Multiple Video Playlist Issues

[piecesofme 3]

Hi,

I’ve been having a few issues with Emby since some of the updates over the last 18 months so I’ve been mostly using Plex. I really want to come back to Emby so trying to troubleshoot some of the issues going on.

I’ve been having multiple issues with Video Playlists that I can’t quite figure out. 

1) There are “Folder” Playlists that are showing up but are all empty. This is via web interface, AppleTV App, etc. Don’t know why they are there but empty. There are also “Genre” playlist folders that are there but are also all empty. I’ve also tried using Infuse player connected to Emby and the only Playlists that show up are the Folder playlists mentioned above, which are also empty on Infuse.

2) The only playlists that show up with media content in them are custom Playlists that I create. However, I’ve had issues with custom Playlists that I’ve created disappearing altogether or having the custom artwork go missing. This has improved over the last month or so but I still don’t know why it’s happened and I’m a little reticent to put in all the time/effort to create the Playlists if they might still disappear.

3) When I try to start playing media within a playlist by using either the Play/Pause button on the remote or using the long press>Play within the Playlist itself (both on AppleTV), the media will play till the end of that season/show but will not go ahead and move on to the next item in the playlist, if it’s not within that season/show. If I use the “Play button” in the Playlist itself, to start playing from the beginning, the Playlist behaves as expected and will continue playing the media (beyond the show/season). But I want/need to be able to start playback anywhere in the Playlist and have this same behavior. 

4) I’m giving some thought to using Infuse ongoing but I’m also having issues with how Playlists work with Emby on that app. No Playlists show up under Emby>Playlists under Infuse. However, if I create a Playlist within Infuse, it shows up in my Emby custom Playlists that already exist. I’d like my existing Playlists to show up. Is this possible? Are my settings not correct somehow? Since Infuse can add a Playlist to Emby, it seems it should also be able to read the Playlists that are already there.

Thanks in advance for any assistance. Hopefully, I can start fixing some of these issues and go back to Emby full time.  

System info: Primary playback devices are AppleTV 4K 2nd Gen & 3rd Gen (w/Ethernet). Emby is version 4.8.11.0 running on latest version of MacOS. But honestly, I’ve been having these issues since around the time of the 4.8.x.x initial release.

 

[Luke 42077]

Quote

1) There are “Folder” Playlists that are showing up but are all empty. This is via web interface, AppleTV App, etc. Don’t know why they are there but empty. There are also “Genre” playlist folders that are there but are also all empty. I’ve also tried using Infuse player connected to Emby and the only Playlists that show up are the Folder playlists mentioned above, which are also empty on Infuse.

Hi there, can you please show us a specific example of what you mean? Thanks.

[piecesofme 3]

Hey Luke, thanks so much for responding. Sure, happy to give you some specific examples.. Here is a link with several screenshots: https://imgpile.com/p/imfaBiy

When I click on the “Playlist” link on the left of the web interface, I have three sections at the top/center: Playlist, Genre, Folders. Playlists is where the playlists that I manually create end up. Then there’s Genres which shows several genre folders, and then Folders, which shows several show folders. I’ve included screenshots that show into two of the Genre folders and two of the Folder folders. All of those are empty. I can’t tell where they are pulling from to get the empty Genre or Folder playlist folders. 

FWIW, I have these same three sections also come up on AppleTV and other Emby interfaces.

Edited April 6, 2025 by piecesofme
Add’l info.

[Luke 42077]

OK the Emby Playlists library shouldn't have a genres or folders tab.

Or is that a library you created and just called it Playlists?

[piecesofme 3]

Hey @Luke, thanks so much for your response. I’m really sorry I missed it awhile back.

Looking to move back over to Emby entirely but need playlists feature working correctly. I’m still having issues with video playlists acting strange.

In answer to your question, this is definitely not a library I created and then called Playlists. This is the navigation section where video playlists appear once they are created. 

I’ve created & deleted all my playlists numerous times now trying to troubleshot. Here’s what I’ve found:

-Before I add any playlist, one section shows up in the “Playlists” area titled: “Folders”. When I click on that, it’s empty.
-When I add a new playlist, two additional (new) sections/categories suddenly appear at the top of the playlists section next to the above mentioned “Folders”: “Genres” and “Playlists”. 
-Not sure what/why those genre folders appear (or why those genres specifically) but when I click into those Genre folders, each one is empty.
-The “Folders” section also remains empty.
-What makes this even more confusing (especially for non-tech inclined family members) is that when I navigate to & click on the “Playlist” category, the category will default the “Folder” section which shows up as empty, making it appear to the user that no playlists exist - even though they do. It’s not clear that one needs to navigate over to the “Playlist” section at the top of the “Playlists” category to actually view any playlists.
-This may be a new feature but all the individual playlists that are created also show up in the sidebar, at least on the web app. Don’t know if that’s expected behavior for video playlists.

I’ve included additional screenshots to try to better illustrate what’s going on. Please let me know if you need more info and I’ll try to supply it.

Since this seems to continue happening after a lot of testing, I’m giving some thought to doing a clean install to see if that would help - though I’m completely open to other advice/ideas. I’m running Emby on MacOS. I don’t might redoing some light setup but I really don’t want to lose all my additional metadata (Emby is setup to use nfo files & save images to the folder so that part should be OK but then there are additional things like custom collections, genres, etc that I don’t want to have to redo from scratch & don’t know where that data lives, so to speak). I also don’t know if one loses the benefits of a clean install if we simply upload a backup from the problematic Emby install to the new Emby install, since one doesn’t know if the data contained in the backup is what’s causing the issues in the first place.

Any assistance would be hugely appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

[Luke 42077]

Hi, was this a really old install that you upgraded when you came back to Emby? It looks like the playlists library might have lost it's content type. If you're just coming back now you might want to consider a fresh start.

[piecesofme 3]

Hi @Luke, thanks so much for getting back to me.

No, I can’t say that it was a really old install…at least not one that I had jumped back into. I have been keeping Emby updated with almost every step upgrade over the past few years just not been using it as our primary interface. 

Having said that, when I couldn’t find any other info to help troubleshoot, and with your earlier response that those other sections shouldn’t be showing up at the top, I opted to try a clean install. I did a lot of cleanup work in the new install and then backed that up. I then attempted to use the previous backup data so I wouldn’t lose all of that but the issue above with the playlists instantly came back. Fortunately, since I had the clean install backed up, I was able to revert to that. 

I do still have some other things that I’m trying to figure out so I can move back over to Emby for good. But I’ll make separate posts for those. Thanks for confirming the clean install was the right way to go. Sometimes, it’s not worth going down the rabbit hole for something like this that one may not be able to fix without a clean start anyway.