Emby Windows 2.317.2.0 playback controls hidden behind video

[TDriver 57]

Hello,

I am using Emby Windows version 2.317.2.0. Video playback itself works normally, but the complete playback controls overlay / OSD is no longer visible.

When I start any video and move the mouse or click inside the player, no controls appear. The play/pause button, progress bar, volume control, audio and subtitle selection, fullscreen button and all other playback controls are missing.

The video continues playing normally, and player commands such as play/pause are still being processed. The issue occurs in windowed, maximized and fullscreen modes.

I have already tested the following:

• HDR enabled and disabled
• 10-bit and 8-bit display output
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti
• AMD Radeon integrated graphics
• D3D11VA hardware decoding
• Software decoding
• Different MPV quality and scaling settings
• Multiple video files
• Windowed, maximized and fullscreen playback

The behavior is always the same.

The Emby client log shows that IAppRouter.showVideoOsd is called and returns successfully, but the OSD is still not visible.

This makes me suspect a z-order or composition issue where the native MPV video surface is being rendered above the WebView2 playback controls.

The client log also repeatedly contains the following warning when the OSD is requested:

Warn WebView: error locking orientation: [object DOMException]

I have attached the Emby client log and several MPV logs from tests using different graphics adapters, decoding methods and display configurations.

Expected behavior:

The playback controls should appear when moving the mouse, clicking inside the player, pausing playback or entering fullscreen mode.

Actual behavior:

The video is visible and plays normally, but the complete playback controls overlay remains hidden.

 The controls worked previously, but I currently cannot find any way to restore them.EmbyClient.txt 

Is this a known regression in Emby Windows 2.317.2.0?

Is there a way to completely reset the WebView2 UI, player configuration or application data without losing the connection to the Emby server?

Thank you.

mpv-20260719T213156584.txt

[softworkz 5295]

8 minutes ago, TDriver said:

Is this a known regression in Emby Windows 2.317.2.0?

Not that I'd know of.

Which theme? 

TV Mode enabled?

[TDriver 57]

No, TV Mode is not enabled.

I am using the Dark theme, but I have also tested the Windows theme and the issue remains exactly the same.

I have additionally:

• Reset the app completely
• Uninstalled Emby Windows
• Restarted Windows
• Reinstalled the app from the Microsoft Store

Unfortunately, the playback controls / OSD are still not visible after the clean reinstall.

The issue occurs in normal desktop mode as well as in windowed, maximized and fullscreen playback.

[softworkz 5295]

Hm, this is very unusual. 

It cannot be behind the video, because the video is an entirely different layer behind everything else .

Has it been working for you with a previous version? If yes, which one?

Do you have display scaling set to anything else than 100%

Have you tried key presses via keyboard? 

Is it a tablet with touch input?

 

[TDriver 57]

I tested the keyboard and mouse input again.

The controls are definitely present and functional, but they are completely invisible. When I move the mouse over the positions where the controls should normally be, I can still click Back, Forward, Play/Pause and other buttons.

I also checked Task Manager while the video was playing. Emby starts the following processes normally:

• Emby.Client.WinUI.exe
• WebView2 GPU Process
• WebView2 Manager
• WebView2 Utility processes
• A WebView2 process for the currently playing media

The WebView2 GPU process is active, and the application continues responding normally. The video is rendered correctly, but the entire visual playback UI is missing.

So this does not appear to be an input problem. The interactive hitboxes are present, but the icons, text and overlay background are not being visually rendered.

Windows display scaling is set to 100%.

PC specifications:

• Windows 11
• AMD Ryzen 5 9600X
• 32 GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti
• AMD Radeon integrated graphics

I have attached additional screenshots showing the invisible controls and the active Emby/WebView2 processes in Task Manager.

[TDriver 57]

I found a reproducible workaround and this appears to confirm a WebView2 GPU rendering issue.

After setting the following user environment variable and restarting Windows:

WEBVIEW2_ADDITIONAL_BROWSER_ARGUMENTS=--disable-gpu

the playback controls / OSD become visible again immediately.

Without this flag, the controls are present and clickable, but completely invisible.

With --disable-gpu, the full playback UI is rendered correctly.

This strongly suggests a hardware-accelerated WebView2 rendering or composition problem on this PC.

The system has both:

• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti
• AMD Radeon integrated graphics

It may be related to the hybrid GPU configuration, GPU selection or the current WebView2/graphics driver combination.

[softworkz 5295]

Great analysis!

Now that you say it, I remember that a similar issue existed for a user with the new Linux app, but that was early in the beta phase and unrelated to the app.

Did it work in an earlier version of the app?

Generally, multi-gpu is working fine on Windows, I have 3 GPUs (Intel iGPU, Nvidia, AMD) working at the same time.

Do you know the 

Windows settings where you can choose a "high performance GPU" and also per-app settings which GPU it should use.

You can try "Optimizations for windowed games" on/off

 

Do you have the latest drivers installed for all GPUs?

[TDriver 57]

Thanks for the suggestions. I was able to resolve the issue and narrow down the cause.

The playback controls were present and interactive the whole time:

• The mouse cursor changed to a hand over the invisible buttons
• Back, Forward, Play/Pause and other controls could still be clicked
• The Emby client log showed that showVideoOsd was called successfully
• The issue only occurred on this particular Windows PC
• Other Windows PCs displayed the controls normally

I then tested the following without success:

• Windows display scaling at 100%
• Dark theme and Windows theme
• Windowed, maximized and fullscreen playback
• NVIDIA GPU and AMD integrated graphics
• Windows automatic GPU selection
• High-performance GPU selection
• Power-saving GPU selection
• Auto HDR enabled and disabled
• Optimizations for windowed games enabled and disabled
• App repair
• Complete app reset
• Full uninstall and reinstall from the Microsoft Store

The decisive test was disabling WebView2 GPU acceleration with:

WEBVIEW2_ADDITIONAL_BROWSER_ARGUMENTS=--disable-gpu

After restarting Windows, the complete playback controls / OSD became visible again immediately.

This confirmed that the issue was related to hardware-accelerated WebView2 rendering or GPU composition on this system.

I then removed the workaround again and performed a clean installation of the latest NVIDIA driver, including a complete driver reinstall.

After restarting Windows, the playback controls were visible again with normal WebView2 GPU acceleration enabled.

The environment variable is now removed and no workaround is required.

So the issue appears to have been caused by the previous NVIDIA driver or its interaction with WebView2 GPU rendering/composition.

Thank you for pointing me toward the GPU and Windows graphics settings.

[softworkz 5295]

5 hours ago, TDriver said:

So the issue appears to have been caused by the previous NVIDIA driver or its interaction with WebView2 GPU rendering/composition.

I'm grad you were able to resolved it.

Thanks a lot for the feedback.