Live stream problem - Session has gone idle "error"

[Brian_Oblivion 4]

Been encountering a problem for sometime now and finally decided to look into it.

I encounter strange issues with live stream playback and/or "playback correction" and/or transcoding on my devices where emby will just quit playing an return to the channel guide. 

For this particular 100% repeatable problem, I'm using a fire cube to stream from my local Emby server (latest version). I use TVHeadend to stream OTA local channels that is connected up to Emby. 

Just watching live OTA tv - no problems. Works fine for as long as you watch.

Here's the problem scenario:

Start streaming a live tv OTA channel. At some point hit the pause button on the remote. You'll get the switch to live play dialog. Say yes.  In 60 seconds (exactly, used a timer), the playback quits and returns to the channel guide. I can repeat this scenario over and over and the timing is 60 seconds **every time**. 

When I look in the logs, I see the same pattern with this scenario (log snip below). Emby reports the play session has gone idle while playing then proceeds to kill the stream. What I see on the tv/player is an error and return to the channel guide. 

The logs do go on to throw resourcenotfound exceptions, which is expected I presume, since the resource (the playback stream that WAS on disk) has been deleted. 

Any ideas/suggestions/config changes etc to fix this? 

Thanks.

############## Log snip #####################

2025-09-12 09:56:46.848 Info Server: http/1.1 POST http://192.XXX.XXX.XXX:8096/emby/Sessions/Playing/Progress. Source Ip: host5, UserAgent: Dalvik/2.1.0 (Linux; U; Android 9; AFTR Build/PS7690.4716N)

2025-09-12 09:56:46.850 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 204 to host5. Time: 2ms. POST http://192.XXX.XXX.XXX:8096/emby/Sessions/Playing/Progress

2025-09-12 09:56:47.602 Info SessionManager: PlaySession 0251542cca0a4ac080cf35f80ff70aa5 has gone idle while playing

2025-09-12 09:56:47.602 Info SessionManager: Playback stopped reported by app AndroidTv 2.1.26a on Family Room Fire Cube playing WXIXDT. Stopped at 3404616 ms. PlaySessionId: 0251542cca0a4ac080cf35f80ff70aa5

2025-09-12 09:56:47.603 Info MediaSourceManager: Live stream 6898fb7f3b506aa1a4f344f942927639 consumer count is now 0

2025-09-12 09:56:47.603 Info MediaSourceManager: Closing live stream 06044cf0e6f93cdae5f285c9ecfaaeb4_01413a525b3a9622ce6fdf19f7dde354_6898fb7f3b506aa1a4f344f942927639

2025-09-12 09:56:47.603 Info SharedHttpPipelineSource: Closing SharedHttpPipelineSource

2025-09-12 09:56:47.623 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 200 to 127.0.0.1. Time: 58619ms. GET http://127.0.0.1:8096/LiveTv/LiveStreamFiles/1a1a66dd8da3419cb2a8616f370ce2f1/stream.ts

2025-09-12 09:56:47.623 Info SharedHttpPipelineSource: Deleting temp files /mserver/transcodingTemp/transcoding-temp/1a1a66dd8da3419cb2a8616f370ce2f1/0000000.ts, /mserver/transcodingTemp/transcoding-temp/1a1a66dd8da3419cb2a8616f370ce2f1/0000001.ts

2025-09-12 09:56:47.624 Info SharedHttpPipelineSource: SharedHttpPipelineSource is done streaming.

2025-09-12 09:56:47.665 Info MediaSourceManager: Live stream 06044cf0e6f93cdae5f285c9ecfaaeb4_01413a525b3a9622ce6fdf19f7dde354_6898fb7f3b506aa1a4f344f942927639 closed successfully

2025-09-12 09:56:47.665 Info SessionManager: Removed playSession 0251542cca0a4ac080cf35f80ff70aa5 from session b6d7d7063ce0ccadc13947b1739860e8

2025-09-12 09:56:47.700 Info App: AppendExtraLogData - Read graph file: /var/lib/emby/logs/ffmpeg-directstream-d8f494d0-5685-4af5-9111-92e4fd8b4d7c_1graph.txt

2025-09-12 09:56:47.700 Info App: AppendExtraLogData - Deserialized GraphData fileStream: 27.000 bytes Graph Count: 0

2025-09-12 09:56:47.700 Info App: AppendExtraLogData - File Deleted

2025-09-12 09:56:47.704 Info App: ProcessRun 'StreamTranscode d8f494' Process exited with code 0 - Succeeded

[ebr 16169]

Hi.  Can you reproduce this issue and then follow the instructions to send a log from the app?

Thanks.

 

 

[Brian_Oblivion 4]

Done. Thanks.

[ebr 16169]

Hi.  The player is puking on something but I cannot tell what.  Did the stream start playing for a bit before you tried to pause it?  It looks like it pukes as soon as playback tries to start.

Can you try searching for our standard android app (Just "Emby" on Amazon and "Emby for Android on Google) on the same device's app store and see how that compares?

You will have to go into playback settings and tell that app to always convert mpeg-ts in order to seek.

 

[Brian_Oblivion 4]

Yeah the stream plays fine without issue for hours and hours on end (it's OTA via TVHeadend via a tuner card in the machine). When I hit pause, I get the live playback warning. I say yes.....after it "spins" for a few seconds, it plays fine for about 60 seconds (VERY consistent time) then errors out and returns me to the channel guide page (where I came from). 

Using the android version, seems I don't have the problem because I don't get the live playback dialog. It just pauses..... which I don't know why the behavior is different.

What I observe in the transcoding-temp directory with the firetv client, is a temp folder, before I press pause there is a directory with files being created (live buffer, which I have set to 1 hour). When I press pause and say yes, a new directory is created with files being created. The other directory remains.

With the android client, that doesn't happen. One directory always.

 

Also odd to me is the firetv client will direct play the same channel at 3mbps the android one is 1mbps. It's using the TVH "pass" profile (verified looking at the TVH status page) - so I don't understand what is happening here.

From emby dashboard top is firetv client (3mbps). Bottom is android client.

 

 

 

I'll also note, I have issues with freezing/erroring out live OTA channels on my Roku device *without* pausing. But that problem is far less predicable/repeatable. So I'm ignoring that for the moment

 

[Brian_Oblivion 4]

I've tried using the android version and it's mess on the fire cube anyways. Freezes, hangs, unstable in general. Get random weird artifacts like pieces of the channel guide suddenly getting overlaid onto the stream/show. 

Fire tv version has it issues but is at least stable. Seems to be a myriad of issues in play.

e.g. left the room, this was one, then came back and parts of the screen guide were showing.

e.g. 

 

[Luke 42077]

hi @Brian_Oblivionare you still having an issue with this using the latest versions of emby server and emby for android?