Muting TV causes video to go to black screen

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

This is not an Emby only issue but it does happen, for me, when using Emby. I asked this in the Roku forums and received zero responses. 

When I am watching anything on my Roku and I press mute on my TV the screen goes blank for between 10 and 30 seconds. It recovers and shows and operates normally after that. Unmuting does not do this at all. 

I have no clue as to exactly what causes this but I do run my Roku in "Night listening mode" if that might make a difference.

Again it is the TV that I mute and all audio, which is clearly correct, stops but it also stops the video for some time.

This is mainly observed when I am watching live TV but I have seen it on content that is playing back. I do not see this behavior on my Shield or my Fire TV or when I watch live TV directly through my TV.

I do not think it is an Emby problem but Roku does not seem to want to answer questions that might stretch there small brains to answer. I am hoping that someone here might have enough Roku expertise to make something resembling a good guess. 

Thanks in advance. 

[Luke 42077]

@AndreiPhave you seen this?

[AndreiP 33]

Hi, Luke.
I don't use personnaly a  Roku as a client. But one of my person with who I share my media library does. Apparently, it's an older model that can't "understand" the 8-bit HEVC format (which seems very outdated to me). I'm starting to suspect that Roku (at least the older models) might be among the worst clients for Emby because Firestick and even TV clients support it. 

Gilgamesh_48, what's going on with file playback in the dashboard when the screen is black? Can you check it out at that moment?

Edited August 17, 2025 by AndreiP

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

1 minute ago, AndreiP said:

...

Gilgamesh_48, what's going on with file playback in the dashboard when the screen is black? Can you check it out at that moment?

Since I do see this on other sources that are  not Emby I very much doubt that Emby's server shows anything abnormal. And, when I looked the playback just continues as if nothing happens. Further reinforcing the idea that Emby is not at fault. 

But this does bring up something. I wonder if Emby could mute the audio stream instead of the TV. I know my Shield does that and muting the stream at the source seems to reduce problems. I know the volume control on Roku's remote controls the TVs volume but it would be good if there were some alternatives. And no, I do not intend to ask Roku for that as Roku is harder to deal with than the federal government and even often less pleasant.
This is not particularly important as, for other reasons, I am moving most of my viewing to my shield. But Roku still has some use. In particular there is not, at least yet, an NWSL+ app for the Shield but Roku has one. 

As far as this problem goes: I was just hoping for some enlightenment but no fix from Emby as it does not appear to be directly related to Emby but the Roku people here do seem to know more about Roku than the people over at Roku.
(aside: That last sentence seems somehow "wrong" to me but I cannot figure just what is wrong. I am not talking about context but about construction)

[ebr 16169]

14 hours ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

I do run my Roku in "Night listening mode"

If you disable that, does the problem go away?

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

1 hour ago, ebr said:

If you disable that, does the problem go away?

I honestly do not know as it never occurred to me that it could be any problem. I only thought of it because I was looking for any audio related settings and that was the only unusual setting I could come up with. I have always run my Rokus in that mode because I really dislike sudden extreme volume variations. I will test that the next time I use my Roku and report back here.

I also use "Night node" on my shield but. But I know that "Night mode" may be implemented very differently on the Shield than on the Rokus and the fact that the shield works correctly while the Roku does not may be little more than a "red herring."

I do not think this is at all related to Emby mainly because it happens on several other apps on my Roku. In particular the NWSL+ app also exhibits the problem.

I wish all my problems were this easily mitigated.