Load balancing more than one emby server

[afogleson 15]

6 minutes ago, Lessaj said:

I doubt that will work long term. If it's already working then why are you asking about it?

I asked about it without any answer other than "you will get db corruption". with that answer i just said.... lets just try it... i did... and WHY do you doubt it would work long term? I work in IT... the ONLY part of emby that would fail is writes to the data/db and again SQLLite locks the entire db on a write... so unless you have some other concern I think it WILL last... basically forever. now if the license permitted and i used it commercially for thousands of people would it have "issues" yes... probably... but those would all likely be around the db writes. 

[Lessaj 467]

1 minute ago, afogleson said:

I asked about it without any answer other than "you will get db corruption". with that answer i just said.... lets just try it... i did... and WHY do you doubt it would work long term? I work in IT... the ONLY part of emby that would fail is writes to the data/db and again SQLLite locks the entire db on a write... so unless you have some other concern I think it WILL last... basically forever. now if the license permitted and i used it commercially for thousands of people would it have "issues" yes... probably... but those would all likely be around the db writes. 

And if DB writes fail it's not going to properly record progress for users and they will complain.

Good luck in your endeavors.

[afogleson 15]

13 hours ago, brothom said:

Then this sounds more like an issue in infrastructure than anything else. You're trying to use multiple Emby instances at different locations at the same time which isn't really what Emby is trying to achieve or support to begin with. 

 

You're right, it doesn't state that anywhere, but it doesn't state it's an Enterprise-level application either.

Emby also states on this page https://emby.media/support/articles/Premiere-Limits.html, that it's designed to handle up to 30 devices from a single-household.
What a "single-household" is obviously kept vague, so let's just pretend the page is talking about a single server that handles 30 devices (connections).

 

Finally, please don't patronize people on this forum. We're all here to achieve the same goal of improving Emby as a product. That isn't a way to achieve that. There're for more programmers and system engineers on here than you'd think.

im not patronizing... if we have a lot of programmers... then i expect they think the same way ALL IT professionals do... if they are any good... they know the answer. 

 

I generally agree with your other statements. its less about infrastructure though and more I have "users" (family members) that watch stuff... and i run this on cheaper machines (heck i have a couple rPi devices running it even) and in general they can handle streaming fine... but transcoding to lower bit rates... is stupid for LOCAL access. (any remote connection, normally me since i do the most travel, is handled by the load balancer to only go to the main machines (core I7s that can transcode if i have slow internet) 

30 devices hitting a single server is a vaunted goal... That i would like... but i can bring a decent server to its knees with 3 or 4 streams of 4K content, and we are starting to see 8K content in the wild now. I will grant you that modifying to use a different db (the biggest problem really) has other issues that a (and i agree here too) user application is not really set to handle. now... if it moved in the direction of containerization only.... that would be a different discussion. Heck i remember a conversation just last week on r/Plex where some guy thought he was running a plex server on his phone. yet he had no content... he was running the plex ios client and hitting plex's servers... (and plex handles IPTV - especially m3u - terrible... its why i came to emby. if it was just media vs live tv.... I may still be on plex... and i liked emby better than kodi even though i ran kodi forever too... just for the iptv along side plex. just got tired of the 2 end points for "one" purpose

[afogleson 15]

5 minutes ago, Lessaj said:

And if DB writes fail it's not going to properly record progress for users and they will complain.

Good luck in your endeavors.

yeah sometimes... but it is rare... and "users" in this context is "your wife or kids" at which point id tell them... then you all get a job and buy the infrastructure and media to host your own. to be honest... i sort of wish i could off load authentication in emby to something else. (like LDAP since i have that for other containers inside my network) that way I can do things that i am doing for other apps (kids cannot log in to the network after 10PM and i was nice and extended that to 10PM only in the last few months and no they dont have cell phones either)

heh. for now anyway this issue is solved. 

[Lessaj 467]

There is an LDAP plugin to my knowledge.

[afogleson 15]

13 hours ago, brothom said:

Then this sounds more like an issue in infrastructure than anything else. You're trying to use multiple Emby instances at different locations at the same time which isn't really what Emby is trying to achieve or support to begin with. 

 

You're right, it doesn't state that anywhere, but it doesn't state it's an Enterprise-level application either.

Emby also states on this page https://emby.media/support/articles/Premiere-Limits.html, that it's designed to handle up to 30 devices from a single-household.
What a "single-household" is obviously kept vague, so let's just pretend the page is talking about a single server that handles 30 devices (connections).

 

Finally, please don't patronize people on this forum. We're all here to achieve the same goal of improving Emby as a product. That isn't a way to achieve that. There're for more programmers and system engineers on here than you'd think.

Well no. NOT different locations... every emby server sits inside a single network inside the same house and largely (except for me mostly) only used within the house. but yes i want more servers... rather than dedicating my beast (Threadripper pro 9995) to emby. The network can handle just about any stream size (bitwise) that i care to throw at it (ive served some 8k content unthrottled through shares where I had 10 "clients" sucking that down simultaneously. but internal to the house other than wifi everyone is connected on 10gbs Fiber. the throttle is the internet not internal network. 

I think 30 devices may be (at this point in time) overstated. not that any single computer cannot handle 30 concurrent requests. (well ok maybe my rPis would struggle) but the network on a single connection in any "normal" household with people on wifi... is not going to handle 30 simultaneous full 4k connections. I would have my doubts even with wifi 7... on 30 concurrent 1080p connections at any decent bitrate. x265 will help maybe but it was really designed for high bitdepth (4k) vs bit rate... Especially when we consider that almost every single wifi hotspot in most households is connected over 1Gbs ethernet. heck even my wifi is over 1Gbs ethernet (the only thing NOT on 10Gbs fiber) and then it is only one tv.  

[afogleson 15]

10 minutes ago, Lessaj said:

There is an LDAP plugin to my knowledge.

never saw it... interesting... i might dig into that  it beats the heck out of doing some kind of endpoint filtering in my stuff

[pwhodges 2012]

16 hours ago, afogleson said:

Literally from an IT perspective (my profession) i have to say you have been extremely lucky.

It was my profession for 45 years, and I'd say that in many respects you make your own luck...  But you do you - good luck!

Paul

[ebr 16169]

17 hours ago, afogleson said:

So there is nothing NON PERSONAL NOR COMMERCIAL that i am doing

And that is fine.

19 hours ago, kikinjo said:

I love it when ebr quotes terms or something else emby team wrote, and there is nothing in that text about topic that is discussed. 

Seems like personal or non commercial software CANT HAVE failover, or balancing. At least for emby team.

 

I didn't say that.  I responded to the direct statement that the "intended use" of the product was not stated anywhere.

[pwhodges 2012]

On 21/08/2025 at 20:44, afogleson said:

Well lucky you... you have had computers running for "several years" and those computers have never crashed on their own. Literally from an IT perspective (my profession) i have to say you have been extremely lucky.

Or careful and professional.  My profession was IT (first programming, then systems management) from 1970 to 2016 (when I retired).

Paul