Home button Only Pauses

[Lessaj 467]

It does ask with 3.5.16.

[Q-Droid 989]

24 minutes ago, Lessaj said:

It does ask with 3.5.16.

 

That's beta, right?  I was ready to take back my comment but now I don't have to.

 

 

[Lessaj 467]

1 minute ago, Q-Droid said:

 

That's beta, right?  I was ready to take back my comment but now I don't have to.

 

 

I suppose it would be considered beta, I have no problem sideloading APKs since it only takes a few seconds. But it'll eventually get updated.

[Q-Droid 989]

The discussion around app Exit flow has been going on for well over a year in the ATV parity thread. I haven't used the universal app much on ATV, very little actually, and I'm surprised that it's the current beta that finally gets close but not the same for the simple and crucial function of exiting the app.

 

 

[FrostByte 5392]

1 hour ago, rdhardi said:

In my first post on this issue, I was told that this is normal behavior in the new app. This is the exact opposite of the AndroidTV app, which for years, I have used the Back button to exit. So, for me the muscle memory is real.

So, I guess this is the new normal in the new app, but I can't imagine that it's normal (IMHO) to keep a stream/tuner playing forever until is force stopped.

The ATV app doesn't close either when clicking Home, it just exits.  That's the way all apps work on Android.  Just tried ATV, Xplore, ABT, etc and they were all active after clicking Home.

Maybe ATV closes some threads which the Android app doesn't when clicking Home?  I know ATV wasn't PiP compatible, so that needs to be disabled in settings if not used in the new app.

The new app should close though if you Exit via the menu or settings.  If I hard press the Back button I find I can close the app fairly quickly.  Otherwise you need to force the app to close after clicking Home.  I don't recall how many clicks it took in ATV, but I can close the new app in 3 or 4 clicks at most from anywhere.

 

 

Edited November 4, 2025 by FrostByte

[Luke 42077]

1 hour ago, rdhardi said:

In my first post on this issue, I was told that this is normal behavior in the new app. This is the exact opposite of the AndroidTV app, which for years, I have used the Back button to exit. So, for me the muscle memory is real.

 

Hi, you have always been able to use the back button to exit, with both apps.

[Q-Droid 989]

  

14 minutes ago, FrostByte said:

The ATV app doesn't close either when clicking Home, it just exits.  That's the way all apps work on Android.  Just tried ATV, Xplore, ABT, etc and they were all active after clicking Home.

Maybe ATV closes some threads which the Android app doesn't when clicking Home?  I know ATV wasn't PiP compatible, so that needs to be disabled in settings if not used in the new app.

 

The ATV apps stops streaming when you hit the Home button. The console might show the session but no active playback.

Does the stable release of the Android app have an option to disable PIP?

 

Edited November 4, 2025 by Q-Droid

[FrostByte 5392]

2 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

  

 

The ATV apps stops streaming when you hit the Home button. The console might show the session but no active playback.

Does the stable release of the Android app have an option to disable PIP?

 

Yes, but it's not done within the app.  It's an Android setting under special app access.  You just deny Emby access to PiP there.

[rdhardi 42]

2 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hi, you have always been able to use the back button to exit, with both apps.

Yes, I know I can use the back button to exit in both apps. But, the new app does NOT stop playback like the AndroidTV app does!

In the new app, when using the Back button, it continues to play forever until it's force stopped. 

In the AndroidTV app, as soon as I hit the Back button, playback stops in the Dashboard and the tuner is released! 

That's the whole point of my original post.

[FrostByte 5392]

I don't use LiveTV, but there is an option there for that.  THough I don't know how it affects Emby if at all.

 

 

Edit: I'm guessing it stops LiveTV from using PiP when clicking Home.

Edited November 4, 2025 by FrostByte

[Q-Droid 989]

6 minutes ago, FrostByte said:

Yes, but it's not done within the app.  It's an Android setting under special app access.  You just deny Emby access to PiP there.

So with PIP access disabled then hitting Home on the Android app it pauses playback which could tie up resources. ATV stops the activity and looks like an idle session.

 

 

[rdhardi 42]

1 hour ago, Q-Droid said:

The ATV apps stops streaming when you hit the Home button. The console might show the session but no active playback.

Yes, exactly, thank you!!! Kind of feel like I'm going crazy here lol.

Perhaps I'm using the wrong terminology...but I've used the Home button for YEARS in ATV. 

When I hit the Home button in ATV, playback/streaming stops. Tuner is released.

When I hit the Home button in the new app playback/streaming does not stop. Tuner is not released.

Edited November 4, 2025 by rdhardi
Corrected last 2 sentences to say Home button instead of Back button.

[FrostByte 5392]

4 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

So with PIP access disabled then hitting Home on the Android app it pauses playback which could tie up resources. ATV stops the activity and looks like an idle session.

 

 

I don't know exactly if it stops the stream or just pauses.  In the Android app if watching a movie and you click Home the app Exits and the movie you were watching still plays in a little window.  This allows you to use other apps and still watch the movie.

I just know the PiP window doesn't appear, never thought about checking the dashboard though.

[Q-Droid 989]

7 minutes ago, rdhardi said:

Yes, exactly, thank you!!! Kind of feel like I'm going crazy here lol.

Perhaps I'm using the wrong terminology...but I've used the Home button for YEARS in ATV. 

When I hit the Back button in ATV, playback stops.

When I hit the Back button in the new app playback does not stop. 

Do you have the buttons remapped? 

On the ATV app the Back button from the Emby main screen opens a dialog to confirm app Exit. The Home button closes the app and goes to the ATV Home screen.

 

 

Edited November 4, 2025 by Q-Droid

[rdhardi 42]

44 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

Do you have the buttons remapped? 

No.

44 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

On the ATV app the Back button from the Emby main screen opens a dialog to confirm app Exit. The Home button closes the app and goes to the ATV Home screen.

 

Yes, correct, working as expected. 

But, reading this, it just clicked (thanks!) and I see my confusion in Back button vs Home button.

@Lukecreated this post when he split a topic from one of my comments on another post. He named it "Back Only Pauses" when I was referring to the Home button in my original post here:

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/142800-unexpected-behavior-with-android-universal-app-and-shield-pro-home-button/ 

Somewhere along the way, I inadvertently probably started using the word "Back" instead of "Home".

All this time, I have been referring to the HOME button, the circle button on the Shield remote. 

Perhaps the post title should be changed to "Home Button Only Pauses".

 

Edited November 4, 2025 by rdhardi

[Q-Droid 989]

I've been lazily following the Android/ATV app parity thread and other related threads from members and don't know if this specific case was covered before. It surprises me that simple things like exiting are to this day so far apart between the two apps.

This specific issue needs to be addressed as it's very similar to the Roku "improper exit" problem which left streams running and tying up tuners.

Back button from ATV opens confirmation dialog to exit the app. Back button from Android stable opens/closes side-bar. Evidently Android beta opens an Exit menu.

Home button from ATV stops playback and exits to ATV home. Home button from Android opens PIP on ATV home when allowed or pauses playback and exits to ATV home when PIP is disabled. But this leaves a streaming session behind and in the case of LiveTV ties up a tuner and builds up the playback buffer.

 

[rdhardi 42]

1 hour ago, Q-Droid said:

Home button from ATV stops playback and exits to ATV home. Home button from Android opens PIP on ATV home when allowed or pauses playback and exits to ATV home when PIP is disabled. But this leaves a streaming session behind and in the case of LiveTV ties up a tuner and builds up the playback buffer.

Yes! THANK YOU for the clear and concise explanation of this issue.

[Luke 42077]

The server will clean it up pretty quickly after that so shouldn’t be an issue.

[Q-Droid 989]

How quickly? This was over 20 minutes after hitting the Home button from the Android app to return to the ATV home screen.

[Neminem 1518]

@Q-DroidYou need to upgrade you potato pc

But thats not

37 minutes ago, Luke said:

The server will clean it up pretty quickly after that so shouldn’t be an issue.

 

[Q-Droid 989]

My potato PC is just fine, thank you very much.

Eventually (after a few more minutes) the session disappeared from the dashboard but continued running and creating TS segments on the server.

When I went back into the Android app the screen was black though navigating brought up the OSD on a paused stream, still blank. Hitting OK button resumed the stream then I exited the stream and the app via menu which stopped all activity and cleaned up the files.

Let's just say the UX is not at all like the Emby app for ATV.

 

[Tigga5 39]

On 11/3/2025 at 2:36 PM, Luke said:

It depends on how long until you come back. It's  modeled after netflix profiles where if you come back immediately or within a few minutes, it will not make you enter the pin. But if you come back more than 10 minutes later, then it will.

 

On 11/3/2025 at 4:13 PM, Tigga5 said:

That's not how it's working. I pressed the Home button to exit Emby, launched another app, then left it idle for more than 30 minutes. Emby still let me right back in without authenticating when I launched it again from the home screen.

 

@Luke Can you please confirm whether or not this is going to be addressed? It's not working as you stated in v3.5.16. You can exit the Emby app by using the home button, then come back days later and it will still let you back in with full admin control, completely bypassing the PIN system. There's also the additional problem of TV tuners not being released when using the home button as well. I thought that was fixed since I eventually saw the session drop from the Emby dashboard, but HDHomerun still reports the tuner as being in use afterward.

Edited November 10, 2025 by Tigga5