emby & no internet

[pwhodges 2012]

Yes, it falls back to free options only.  The validation is expected to remain cached for about a week (sometimes this is disputed, but I suspect this may be because people often have so many devices and clients that they don't fully recall which they have used in the period before disconnection).

Paul

[brothom 177]

2 hours ago, pwhodges said:

Yes, it falls back to free options only.  The validation is expected to remain cached for about a week (sometimes this is disputed, but I suspect this may be because people often have so many devices and clients that they don't fully recall which they have used in the period before disconnection).

Paul

That makes sense, yeah.

So back to @Xoores's story. Say he has a server and is hit by a hurrican or whatever and has no internet for 4 weeks but his server is still running on his local network.

He'll still be able to use all of Emby's default features (movies, tv shows, music, whatever) right?
Just not the "premium" feature (most of these require an active internet connection anyway like movie trailers).

 

[Q-Droid 989]

Some Emby apps are premium and some devices just won't work without internet service. So at that point you'd be browser playback only for the most part.

 

 

[ebr 16169]

10 hours ago, rdhardi said:

So, question for you: If I connect my iPhone directly with USB (via hotspot ) to my Emby server and login, will that be enough to validate my Premiere license when my ISP is down?

Yes.  To be sure, I would go to the Premiere page and blank out and re-enter the key to force a current validation while connected to the hot spot.

[pwhodges 2012]

6 hours ago, brothom said:

Just not the "premium" feature (most of these require an active internet connection anyway like movie trailers).

The key Premiere feature that does not in itself require Internet connectivity is hardware support for transcoding - and for some people this is crucial (the OP brings it up).

If you have no Internet for an extended period, and have lost Premiere as a result, you could, for instance, decide in advance what to watch and use Handbrake to transcode it (still using hardware) to a version that can direct play in a browser for you, and add that to your library as an alternate version (maybe delete after use, even).

Paul

[ebr 16169]

3 hours ago, pwhodges said:

The key Premiere feature that does not in itself require Internet connectivity is hardware support for transcoding

Just FYI - the validation cache on all the clients is 7 days but the server potentially has a longer one based on your Premiere level.  I believe a Lifetime server can survive up to 21 days without validation.

[parrish 22]

On 8/12/2025 at 4:26 PM, Xoores said:

Hi @Lukewe are talking hours most of the time. A day tops. I just want to play the local library on NAS - nothing else really bothers me

Perfect, I will give it a try & go for a month of Premiere and if everything works, I'll upgrade.

Thanks a lot for clearing this out for me!

My experience has not been what is being discussed, unfortunately. I primarily use Emby to watch and record live TV using a Silicon Dust 4k tuner.  To view my Emby content I primarily use the 4K Firesticks on 4 TVs in my home.  Sometimes remote viewing with the Emby app on my Android phone or via the website on my Windows laptop.  If my internet goes down, even if just for a brief time (say less than an hour) it is very often that I can no longer view live or even recorded TV with the Firesticks due to the Premier license not being able to validate.  It is EXTREMELY frustrating.  Emby states the license may not need to validate for x number of days- but that has NOT been my experience at all.  It seems to need to validate every time I try to use any of the Premier features.  If no internet then it means no Premier features- again, even if my Internet only happens to be down for ~30 minutes, etc. 

Also, I have a lifetime Premier license..

Edited August 13, 2025 by parrish

[TMCsw 249]

On 8/12/2025 at 4:17 PM, Luke said:

Also keep in mind some devices like Roku and Fire TV require an internet connection to run any app,

I find that this is not true for my (just confirmed):

• Fire TV Cube 3rd gen. (doesn't even complain about 'No internet')
• Fire Stick 4K Max. 3rd gen. (goes to network setup, just backout)
• Roku Streaming Stick+  (just accept net error, also it hasn't been used for emby for many weeks, but still worked fine)

7 minutes ago, parrish said:

I can no longer view live or even recorded TV with the Firesticks

I believe this is a problem with the HDHR's as when my internet is down the HDHR app also fails after a while, but everything else will play from emby.

[parrish 22]

5 minutes ago, TMCsw said:

 

I believe this is a problem with the HDHR's as when my internet is down the HDHR app also fails after a while, but everything else will play from emby.

In my case, this is definitely an Emby Premier licensing issue- as it says that my Emby Premier license cannot be verified and, therefore, I cannot access those features.  Even if I'm just trying to view my previously recorded content.  My HDHomeRun doesn't need Internet access- as I can still access it directly (meaning outside of Emby and using the built-in web GUI on the HDHomeRun) to view live channels even when my Internet is down. 

[ebr 16169]

15 hours ago, parrish said:

In my case, this is definitely an Emby Premier licensing issue- as it says that my Emby Premier license cannot be verified and, therefore, I cannot access those features

Hi. What version of the app and how long had it been since you successfully used a Premiere feature on that same app/device when this occurred?

[rdhardi 42]

On 8/13/2025 at 4:23 PM, ebr said:

Just FYI - the validation cache on all the clients is 7 days but the server potentially has a longer one based on your Premiere level.  I believe a Lifetime server can survive up to 21 days without validation.

Ah, ok! We have Lifetime Premiere, so I guess that explains why our 1 Shield (out of 3) that was ON (Emby) at the time of the internet outage, continued to work for the entire 23 days?

Note: Bold text in quote by me

[pwhodges 2012]

On 13/08/2025 at 21:23, ebr said:

Just FYI - the validation cache on all the clients is 7 days but the server potentially has a longer one based on your Premiere level.  I believe a Lifetime server can survive up to 21 days without validation.

Interesting - I've never read that before.

Paul