Latest Emby Windows App Frequently Hangs While Starting

[saj 14]

I use the latest Emby Windows App frequently, and it works fine most of the time. However, it fairly frequently hangs when starting. By this, I mean it displays the animated logo but then, instead of showing the normal home screen, it displays a fixed Emby logo and freezes. I can see no way to exit the app except to force it to close via Alt-F4 or Task Manager, etc. I have looked at the logs and they don't seem very helpful. I turned on debug logging, and here is a sample of one of the resulting logs from such a hung session.

2026-02-04 14:10:15.777 Info Application: App details
    Name:         Emby Windows
    Version:      2.234.2.0
    Device Name:  HTPC-2
    Device Id:    bf3ca858-f3e8-8b24-abb9-2fbf61d6f286
    Package:      EmbyMedia.EmbyTheater_svmepx4c03f7m
    Data Path:    C:\Users\Steve\AppData\Local\Packages\EmbyMedia.EmbyTheater_svmepx4c03f7m\LocalState\data
    Log Path:     C:\Users\Steve\AppData\Local\Packages\EmbyMedia.EmbyTheater_svmepx4c03f7m\LocalCache\logs
    Webroot:      C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\EmbyMedia.EmbyTheater_2.234.2.0_x64__svmepx4c03f7m\web
    OS Info::     Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26200.0 6.0.36
    OS/App::      64bit/64bit
    
2026-02-04 14:10:16.143 Info MainWindow: MainWindow.Load: AppWindow.IsVisible: False
2026-02-04 14:10:16.193 Info Application: ApplicationStateMonitorWinUI.Window_Activated
2026-02-04 14:10:16.200 Info Application: ApplicationStateMonitorWinUI.Window_VisibilityChanged: Visible=True
2026-02-04 14:10:16.202 Info MainWindow: AppWindow_Visible Fired - AppWindow.IsVisible: True
2026-02-04 14:10:16.202 Info MainWindow: AppWindow_Visible: DidVisibilityChange == true
2026-02-04 14:10:16.243 Info MainWindow: AppWindow_Visible: Invoke LoadWebView
2026-02-04 14:10:16.246 Info MainWindow: LoadWebView: Before EnsureCoreWebView2Async
2026-02-04 14:10:16.249 Info MainWindow: WebView2X: Start Init
2026-02-04 14:10:16.326 Info MainWindow: WebView2X: Fixed runtime path: C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\EmbyMedia.EmbyTheater_2.234.2.0_x64__svmepx4c03f7m\WebView2\x64
2026-02-04 14:10:16.349 Debug SuperThemeInteropController: QuantizationTimer_Fired: Enter
2026-02-04 14:10:16.350 Debug SuperThemeInteropController: CreateStatusInfo: Enter
2026-02-04 14:10:16.381 Info MainWindow: WebView2X: Window Handle: 4196474
2026-02-04 14:10:16.701 Info MainWindow: LoadWebView: After EnsureCoreWebView2Async
2026-02-04 14:10:16.707 Info MainWindow: LoadWebView: WebViewAdapterWinUI created
2026-02-04 14:10:17.122 Info MainWindow: LoadWebView: CoreWebView2.Navigate
2026-02-04 14:10:17.561 Debug WebViewAdapterWinUI: CoreWebView2_WebResourceRequested: WebResourceRequested: file:///C:/Program%20Files/WindowsApps/EmbyMedia.EmbyTheater_2.234.2.0_x64__svmepx4c03f7m/web/index.html?autostart=false
2026-02-04 14:10:17.568 Debug WebViewAdapterWinUI: CoreWebView2_WebResourceRequested: WebResourceRequested: file:///C:/Program%20Files/WindowsApps/EmbyMedia.EmbyTheater_2.234.2.0_x64__svmepx4c03f7m/web/modules/fonts/material-icons/mi_2024_05.woff2
2026-02-04 14:10:17.568 Debug WebViewAdapterWinUI: CoreWebView2_WebResourceRequested: WebResourceRequested: file:///C:/Program%20Files/WindowsApps/EmbyMedia.EmbyTheater_2.234.2.0_x64__svmepx4c03f7m/web/apploader.js
2026-02-04 14:10:17.571 Debug WebViewAdapterWinUI: CoreWebView2_WebResourceRequested: WebResourceRequested: file:///C:/Program%20Files/WindowsApps/EmbyMedia.EmbyTheater_2.234.2.0_x64__svmepx4c03f7m/web/modules/alameda/alameda.js
2026-02-04 14:10:17.571 Debug WebViewAdapterWinUI: CoreWebView2_WebResourceRequested: WebResourceRequested: file:///C:/Program%20Files/WindowsApps/EmbyMedia.EmbyTheater_2.234.2.0_x64__svmepx4c03f7m/web/modules/themes/logowhite.png
2026-02-04 14:10:17.574 Debug WebViewAdapterWinUI: CoreWebView2_WebResourceRequested: WebResourceRequested: file:///C:/Program%20Files/WindowsApps/EmbyMedia.EmbyTheater_2.234.2.0_x64__svmepx4c03f7m/web/app.js
2026-02-04 14:10:25.898 Info MainWindow: AnimationWindow_ShowLogo invoked
2026-02-04 14:10:25.906 Info MainWindow: AnimationWindow_AnimationHidden invoked
2026-02-04 14:10:42.732 Info Application: Disposing ServiceManager
2026-02-04 14:10:42.733 Info Application: Disposing ApplicationStateMonitorWinUI
2026-02-04 14:10:42.733 Info Application: Disposing ConnectionManager
2026-02-04 14:10:42.734 Info Application: Disposing FeatureProvider
2026-02-04 14:10:42.735 Info Application: Disposing FeatureProvider

I have many logs from such hung sessions, and they are all very similar to this. The app doesn't crash, so there is no associated crashdump. It's just stuck.

Note that sometimes it will fail like this several times in a row and then suddenly load just fine without my doing anything to intervene.

 

On a few occasions, the app has appeared to crash during the creation of the animated logo. I am attaching a crashdump that I believe is associated with one such failure. This is much less frequent than the hung sessions.

Note that I still also have the older Emby Theater installed, and it never has any issues like this. Indeed, once the new app starts successfully, it works just fine too.

These are running on a very capable and up-to-date Windows 11 machine dedicated as a home theater PC. I have a separate dedicated Windows 11 machine running the server.

I would appreciate any assistance ending this annoyance.

Thanks

 

Emby.Client.WinUI.exe.5868.dmp

[Luke 42077]

HI, we'll take a look at it. Thanks for reporting.

[softworkz 5065]

Actually, we are looking at it already in the beta (https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/146021-new-windows-xbox-beta-229200/)

@saj - Thanks a lot for the detailed description and analysis.

It's the MS WebView2 which has that weird behavior that it sometimes starts without firing certain events we are relying on.

[saj 14]

Thank you for looking into this.

I also meant to mention that when I was investigating this issue, I noticed an odd anomaly with the view log files display in the app. The log file name is listed followed by a display of the date and time for the entry. However, the displayed time is incorrect. In my case it showed times that were hours into the future. I am attaching a screenshot that illustrates this. Note that this screenshot was from 2/4, and several log files list times far beyond the current time on the display, and they don't match with the times in the log file names.

[Neminem 1516]

Check server time/zone