LG TV is Internet blocked: Emby App asks for premiere / lags when pressing play

[Utini 17]

My LG TV is blocked from accessing the internet but can community with my Emby server on LAN. The Emby server has internet access and a fully valid Emby premier license.

When I'm open the Emby app on the LG TV and try to hir "play" it quite often won't do anything. Like the button doesn't work.

Then after a few mins I get several times the same pop which asks me to get Emby premiere or wait 10 seconds to continue.

Seems like a bug? 

Latest Emby server and Emby LG.app.

 

[Neminem 1955]

It not a bug, the app needs to phone home to Emby to validate premiere license.

Even though your server internet access.

[Neminem 1955]

But if you can allow the TV to access https://mb3admin.com

I thing that will solve your issue.

[Utini 17]

47 minutes ago, Neminem said:

But if you can allow the TV to access https://mb3admin.com

I thing that will solve your issue.

I will try but Instill think it's a bug or bad coding.

The Emby LG app should only need to connect to my local server. And that server is connecting to Emby to validate if it's a premiere license or not.

No need for the Emby LG app to do that.

[ebr 16933]

6 hours ago, Utini said:

I will try but Instill think it's a bug or bad coding.

The Emby LG app should only need to connect to my local server. And that server is connecting to Emby to validate if it's a premiere license or not.

No need for the Emby LG app to do that.

Hi.  Unfortunately, there is a need for us to do that.  The apps will need periodic access to validate.  They can survive short outages but will need to validate about once per week.

[Utini 17]

28 minutes ago, ebr said:

Hi.  Unfortunately, there is a need for us to do that.  The apps will need periodic access to validate.  They can survive short outages but will need to validate about once per week.

Thanks for the clarification.

I don't understand why the client needs external network access. It obviously makes sense for the server but not for the client.

This could be an issue for a lot of people who don't want their smart tv on the internet due to privacy reasons as well

Thanks for the workaround idea though. Haven't tested it yet.

[Utini 17]

Allowing outgoing to https://mb3admin.com fixes the issue. 

[Utini 17]

@Luke@ebr@Neminemnope still the same issue even when excluding the domain. Weirdly I can't see anything from Emby that seems to get blocked? See the screenshot. 

Could Emby be on any "common" blocklist from nextdns?

[Luke 43374]

can you force close the app and test again?

[Utini 17]

23 minutes ago, Luke said:

can you force close the app and test again?

Not sure how to force close the app on LG TV? It happened after the TV has been off for nearly 24h though.

[Luke 43374]

Quote

Could Emby be on any "common" blocklist from nextdns?

Not that we know of, but you could test that from your server machine, right?

[Utini 17]

8 hours ago, Luke said:

Not that we know of, but you could test that from your server machine, right?

Ah yes true lol..well opening the domain works. 

[Utini 17]

On 9/21/2026 at 10:41 PM, Luke said:

Not that we know of, but you could test that from your server machine, right?

Link works but issue is still there.

I need to spam play button several times until after a few min I get tons of "get premier" pop ups so that I can then start a playback 

[speechles 2123]

On 9/19/2026 at 11:57 PM, Utini said:

I will try but Instill think it's a bug or bad coding.

The Emby LG app should only need to connect to my local server. And that server is connecting to Emby to validate if it's a premiere license or not.

No need for the Emby LG app to do that.

Bad actors. This is why we cannot have nice things. Because people can fake their server credentials. You may not remember. Years earlier when Emby was 100% open source. But because of implementing things costs rose it became necessary to close source and monetize certain features. Emby went closed source to keep the project going in the current direction.

These other guys first created an Emby-unlocked branch. The unlocked branch would spoof active premiere licenses and try to fake official Emby apps into validating with the spoofed credentials. It became necessary for the apps to also check the validity of the premiere key that the Emby server it is connected to actually exists. Then no longer could the Emby-unlocked branch exist. It was pointless. The official Emby apps were now onto them and denied their spoofed server. They had to move.

So they renamed it to JellyFin and started to claim the reason their branch existed was to keep it open source. When really it was created to allow pirate servers to have an unlimited amount of applications/clients/devices that could play from their unlocked-Emby server.

So pretty much you can blame JellyFin why your LG Emby app must validate the credentials directly rather than trust the servers own determination.

Edited September 23 by speechles

[Utini 17]

30 minutes ago, speechles said:

Bad actors. This is why we cannot have nice things. Because people can fake their server credentials. You may not remember. Years earlier when Emby was 100% open source. But because of implementing things costs rose it became necessary to close source and monetize certain features. Emby went closed source to keep the project going in the current direction.

These other guys first created an Emby-unlocked branch. The unlocked branch would spoof active premiere licenses and try to fake official Emby apps into validating with the spoofed credentials. It became necessary for the apps to also check the validity of the premiere key that the Emby server it is connected to actually exists. Then no longer could the Emby-unlocked branch exist. It was pointless. The official Emby apps were now onto them and denied their spoofed server. They had to move.

So they renamed it to JellyFin and started to claim the reason their branch existed was to keep it open source. When really it was created to allow pirate servers to have an unlimited amount of applications/clients/devices that could play from their unlocked-Emby server.

So pretty much you can blame JellyFin why your LG Emby app must validate the credentials directly rather than trust the servers own determination.

Exciting history lol. Thanks, I didn't know that and can now relate.

However, I am whitelisting the domain but still face the issue when starting Emby the first time after powering on the TV

[speechles 2123]

Quote

When developing for LG webOS, it is a common race condition for an application to boot faster than the TV's network card can initialize and obtain an IP address—especially when the TV wakes up from a standby state via Quick Start+.

To resolve this, you must defer your initial network requests and subscribe to the system's network status using the Luna Connection Manager API. [1]

@LukeIs that Luna API being utilized on the LG to delay network requests until ready?

[Luke 43374]

No we may have to look at that.

[marriedman 121]

As an alternative, you could block all of the LG telemetry at the DNS level. The benefit here is that if you are using a PC, Firestick,Shield, or other device hooked to the TV and has the ability to access the internet, they won't allow the TV to use that connection. It's creepy what they can sneak out via HDMI.

https://github.com/sappafrancesco/dns-blocklists/tree/main/vendors/lg-tv

[Utini 17]

1 hour ago, marriedman said:

As an alternative, you could block all of the LG telemetry at the DNS level. The benefit here is that if you are using a PC, Firestick,Shield, or other device hooked to the TV and has the ability to access the internet, they won't allow the TV to use that connection. It's creepy what they can sneak out via HDMI.

https://github.com/sappafrancesco/dns-blocklists/tree/main/vendors/lg-tv

Yes the problem is that DNS Adresse change, some request might be IP bound and also hard coded DNS Servers could be an issue. 

It is a solution but not a fully secure one in my opinion.