Emby can’t play internet radio stream (works fine with ffmpeg)

[Relocate0604 8]

I’m running Emby (Version 4.9.1.80) in Docker on my NAS and trying to add a simple internet radio streaming the plugin Web Streams 4.9.1.28.

I will take this as an example: http://ninarfm.grtvstream.com:8896/stream
It works in browser, VLC and even inside the container using: docker exec -it embyserver ffmpeg -i http://ninarfm.grtvstream.com:8896/stream -f null -

So FFmpeg clearly works.

But in Emby, no matter what I try — direct URL, .m3u, .str or M3U tuner — I always get:

Playback Error

No compatible streams are currently available. Please try again later or contact your system administrator for details.

Emby logs show nothing useful; it doesn’t even seem to start an FFmpeg process when I click play. I have enabled debug logging and then tried starting the stream multiple times before downloading the log file attached.
I must add that the Live TV function does work without any issues.
On reddit a user tried adding the stream and it worked immediately. 

How can I find out what it preventing the stream and how do I get it to work correctly?

embyserver.txt

[Luke 42077]

Hi, what options did you configure the webstream with?

[Relocate0604 8]

 

For example there is this Web Stream of a Radio Station That I Know works (http://s3.voscast.com:9966/;).
I simply add the stream as follows:

 

 

Then the stream is added:

But opening the stream always results in error.

[DJAndieK 11]

I'm having a similar issue. I've tried multiple settings, M3U files and single stream URLs with no luck. The logs don't seem to be much help either.

[sa2000 674]

could you try with the later version of WebStreams 4.9.1.36 - pre-release version made available in this forum post and run with debug logging enabled and if it still fails the same way, provide exact configuration details (and if possible a public url for the radio stream) so the issue can be replicated and tested by the development team. 

For debug logging setting see https://emby.media/support/articles/Log-Files.html

 

[Happy2Play 9780]

To me it is something with Content Type as leaving it on default "General Video" the url in first post worked just fine in Web Stream.  But changing to "General Audio" I got the playback error above with same error in log "System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Index was outside the bounds of the array."

But devs would have to comment on what actually changes per these types.

Not this was a test on plugin 4.9.1.28

ffmpeg-transcode-c46aebf0-5a7f-44e2-af55-230cb356ee12_1.txt

Edited November 17, 2025 by Happy2Play

[sa2000 674]

1 hour ago, Happy2Play said:

To me it is something with Content Type as leaving it on default "General Video" the url in first post worked just fine in Web Stream.  But changing to "General Audio" I got the playback error above with same error in log "System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Index was outside the bounds of the array."

But devs would have to comment on what actually changes per these types.

Not this was a test on plugin 4.9.1.28

Both content types worked for me with 4.9.1.36 version of the WebStreams plugin

So appears to have been fixed in WebStreams 4.9.1.36

Edited November 17, 2025 by sa2000

[sa2000 674]

@Happy2PlayI am repeating my test just in case i made a mistake

[Happy2Play 9780]

Yes retested after getting the pre-release version from forum worked in my test.

Edited November 17, 2025 by Happy2Play

[sa2000 674]

Yes WebStreams 4.9.1.36 with audio content type for single streams works ok

[sa2000 674]

@Happy2PlayAre you getting more than 15 seconds playback ? In my tests we seem to stop after the first 5 full audio segments created by the ffmpeg transcode job

 

[Happy2Play 9780]

Just now, sa2000 said:

@Happy2PlayAre you getting more than 15 seconds playback ? In my tests we seem to stop after the first 5 full audio segments created by the ffmpeg transcode job

 

No that is all I get from that example also.  Even direct playing the url in a browser does the same.

[sa2000 674]

21 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

Even direct playing the url in a browser does the same.

good to know. Thanks. So not a webstreams issue

[sa2000 674]

There may still be a WebStreams issue - this url streams ok on vlc but not webstreams  http://s3.voscast.com:9966

[Happy2Play 9780]

6 minutes ago, sa2000 said:

There may still be a WebStreams issue - this url streams ok on vlc but not webstreams  http://s3.voscast.com:9966

your missing the /; as I just added the url above and had no issue.

Edited November 17, 2025 by Happy2Play

[sa2000 674]

interesting

no change for me with or without the trailing "/". ffmpeg log exits with error on this

18:45:02.443 http://s3.voscast.com:9966/: Invalid data found when processing input

Invocation

2025-11-17 18:45:01.927 Info App: ProcessRun 'StreamTranscode 3777bd' Execute: C:\Users\emby\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\system\ffmpeg.exe -loglevel +timing -y -print_graphs_file "C:\Users\emby\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\programdata\logs\ffmpeg-transcode-3777bd2b-f17f-4498-b6ba-dc2f2a1e6667_1graph.txt" -copyts -start_at_zero -user_agent "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/64.0.3282.85 Safari/537.36" -i "http://s3.voscast.com:9966/" -vn -an -sn -max_delay 5000000 -avoid_negative_ts disabled -f segment -map_metadata -1 -map_chapters -1 -segment_format mpegts -segment_list "F:\Emby\Transcoder\transcoding-temp\943D6E\943D6E.m3u8" -segment_list_type m3u8 -segment_time 00:00:03.000 -segment_list_entry_prefix hls/943D6E/ -segment_start_number 0 -individual_header_trailer 0 -write_header_trailer 0 -segment_write_temp 1 "F:\Emby\Transcoder\transcoding-temp\943D6E\943D6E_%d.aac"

I will look further

[Happy2Play 9780]

4 minutes ago, sa2000 said:

interesting

no change for me with or without the trailing "/". ffmpeg log exits with error on this

18:45:02.443 http://s3.voscast.com:9966/: Invalid data found when processing input

Invocation

2025-11-17 18:45:01.927 Info App: ProcessRun 'StreamTranscode 3777bd' Execute: C:\Users\emby\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\system\ffmpeg.exe -loglevel +timing -y -print_graphs_file "C:\Users\emby\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\programdata\logs\ffmpeg-transcode-3777bd2b-f17f-4498-b6ba-dc2f2a1e6667_1graph.txt" -copyts -start_at_zero -user_agent "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/64.0.3282.85 Safari/537.36" -i "http://s3.voscast.com:9966/" -vn -an -sn -max_delay 5000000 -avoid_negative_ts disabled -f segment -map_metadata -1 -map_chapters -1 -segment_format mpegts -segment_list "F:\Emby\Transcoder\transcoding-temp\943D6E\943D6E.m3u8" -segment_list_type m3u8 -segment_time 00:00:03.000 -segment_list_entry_prefix hls/943D6E/ -segment_start_number 0 -individual_header_trailer 0 -write_header_trailer 0 -segment_write_temp 1 "F:\Emby\Transcoder\transcoding-temp\943D6E\943D6E_%d.aac"

I will look further

add the semicolon.

http://s3.voscast.com:9966/;

 

Spoiler

C:\Users\Media\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\system\ffmpeg.exe -loglevel +timing -y -print_graphs_file "C:\Users\Media\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\programdata\logs\ffmpeg-transcode-c51ca3c9-a2ae-4e9f-ae32-cb94401b323e_1graph.txt" -copyts -start_at_zero -user_agent "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/64.0.3282.85 Safari/537.36" -i "http://s3.voscast.com:9966/;" -map 0:0 -vn -sn -c:a:0 aac -ab:a:0 384000 -ac:a:0 2 -max_delay 5000000 -avoid_negative_ts disabled -f segment -map_metadata -1 -map_chapters -1 -segment_format mpegts -segment_list "C:\Users\Media\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\programdata\transcoding-temp\9083A9\9083A9.m3u8" -segment_list_type m3u8 -segment_time 00:00:03.000 -segment_list_entry_prefix hls/9083A9/ -segment_start_number 0 -individual_header_trailer 0 -write_header_trailer 0 -segment_write_temp 1 "C:\Users\Media\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\programdata\transcoding-temp\9083A9\9083A9_%d.aac"

 

Edited November 17, 2025 by Happy2Play

[sa2000 674]

you got me !

I did not have the semicolon at the end. works ok once added. Interesting that vlc did not need it

[Luke 42077]

This doesn't look like a problem with webstreams. It is a problem with your stream url. This url redirects to an html web page:

http://s3.voscast.com:9966

This url goes straight to an audio stream:

http://s3.voscast.com:9966/;

You cannot configure the plugin with web page urls. They need to link directly to an audio or video stream.

[Happy2Play 9780]

6 minutes ago, Luke said:

This doesn't look like a problem with webstreams. It is a problem with your stream url. This url redirects to an html web page:

http://s3.voscast.com:9966

This url goes straight to an audio stream:

http://s3.voscast.com:9966/;

You cannot configure the plugin with web page urls. They need to link directly to an audio or video stream.

In the end something changed between plugin 4.9.1.28 and pre-release 4.9.1.36 that corrected the described issue.

[Luke 42077]

7 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

In the end something changed between plugin 4.9.1.28 and pre-release 4.9.1.36 that corrected the described issue.

I haven't read everything to understand, but my comment still stands. At least in the browser, that base url points to html and not an audio stream.

[sa2000 674]

Yes the reported issue was fixed in 4.9.1.36 webstreams

* Fix playback of audio items