WebStreams Error When Applying Filter

[Lalico 3]

Hello. I’ve just installed this plugin, but I can’t get it to work — I always get an error when I try to apply a filter. I’m attaching a screenshot. Am I doing something wrong?

After that error appears, I can’t do anything else with the plugin — I have to restart Emby to try again.

 

[Luke 42077]

@Lalico

Hi there, please attach the Emby server log from when the problem occurred:

How to Report a Problem

Thanks!

 

[softworkz 5066]

 @Lalico

Are you working locally? If not, can you try from the same machine on which Emby Server is installed?

[Lalico 3]

@softworkz I’m testing it locally, on the same machine where the server is running, and also locally from another computer. I tried different browsers and there was no way to make it work. It only worked when I started removing lines from the m3u. The strange thing is that I reached a number where it seemed to work — in fact, it let me create several filters — but now it no longer works. With the same playlist and without changing anything, it just gets stuck and I have to restart Emby. The group creation screen goes blank and it doesn’t let me do anything.

@Luke Which log file would be needed?

Now that it has let me create some groups, I was able to test how it works, and honestly it looks pretty bad. It lets me watch for a few minutes and then it stops; it stays frozen for one or two minutes and then starts again for a few more minutes until it stops again, and this keeps happening constantly. It’s not a playlist issue because I use Smartes IPTV Pro and it works perfectly there.

[Lalico 3]

I’ve already read which file was needed; I’m attaching it here right after trying again and when the screen gets stuck like this:

What’s strange is that after removing many lines from the m3u, it finally let me create several filters, and now suddenly it won’t let me anymore and the screen goes blank when I try…

embyserver.txt

[softworkz 5066]

@Lalico - How many lines does your m3u file have actually?

[Lalico 3]

16 hours ago, softworkz said:

@Lalico - How many lines does your m3u file have actually?

This last m3u that worked at the beginning has 83,000 entries; the original one that causes the big error from the start has 2,621,643.

[Lalico 3]

The plugin interprets it as 41,639 items.

[softworkz 5066]

31 minutes ago, Lalico said:

This last m3u that worked at the beginning has 83,000 entries; the original one that causes the big error from the start has 2,621,643.

Holy ***, I've never come across nor even heard about an m3u having 2.5M items.

What you are seeing aligns with our testing: Item counts up to 100k are handled well. To be honest, I've never even spent a thought about cases with multi-million entries.

The point is that it's not just the client UI filtering operation which can't handled this, but it applies to everything that is involved from parsing to updating to item updating in the server, metadata retrieval etc. etc.
It's not designed to handle such amounts of items and I'm afraid to say that there's no change to be expected in this regard, other than erroring with a clear message instead of failing unexplained like now.

Thanks and sorry!

[softworkz 5066]

11 minutes ago, Lalico said:

The plugin interprets it as 41,639 items.

One item typically spans two lines, so when your 83,000 figure was a line count, then it calcs exactly to that: 41,639 * 2 = 83,278

[Lalico 3]

49 minutes ago, softworkz said:

Holy ***, I've never come across nor even heard about an m3u having 2.5M items.

What you are seeing aligns with our testing: Item counts up to 100k are handled well. To be honest, I've never even spent a thought about cases with multi-million entries.

The point is that it's not just the client UI filtering operation which can't handled this, but it applies to everything that is involved from parsing to updating to item updating in the server, metadata retrieval etc. etc.
It's not designed to handle such amounts of items and I'm afraid to say that there's no change to be expected in this regard, other than erroring with a clear message instead of failing unexplained like now.

Thanks and sorry!

Ahhh, okay, that’s a shame. Thank you very much for taking the time to review it and reply. Best regards.

[softworkz 5066]

11 minutes ago, Lalico said:

Ahhh, okay, that’s a shame. Thank you very much for taking the time to review it and reply. Best regards.

I don't feel ashamed tbh, but may I ask which other clients you have tried that file with and which are still handling this amount flawlessly?

[Lalico 3]

25 minutes ago, softworkz said:

La verdad es que no me da vergüenza, pero ¿puedo preguntar con qué otros clientes has probado ese archivo y cuáles siguen manejando esa cantidad sin problemas?

Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way — the translation to English failed. What a pity, How sad, because I really liked the options.

I use Smarters IPTV, which automatically splits everything into series, movies, and TV from the full playlist.

[softworkz 5066]

4 hours ago, Lalico said:

Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way — the translation to English failed. What a pity, How sad, because I really liked the options.

No worries, all good  

 

4 hours ago, Lalico said:

I use Smarters IPTV, which automatically splits everything into series, movies, and TV from the full playlist.

Interesting, thanks. I read the name once or twice but didn't really know that it's a player. 

 

To elaborate a bit more on the situation: 

An essential part of the concept is the interactive filtering, that allows you to shape the content in a transparent and - kind of - WYSIWYG manner. There's a tiny learning curve, but once you've figured it out, it's a convenient and enjoyable way that you don't find elsewhere.

Yet - this also gets at limits at some point - not just technically - even when we would make this work with 2 Millions of entries, the UX would not work out anymore, because with that amount of data, you cannot reasonably work with anymore. This would require additional procedures, assisting in finding your ways through all the data without getting lost.

There's one feature ID that I had recorded some time ago, which is about a kind of "pre-filter". A rather simple (less sophisticated) method for filtering which gets applied at a much earlier stage, so that the out-filtered data doesn't get into the grid or elsewhere in the first place.

But 2.5M, divided by 3 (separated into series, movies and TV) is still way too much...

[Lalico 3]

On 1/15/2026 at 11:39 PM, softworkz said:

No worries, all good  

 

Interesting, thanks. I read the name once or twice but didn't really know that it's a player. 

 

To elaborate a bit more on the situation: 

An essential part of the concept is the interactive filtering, that allows you to shape the content in a transparent and - kind of - WYSIWYG manner. There's a tiny learning curve, but once you've figured it out, it's a convenient and enjoyable way that you don't find elsewhere.

Yet - this also gets at limits at some point - not just technically - even when we would make this work with 2 Millions of entries, the UX would not work out anymore, because with that amount of data, you cannot reasonably work with anymore. This would require additional procedures, assisting in finding your ways through all the data without getting lost.

There's one feature ID that I had recorded some time ago, which is about a kind of "pre-filter". A rather simple (less sophisticated) method for filtering which gets applied at a much earlier stage, so that the out-filtered data doesn't get into the grid or elsewhere in the first place.

But 2.5M, divided by 3 (separated into series, movies and TV) is still way too much...

And being able to add a section for movies and series — the thing is that right now you have to separate them manually. The series section works great, but the movies section also mixes in series and there’s no way around it. Something like what Smarters IPTV does, which automatically detects series and movies. Do you see that as viable?