's not really a big issue since I can use the Theater app, but it seems like it may be sun-setted at some point?

 

This is exactly what I have been trying to get through to them. This is the difference between Full Screen (no title bar, like hitting F11) and Maximized (hitting the square in the corner).

[Theodore 136]

5 hours ago, Luke said:

Isn't it a one-time change to go fullscreen?

No, Full Screen eliminates the title bar like hitting F11 does. In Theater there is not title bar so it is a really neat and clean experience not only browsing but also in playback. When using the MS App that title bar is there when maximized (which is what you are describing by doing something like hitting the square in the upper right) even during playback so it is a poor user experience constantly seeing the title bar at the top and "Emby" written on it and overlapping the movie and drawing the eye back to it every couple seconds. And this doesn't even touch covering the taskbar like Theater currently does when fully expanded. In short, there is too much Windows in the MS App and makes a poor experience when compared to Theater.

[softworkz 5066]

12 minutes ago, Theodore said:

You are getting stuck on this and I don't know why, so let me be as clear as possible (because I am reading your responses in full) -- Full Screen is NOT the same as Maximized. Maximized is when you make a program display take up the entire monitor like by hitting the square in the upper right corner next to the X to close the app. Full Screen, aka Kiosk, is when it does this AND does not display a title bar AND overlaps the taskbar without hiding it separately, which is what Theater does right now when you fill the screen. Attached are screenshots of the title bar for both, see the difference? In the MS Store app "Emby" is in the title bar the entire time even during playback which ruins the experience as it keeps drawing eyes back to it - and this doesn't even touch covering the task bar for an immersive experience. So no, the app and Theater are NOT the same.

I know the difference between full-screen and maximized very well.

The three options I described are switching the Emby Windows app into full-screen mode - not maximized.

Pressing this little button:

..also gets you into full-screen mode, which means that you don't see a title bar and you don't see the task bar.

[scottpro 10]

Just double-click in the area between the "Home/Favorites" buttons and the Search Bar and it will go into Fullscreen mode (the Windows Store version).  TV mode shown.  Desktop display mode will still show the Emby icons but not the Windows title bar.

Windowed mode with the title bar (TV mode)

After double-clicking, Fullscreen without title bar (TV mode).

Edited April 7, 2025 by scottpro

[Theodore 136]

25 minutes ago, softworkz said:

No, I don't, but anyway it's up to @Luketo comment on that.

I can only say: Prepare for saying "farewell"  to ET Desktop. It uses Electron 11.5 which corresponds to Chromium 87 from 4-5 years ago, that means that it's vulnerable to every browser security hole from the past 5 years. There's no future in this direction - alone for technical reasons.

This is the first I am seeing the explanation and it makes sense, just please either update the app to a current installer version (preferred over an app store model) or fix the display issues that I and others in this thread have pointed out.

[Theodore 136]

1 minute ago, scottpro said:

Just double-click in the area between the "Home/Favorites" buttons and the Search Bar and it will go into Fullscreen mode (the Windows Store version)

Again, not a solution for HTPC usage. It needs to either start in Full Screen mode or jump to it on its own immediately after launch and do this without user interaction. 

[softworkz 5066]

1 minute ago, Theodore said:

This is the first I am seeing the explanation and it makes sense,

I had explained that elsewhere in more detail. The other part of the story is that Chromium has shut down support for PPAPI/NaCl plugins, which is the way how MPV player is integrated into the Electron app. That's why we had to go a whole new and different way for video playback integration and also the reason why we couldn't upgrade to newer Electron versions anymore.

[softworkz 5066]

Just now, Theodore said:

Again, not a solution for HTPC usage. It needs to either start in Full Screen mode or jump to it on its own immediately after launch and do this without user interaction. 

It does that. When you close it while full-screen it will open again in full-screen mode.