Completed Suggestion: Down for maintenance

[bandit8623 213]

3 hours ago, Luke said:

Maintenance mode coming soon on the server beta channel:

 

Is there any plan to have a banner for future maintenance?  If my server is down it's usually because it's rebooting.. this msg won't get to users?  Thx

[Neminem 1518]

Hmm I think I will install Emby on a old pi i have lying around.

Set that in to maintenance

Redirect my NPM to that Emby instance.

Then users will hit that pi instance and see the info.

Well any way right now I do the same,

but I redirect to my uptime-kuma server where i can show all my services, maintenance and more.

[crusher11 1101]

9 hours ago, Luke said:

Maintenance mode coming soon on the server beta channel:

 

The server would still have to be running to display this message though, right?

[PuffyToesToo 346]

Thank you Luke and all the other members of the team for this. Much appreciated.

[Luke 42077]

31 minutes ago, crusher11 said:

The server would still have to be running to display this message though, right?

Correct.

[crusher11 1101]

So what exactly is the use case here?

[MEB 27]

1 minute ago, crusher11 said:

So what exactly is the use case here?

I would say maybe migrating HDD or maybe a failed drive or if playing with user permissions and you don't want someone to log in with a permission they are not supposed to have. I can think of a few uses but the feature most want is a scheduled downtime and for clients to remember this downtime if they can't log in. Clients need to be able to remember if there was a downtime.

[brothom 177]

Well the maintenance message can be displayed for everyone, except the localhost user(s), allowing them access to the server.

A use-case would be when moving data, adding new data and not wanting users to immediately click on unfinished data.

Although, I would much rather prefer a "publish"-method for media so admins can finetune the emby data or local files before entries are shown to users.

[plittlefield 56]

Wow, that's spooky - I literally thought it would be a good idea - told it was already a thing - it's taken over nearly 9 years (!) but this is great news and exactly what I want

This is my twopence and use case:-

--------------

"I would love a way to put my Emby Server in to a kind of 'Maintenance Mode' so that my server will be 'out of action' for a while.

The User can 'see' the server, and 'log in' as normal, but not be able to 'play' anything because of this 'maintenance mode'.

IMPORTANT - If I stop the server, then people's TVs or Apps complain and kick them out and they have to go through the hassle of logging in again.

THIS IS DIFFERENT - this will not 'fail' but just not allow them to play anything.

The reason for this request is so that I can keep using my server for number crunching or transcoding or whatever but not overload it with extra CPU playing Emby media."

--------------

Excellent work Emby Team so how I do I get notified of when this is in a Beta version, or should I just set a reminder for a month?

UPDATE - just seen this ... I will bookmark and search for 'Maintenance' in Uptime Kuma  
https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Emby.Releases/releases

UPDATE 2 - seriously - I've just refreshed that page and the latest beta version has the mode

 

OK, so I think I will wait for it to hit Stable then I can use it.

Once again, thanks for this.  It will be SO useful.

Regards,

Paully

Edited August 22, 2025 by plittlefield

[bandit8623 213]

wont be useful for me until there is a banner message for future outages.  anytime i need to take server down its when the baremetal needs a reboot.

like the idea though

[Rumzzz 31]

I love this feature, this is actually very useful for me as I turn on maintenance mode when adding/scanning large amounts of new music to my library. Having multiple users active while a scan is in progress seems to slow down both the scan and UI for users. 

[bandit8623 213]

How about a plug-in for opnsense and pfsense that would integrate with emby. Set it up and then those gateways would take over the notifications. When server is down.

Just an idea. I know the majority don't run third party hardware with that software.. but they should :)

Edited August 28, 2025 by bandit8623

[Santiag0 10]

It's good for people who sell logins to emby but for me my emby never goes down unless the power goes out. Still cool idea though. After this is completed and you see a down for maintenance and when it comes back online 70% of the movie posters are still not showing then pull the plug people selling emby logins that can't even make sure that cover art and posters are a must and the live tv section 65% without a guide make sure you fix it No wonder they sell it so cheap, blank movie posters empty tv guide HAHA Keep in mind you get what you pay for and sometimes even less.....

If you login to any emby from any server and any of the servers have empty blank movie covers CANCEL

With me if I had to use this to say sorry the power is out, everyone who uses my emby would never see it because there power is out to

[Rumzzz 31]

Would be cool to have an additional setting that automatically enables maintenance mode while a scan is running (or possibly other defined triggers), and then disables it when finished.

[plittlefield 56]

Can @Luke please post in here when the stable version with maintenance mode is available?

[Rumzzz 31]

@plittlefieldstable update released last week, in case you missed 

[plittlefield 56]

Oh wow thanks!

How do I use it?

[Luke 42077]

11 hours ago, plittlefield said:

Oh wow thanks!

How do I use it?

HI, you just turn on maintenance mode in server settings.

[slicedmass 6]

Does this feature work for non logged in users? What I want to do is the following:

setup 2 emby servers, 1 is the actual server running with every user and content. The other with no users at all (except admin) and no content and perpetually in maintenance mode. Setup nginx with both endpoints in a active/standyby failover setup so the maintenance mode endpoint is only used when the actual server is not accessible (down). But will user who try to access get a maintenance message (considering they are not a user on the second emby server)? I really would like a simple check for emby apps etc. That checks a very specific url like https://emby.mydomain.com/maintenance/maintenance.html (or whatever) and if that file exists then automatically show it with its containing maintenance message, even prior to login. This would allow us to just rename the file (your maintenance button could also do that) but for me i would just setup nginx with the file itself so nginx can be up serving the file but emby down.

[ebr 16169]

46 minutes ago, slicedmass said:

Does this feature work for non logged in users? What I want to do is the following:

setup 2 emby servers, 1 is the actual server running with every user and content. The other with no users at all (except admin) and no content and perpetually in maintenance mode. Setup nginx with both endpoints in a active/standyby failover setup so the maintenance mode endpoint is only used when the actual server is not accessible (down). But will user who try to access get a maintenance message (considering they are not a user on the second emby server)? I really would like a simple check for emby apps etc. That checks a very specific url like https://emby.mydomain.com/maintenance/maintenance.html (or whatever) and if that file exists then automatically show it with its containing maintenance message, even prior to login. This would allow us to just rename the file (your maintenance button could also do that) but for me i would just setup nginx with the file itself so nginx can be up serving the file but emby down.

Hi.  The way our feature is designed the message comes after logging in.  This allows the admin to actually access the system.

If you are going to the trouble to setup what you indicated, your failover could simply return a web page with whatever message you want...

[Neminem 1518]

8 minutes ago, ebr said:

If you are going to the trouble to setup what you indicated, your failover could simply return a web page with whatever message you want...

That will only work in browser clients, right

[ebr 16169]

1 minute ago, Neminem said:

That will only work in browser clients, right

Yes, good point but what was suggested would make it impossible for the admin to access the system to do said maintenance  

[Aleas 19]

I do agree, if this feature could be expanded just a tiny bit, to include a info message for users, without locking out the libraries.  more of an info notice.

such as "system will be down at $x time for whatever.", or "system may be slow while drive $x is being rebuilt from parity..",  etc..

[jcbhltz 4]

The current maintenance mode is useful but it only works when the server is fully running. When the server must be shut down for OS updates, hardware work, filesystem repairs, or when it cannot start due to a bad update or storage issue, users see nothing. Ideally maintenance mode could function independently of the main Emby instance, so users always receive a message even when Emby itself is offline.

Something like:

• Standalone (separate lightweight service)
• Can on another host or container.
• Exposes a minimal subset of Emby’s HTTP API (e.g., /emby/system/info, basic discovery endpoints).
• Always returns a standardized “maintenance mode” response that clients will interpret and display.

Running another server in maintenance with shared storage, and switching to the maintenance server when needed could work as well with a fair amount of messing around to keep token continuity I believe.

[bandit8623 213]

1 minute ago, jcbhltz said:

 

The current maintenance mode is useful but it only works when the server is fully running. When the server must be shut down for OS updates, hardware work, filesystem repairs, or when it cannot start due to a bad update or storage issue, users see nothing. Ideally maintenance mode could function independently of the main Emby instance, so users always receive a message even when Emby itself is offline.

Something like:

• Standalone (separate lightweight service)
• Can on another host or container.
• Exposes a minimal subset of Emby’s HTTP API (e.g., /emby/system/info, basic discovery endpoints).
• Always returns a standardized “maintenance mode” response that clients will interpret and display.

Running another server in maintenance with shared storage, and switching to the maintenance server when needed could work as well with a fair amount of messing around to keep token continuity I believe.

opnsense package would be huge   can have run the service while server is off.