Preventing PC off

[leshkraven 5]

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 42977]

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

[leshkraven 5]

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 42977]

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 5]

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 42977]

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

[leshkraven 5]

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.

[softworkz 5365]

@leshkraven

The Windows app's concept for dealing with this is quite simple:

Don't mess around with any Windows power-saving APIs - instead, just properly report playback operations (start, stop,, previous, next, etc.) and let everything else be handled be Window itself.

What you are describing sounds like Windows assuming that there's still an ongoing (or just paused) playback operation. 
Do you know how to see active playback operations on Win 11?
When you click on the speaker/wifi/battery symbol in the taskbar, you should also see any ongoing media playback operations.

Can you see that

• while playing?
• after playback has stopped?

[leshkraven 5]

I run a taskbar mod to setup win11 tb to look and work like win10 so i dont see that unfortunately 

This was the result from a movie running and stopping after 3min of play, this looks right to me, so i think it sticks as playing or paused as you mentioned when the show/movie runs to the end and emby autos back to homescreen
 

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> powercfg /requests
DISPLAY:
[PROCESS] \Device\HarddiskVolume1\Program Files\WindowsApps\EmbyMedia.EmbyTheater_2.317.2.0_x64__svmepx4c03f7m\Emby.Client.WinUI.exe

SYSTEM:
[PROCESS] \Device\HarddiskVolume1\Program Files\WindowsApps\EmbyMedia.EmbyTheater_2.317.2.0_x64__svmepx4c03f7m\Emby.Client.WinUI.exe
[DRIVER] Legacy Kernel Caller

AWAYMODE:
None.

EXECUTION:
None.

PERFBOOST:
None.

ACTIVELOCKSCREEN:
None.

 

AFTER 3MIN

 

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

SYSTEM:
None.

AWAYMODE:
None.

EXECUTION:
None.

PERFBOOST:
None.

ACTIVELOCKSCREEN:
None.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32>

[softworkz 5365]

How does it behave when you explicitly stop playback (by going back)?

Do you have "Play video in background" enabled in playback settings?

[leshkraven 5]

No, play vid in bg is disabled.

So I ran some tests and had some good results. Typical PC and Windows gremlins always trying to make me look the fool.

I changed my power settings from 10min screen sleep/ 45min PC sleep,  to 1min screen sleep, 2min PC sleep

I ran a ep for 3min, exited to homescreen and had a successful screen sleep and PC sleep on time
I ran a movie dragging the seek bar to the last 5min and letting the return to homescreen happening automatically, this result was successful screen sleep and PC sleep on time

I put my settings back to 10min screen and 45min PC, started an ep and let it run, came home to a successful result, screen off and PC asleep

So now I am wondering is it a bug in WIN11 where a change in powersettings resets the sleep function somehow, I dont quiet know how to trigger it, do the power settings need changing once in a while, does it need to have one successful sleep and powered back on, and them putting powersettings times to a greater number.

You just dont know with these kind of things, I tried lots of this stuff already but this time it seemed to work, I`ll see how it goes over the next few days but I am definitely leaning towards Windows and not Em theatre  being the really issue here

 

Edited 3 hours ago by leshkraven

[softworkz 5365]

@leshkraven

Thanks for the feedback. I would have been surprised when it was about out app, simply because it would have come up before, but I wasn't sure enough to blame it away, because my main machine crashes on sleep, so it's always disabled.

Now, didn't you say that the one change on your side was a switch to a different display? With your recent results, my best theory would be that maybe a new display requires a "refresh" or fresh save of the power settings - but that's merely a guess.