New WebStreams Plugin

[Luke 42077]

A new plugin is in the Emby plugin catalog for Emby Premiere users, largely developed by @softworkz. This plugin requires Emby Server version 4.9.1.27+, so unless you're running that, you will not see it.

WebStreams

This is designed to be a better version of the IPTV plugin. You can now import both single streams as well as M3U lists into Emby Server. Eventually we may also add RSS support and merge the podcasts plugin into this. Beyond RSS, there is also the potential to support other formats if there's enough demand for them.

Features

• Import both single streams and M3U lists into Emby Server
• TV episodes within M3U are displayed with Series and Season hierarchies, just like regular libraries (make sure to select the appropriate content type when adding a source)
• Rich metadata support using MovieDb and TVDB (make sure to select the appropriate content type when adding a source)
• Ability to filter what gets imported

Known Issues

• We need to add more visibility into the server's background refresh queue. You can see the progress of it on the webstreams config page. Currently if you restart the server in the middle of this, then you will need to run the refresh channels scheduled task.

[gillmacca01 211]

Is there a way to force refresh the plugin library, as I currently cannot see it in there 

[AJV_20 57]

Just now, gillmacca01 said:

Is there a way to force refresh the plugin library, as I currently cannot see it in there 

you need to update to 4.9.1.27+ like he said in the post

[gillmacca01 211]

According to the Emby dashboard, I'm on the latest....4.9.1.26

There is no newer version for me at the moment

Edited September 7, 2025 by gillmacca01

[Happy2Play 9780]

Just now, gillmacca01 said:

According to the Emby dashboard, I'm on the latest....4.9.1.26

There is no newer version

Assets have not been built yet

Release 4.9.1.27-beta · MediaBrowser/Emby.Releases

[Przemek 70]

I have last version docker on unRAID and it's 4.8.11.0. When I can get update?

Regards.

[Luke 42077]

37 minutes ago, Przemek said:

I have last version docker on unRAID and it's 4.8.11.0. When I can get update?

Regards.

Hi, as soon as 4.9 releases. Any day now.

[steven_pilch 5]

I just updated to the newest beta. But cannot see the plugin.

 

 

[Luke 42077]

It's in the Channels section.

[steven_pilch 5]

Thanks, still not showing. Just have podcasts and Trailers.

 

 

[lorac 118]

I'm still unable to add my IP TV provider via M3U

I received error 884 and the first time it had an error of http timeout with 10 seconds

i installed an IP TV app and the same credentials work.

embyserver(3).txt

Edited September 16, 2025 by softworkz

[steven_pilch 5]

Well that’s odd, doesn’t show in the app, but in the web interface I was able to find it.

 

[softworkz 5065]

37 minutes ago, steven_pilch said:

Well that’s odd, doesn’t show in the app, but in the web interface I was able to find it.

Not all server plugins are visible when viewing server configuration from within client apps.

There's a whitelist of plugins known to work within the context of client apps and the WebStreams plugin isn't on that list yet (well - it's just been published).

[softworkz 5065]

44 minutes ago, lorac said:

I'm still unable to add my IPTV provider via M3U

I received error 884 and the first time it had an error of http timeout with 10 seconds

i installed an IPTV app and the same credentials work.

embyserver(3).txt 1.22 MB · 0 downloads

I'm seeing a lot of errors in the log which are about accessing media on K:\Series\TV\....

That should be fixed first.

[lorac 118]

Seems to be a few 0 byte files and errors with intro detection for some extras (to be expected given the varied nature of those files).

Given that TV is a large library not too surprising that some media has been corrupted but I don't see that is related to the M3U issue.

The M3U functionally i feel has been broken for a while. Maybe it's just related to content from https://panel.layerseven.ai/sign-in but for me I am unable to add back into Emby. 

i used to be able to edit the url but that hasn't worked recently and I believe having the M3U URL in there was causing extreme ram usage but it's only been a couple days since I removed it so I can't be certain.

embyserver(4).txt

[softworkz 5065]

@lorac - This conversation is about the new WebStreams plugin - only. Not M3U tuner functionality. Please create a separate topic for the issues you are experiencing with that.

Thanks

[lorac 118]

Right but I'm trying to add an M3U stream under this plug-in. 

[softworkz 5065]

16 minutes ago, lorac said:

Right but I'm trying to add an M3U stream under this plug-in. 

You were talking about having recent issues with M3U and WebStreams has just been released, so this didn't seem about the WebStreams plugin.

The plugin has a totally different implementation than the M3U tuner, so when you see the same error in both cases, it's very likely not an Emby issue.

[softworkz 5065]

Trying your URL - with sanitized/invalid credentials - produces the same error that is shown in your log: 884

884 is not even a valid http status code, but the fact that you - with assumingly valid credentials - are seeing the same error as I do - with invalid credentials - is a strong indication that the service down or broken in some way.

[kikinjo 281]

@softworkz Tested plugin for few hours on VOD and several live tv channels. works really well. Maybe just one improvement needs to be added and that is buffer control. It would be nice that in plugin there is an option to set higher buffer, during testing 4-5 times stream stopped and continued, of course that depends on a lot of stuff. Other than that good addition for VOD IP TV lovers.

We are still waiting for main part...

cheers

Edited September 16, 2025 by softworkz

[archecon 11]

Please is support plugin basic auth?  Like this?

 https://user:password@sub.domain.com

For m3u link..

[softworkz 5065]

On 9/8/2025 at 10:13 AM, kikinjo said:

@softworkz Tested plugin for few hours on VOD and several live tv channels. works really well. Maybe just one improvement needs to be added and that is buffer control. It would be nice that in plugin there is an option to set higher buffer, during testing 4-5 times stream stopped and continued, of course that depends on a lot of stuff. Other than that good addition for VOD IP TV lovers.

Correct - there are several causes for running out of buffer (causing hangs).
But these are very different depending on the type of stream:

• For live streams, an increased buffer can help, because it sets you back a little more behind the "live edge". So any processing that is happening - like for creating segments - can make you run out-of-buffer. For example, when a live stream is served in segments of 10s length, and you have a buffer delay of just 5s, you might play one segment as soon as it's ready and downloaded, and when those 10s are played, the next 10s might not be ready and downloaded in time. With a 30s buffer, this won't happen, because you'll always have the next one or two segments downloaded already when the previous 10s have been finished playing.
  (just for illustration, typically, segments are 2 or 3s)
• For VOD streams on the other hand, there is no "live edge" that is limiting download of future content. In that case an increased buffer doesn't help at all. When you are experiencing hangs (out-of-buffer), then it means one of two things: Either the provider cannot serve the content quickly enough (maybe it does some ad-hoc conversion, but usually it's only urls to mp4 files where Emby server is requesting specific byte ranges), otherwise, the network connection is too slow to transfer the data as fast as needed.
  In both cases, increasing the buffer will only vary between more frequent short time hangs or less frequent hangs but of longer duration until playback resumes.

TL/DR

• If you are seeing hangs with live streams
  => Don't use WebStreams for Live TV streams - it's not made for that!
       It's not only inferior to TVnext's live tv stream handling, but even inferior to the current live TV M3U tuner
• If you're seeing hangs with VOD content
  => Check your network conditions or try another provider  

 

Edited September 16, 2025 by softworkz

[softworkz 5065]

3 hours ago, archecon said:

Please is support plugin basic auth?  Like this?

 https://user:password@sub.domain.com

For m3u link..

Did you try it? Doesn't it work?

I don't remember exactly, but I believe it had been tested successfully.

[CBers 7450]

Is there a scehduled task for this?

I'd like to run the refresh overnight if possible.

I ask, as it's 28% of the way through, but there's nothing in the Dashboard indicating that anything is running.

This is from the plugin page itself:



Thanks.
 

[softworkz 5065]

7 minutes ago, CBers said:

Is there a scehduled task for this?

Yes - like for all channel plugins, the refresh is executed during the "Refresh Internet Channels" task.

But that's just for creating the actual items in Emby Server. This usually doesn't take longer than a few minutes.
The much larger part is when metadata retrieval is enabled. The actual refresh task creates the Emby items and adds them to the queue for metadata refresh. For the latter, there's no scheduled task. It's a queue that is always working until it's empty.

Even when "Refresh Internet Channels" is finished, you may still see the queue growing. That's because one thing leads to another, e.g. metadata is retrieved for a media item, and the metadata includes people (actors, crew) or is part of a series and has a season, those new items are getting added to the queue as well.

 

Short answer

Yes - configure the "Refresh Internet Channels"task to run at a specific time instead of the default "every 12hI".