Preventing PC off

[leshkraven 4]

Emby Theater (Windows Store app, v2.317.2.0) is preventing my PC from sleeping and my monitor from turning off, even after playback has fully ended.

My Windows power settings are: screen off after 10 minutes, PC sleep after 45 minutes. These work correctly for every other app. When Emby Theater is left open after a movie finishes, the PC will stay fully awake with the display on for hours, I've had it stay on for 8+ hours overnight with nothing playing.

Importantly, this did not happen on my previous monitor (ASUS VG34VQL1B). It started after switching to a new monitor (ASUS XG34WCDG, HDMI 2.1). Same PC, same Windows install, same Emby Theater app and settings only the monitor changed. This suggests the app may be detecting something about the new display (HDR capability, refresh rate, or similar) and not releasing its background media playback lock correctly once that detection changes.

I'm aware Emby Theater uses the Windows backgroundMediaPlayback capability to prevent sleep during active playback, which is expected behaviour. The issue is that this lock does not appear to be released once playback stops it should only apply during active media playback, not indefinitely afterward.

System: Windows 11, Intel i9-13900K, RTX 4090, ASUS XG34WCDG monitor (HDMI 2.1)

Could someone look into whether the background playback lock is being released properly when playback ends, and whether display capability detection could be a factor? 

[Luke 42966]

Hi, what's on the screen in the emby app when this happens?

[leshkraven 4]

Just the main HomeScreen

After a movie finishes it goes back to the HomeScreen. I wake up in the morning and it is sat on that screen all night, both monitor displaying and pc on

[Luke 42966]

ok if you open a command prompt and enter powercfg /requests

then you can see what apps have a power lock open on the system.

[leshkraven 4]

That is the strange thing, it always shows none

 

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32>  powercfg /requests
DISPLAY:
None.

SYSTEM:
None.

AWAYMODE:
None.

EXECUTION:
None.

PERFBOOST:
None.

ACTIVELOCKSCREEN:
None.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32>

[Luke 42966]

OK then how can you be sure it's caused by the emby app?

[leshkraven 4]

It is the only app that keeps my PC on all night 

Since I only turned emby on and didn't watch anything when running the power config command. I'll watch a film tonight and wait till it finishes and then run it in the shell again to see what it shows 

I have already gone through a number of troubleshooting ideas to try and solve this before creating a post.