EmBook - Proper support for AudioBooks

[bluemonkey07 590]

1. Credentials are only removed if you remove app data, or uninstall the app. To my knowledge, those are the only cases I've lost credentials.

2. Normal emby apps and app.emby.com can connect to your server even without port forwarding configured. So this is not an indication that everything's fine. I'm not quite sure how they do it, I may look into it at some point.

3. I actually think the app will crash if you don't have data when trying to save progress. However, I'm not sure since it's a case I haven't tested yet (and I will redefine this behavior in the offline-support overhaul that I'm working on).

2. No emby apps also need Port forwarding to connect remotely

[Inrego 76]

2. No emby apps also need Port forwarding to connect remotely

I'm sure that one of the EmBook users said he could connect with official Emby apps, but not EmBook - until he set up the port forward.

[mediacowboy 438]

Fresh log sent. Listened for about 5 minutes.

[Inrego 76]

Fresh log sent. Listened for about 5 minutes.

Thank you. It seems there was a network timeout in this case. I've "only" 2 of those exceptions. It was directly followed by another exception in the Emby library, which has been recorded 11 times.

It looks like the app crashed for you twice within the minute. Can you confirm this and give some info on the 2nd crash (what happened)?

 

Funny thing: Yesterday I connected my phone to a proxy to my PC, so I could monitor network requests to debug the issue with playback stopping while screen is locked. Then it just kept playing without issues. I disabled the proxy again, and last night when I went to bed, it just kept playing.

I'm not quite sure what it means yet, but at least I feel like I'm getting closer in that it's not directly related to my code, but more related to Android doing some battery optimizations when the screen is locked.

 

EDIT: Nevermind. Below setting did not have an impact on my phone.

 

Could you try to disable battery optimizations for EmBook on your phone? It may be a little tricky to find in settings, but on my phone it's found here:

• Settings
• Apps
• Tap Settings icon in upper right corner
• Scroll down to bottom
• Special Access
• Battery optimization
• Tap "Not optimized" and select "All apps"
• Find EmBook and tap it
• Select "Don't optimize".

Try and see if you can reproduce the problem.

Once you're done testing, feel free to set it back to "Optimize".

Edited September 7, 2017 by Inrego

[mediacowboy 438]

If it did crash twice I only saw the one error message.

 

I made the recommended changes for optimized app settings and will report back on my way home from work in about an hour or so.

[mediacowboy 438]

Okay so I've been listening for maybe 3 hours now with the only issuing being a network switch from wifi to 4G. I did have a crash report when I first opened the app which I sent. I believe that to because I force closed the app.

 

Is there a way to to support better networking switching? I know you are working on off line playback but the emby app handles network switching beautifully.

[Sireone 6]

Okay so I've been listening for maybe 3 hours now with the only issuing being a network switch from wifi to 4G. I did have a crash report when I first opened the app which I sent. I believe that to because I force closed the app.

 

Is there a way to to support better networking switching? I know you are working on off line playback but the emby app handles network switching beautifully.

Agreed, the issue I have now is if I'm listening to a book and get a phone call, while in the app, it pauses, then after the call, I hit the play button then it starts from the beginning of the chapter.

 

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

[mediacowboy 438]

Agreed, the issue I have now is if I'm listening to a book and get a phone call, while in the app, it pauses, then after the call, I hit the play button then it starts from the beginning of the chapter.

 

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

Haven't experienced this issue but everyone know my work schedule so I don't get called a lot on my way home. Which is when I normally listen to my books.

[mediacowboy 438]

Just sent another log. Don't know what caused it other then maybe sitting idle for an hour.

[Inrego 76]

Agreed, the issue I have now is if I'm listening to a book and get a phone call, while in the app, it pauses, then after the call, I hit the play button then it starts from the beginning of the chapter.

 

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

The iPhone I got from work, actually has an active SIM. So I should be able to easily test this.

 

 

Just sent another log. Don't know what caused it other then maybe sitting idle for an hour.

That'll mark the first exception that has been experienced by 2 users!

[Inrego 76]

Okay so I've been listening for maybe 3 hours now with the only issuing being a network switch from wifi to 4G. I did have a crash report when I first opened the app which I sent. I believe that to because I force closed the app.

 

Is there a way to to support better networking switching? I know you are working on off line playback but the emby app handles network switching beautifully.

Once I'm done with the offline support, network will only really be required when browsing new audio books, or to download missing audio files.

When tapping an audio book, it will show cached metadata - and if you're connected to the internet, it will quietly refresh metadata in the background (and if it fails due to unstable internet, you won't be bothered by it).

 

Also, when listening - it will keep sending progress as usual, except if you're offline - it will save progress locally and send it once you get back online.

 

I am getting close with implementing this offline support, and then I also need to implement a view to browse offline-available books, which will show any books you have cached audiofiles for. This view will double as a "Next Up"-ish view, and will be the new default instead of "Browse".

 

I'm seeing that many crashes are network-related, so I will push this offline-update before focusing on other bugs you guys reported.

[Dibbes 514]

It seems I can't connect to my server anymore. The app seems to crash directly when selecting one of my servers...

 

Did I read you have the iOS app published?

Edited September 9, 2017 by Dibbes

[Inrego 76]

Progress on offline:

Browsing and playback is working. With internet completely disabled, it's possible to browse your books and listen to them.

I will be testing a little more before publishing this version. There is one issue that I still need to solve. This is the case:

 

1. Your phone goes offline. You listen until 05:00 (mm:ss). Server progress is still 00:00 since phone is offline.

2. You pick up another device and listen until 12:00. Server progress is now 12:00.

3. Your phone comes online, and saves its progress to server. Server progress is now 05:00

4. You lost the 7 minutes which you will have to listen to again (unless you remember the actual progress and manually skip)

 

Note that the first 5 minutes are also kind of lost once you start on step #2, but there's no way to avoid that because phone is offline.

The 7 minutes you lost at step #4 can be avoided. When sending progress to server, I can include timestamp for when it was being played. Server will then just save the most recent of the 2.

 

So basically, I know how to solve it - but I haven't yet. It also means that I will release a new version of server plugin along with the new app version. Current version of Server Plugin will still work, but will fail in the case I described above.

 

EDIT: Above is now implemented, and I will test closed alpha until tomorrow. If no further problems, I will release tomorrow.

 

@@Dibbes : My code changes are so substantial with the offline update atm, that it's hard to make much of crash logs at this point. I will hopefully release new version within the next 24 hours. Regarding iOS app - I published it to App Store, it got rejected because they want a video of me showing how to use the app on a physical device. I haven't gotten around making that video yet, as I just recently got my hands on a physical iOS device. Getting the app out on iOS and Windows will be my priority once this offline update is out.

Edited September 10, 2017 by Inrego

[Inrego 76]

There are some issues with the offline version. Nothing too serious. May be delayed a bit.

[leram84 2]

First of all... THANK YOU! A buddy of mine just linked me here because i have been saying for years that emby is the ideal platform for audiobooks... and i dont actually use emby atm lol (im a pretty hardcore plex users for media), but this is definitely the best platform to handle something like this... My only issue is going to be client support. Since this requires a separate app, im only missing one major client for my server - web. You're already developing 3 clients, so im not holding my breath, but just in case there's a way to maybe add browser support to the windows app or easily port one of them to html5, Im just thinking this would make the best case integration into [organizr](https://github.com/causefx/Organizr). Don't get me wrong, this app (in current beta form! lol) is still positioned miles ahead of everything else out there, hell, its the only server/client solution that works across android/ios! But being able to add it to add full audiobook integration into my organizr site is kind of my white whale, so reaaaally hopping its possible. 

 

Thanks again!!

[leram84 2]

ahh... sorry, one other question. Im totally cool paying for the app, but would you consider offering a server-side lifetime option? I will literally pay whatever you want lol, i would just rather keep the user experience as simple as possible, and let users download on whatever platform they want without having to even see any kind of options.

[Inrego 76]

First of all... THANK YOU! A buddy of mine just linked me here because i have been saying for years that emby is the ideal platform for audiobooks... and i dont actually use emby atm lol (im a pretty hardcore plex users for media), but this is definitely the best platform to handle something like this... My only issue is going to be client support. Since this requires a separate app, im only missing one major client for my server - web. You're already developing 3 clients, so im not holding my breath, but just in case there's a way to maybe add browser support to the windows app or easily port one of them to html5, Im just thinking this would make the best case integration into [organizr](https://github.com/causefx/Organizr). Don't get me wrong, this app (in current beta form! lol) is still positioned miles ahead of everything else out there, hell, its the only server/client solution that works across android/ios! But being able to add it to add full audiobook integration into my organizr site is kind of my white whale, so reaaaally hopping its possible. 

 

Thanks again!!

Hello.

 

Currently I don't have any plans to support web interface, but that may change in the future. However - I would hope that by that time, audio books are properly supported in Emby Core (heck, I may even take a shot at implementing it in core when this is stable).

I am quite proficient in html5 apps, and I even normally use the same backend and front-end as Emby currently uses (asp.net core and Polymer). But I do feel like handheld devices are used most for audio books, so that's where my focus will be for the moment. And if you do want to listen on desktop, you can use the windows app once it's released. I know it doesn't allow you to put it into Organizr (which is a pretty nice tool, I'm in need of something like that - thank you), but that'll have to do for now

 

Also, there is another server-client audiobook system out there, called Booksonic. I've used it a bit, and I wasn't satisfied (I found it too often lost my current progress when switching device, or simply just installing app). They have web interface, but not an official iOS app. I read that other subsonic apps should work, but I don't know about the results of that.

All-in-all, I decided to create this exactly because I couldn't find any other solutions that I found satisfying.

[Inrego 76]

ahh... sorry, one other question. Im totally cool paying for the app, but would you consider offering a server-side lifetime option? I will literally pay whatever you want lol, i would just rather keep the user experience as simple as possible, and let users download on whatever platform they want without having to even see any kind of options.

That's a bit more complex, since I'd need to make an authentication server or something like that. I have considered making a free ad-supported version of the app at some point.

[leram84 2]

yup! booksonic was why i said ios/android in one lol. That is currently the best solution out there, and if you're willing to set up a webdav server you can supplement ios support w cloudbeats (audiobook). Obviously this is a MUCH cleaner approach. I had really high hopes for emby for this exact reason. I can't see plex getting around to full abook support, its too many changes, but i figured w emby being OSS, this exact thing (a benevolent dev putting us out of our misery lol) would happen eventually, its just a shame about the core issues. having access from emby's prolific ecosystem would be the shit. Glad you like organizr! It is some really incredible sw and its in rapid development with a crazy amount of integrations being added/hacked in almost daily. Stop by https://gitter.im/Organizrr/Lobby if you ever have any questions or want to see some cool shit we've done with it. 

[mediacowboy 438]

I know we talked about having your plugin do ebooks and you recommended book shelf. If I remember correctly that app as been moved into the core server. What I really like about you plugin is that I can add a isbn file I know I will be getting the right book. In fact just in case something should happen I have went and add a isbn file to every audiobook I have. Really look forward to were this goes and thank you so much for taking this on.

[Inrego 76]

Offline update almost ready. Just have one minor issue that I need to fix before going live. Currently, when you tap a book from the new default "On Device" page, it will do a metadata refresh from server in the background. However, because this page loads a lot faster, the server connection will often not be ready yet when you tap that book. That will result in failing the metadata update. That means in many cases, you will lose progress made from another device.

My solution I think, will be to make a queue of requests to be made once server connection is initialized. Then the request will be sent when ready instead.

Yeah, I'm getting a bit technical with you, but I just wanted to give an explanation of the delay. It's 5:40 AM here, and my brain is fried so I cannot implement a fix properly at this time

 

At least I also have some good news. I also implemented a few QoL (Quality of Life) improvements. One requested feature was, that it's quite tedious having to tap the server and the library every time you open the app. First of all, you will now have an "On Device" view, which is the new default. If you still don't have any books on device, it will automatically redirect you to the "Browse" section. Also, if you only have a single server, it will automatically enter that server for you. Furthermore, if you only have 1 audio book library, it will automatically enter that one as well. So for most users, you'll need 2 fewer taps to browse your library.

Also, on the login page - when you press the enter button on your keyboard, it will now sign in (don't have to tap on the login button).

And last but not least, the green Play button will now say "Resume from x:xx" if you already have progress in the book (similar to how Emby normally does)

 

While you wait, I'll treat you with a screenshot of the "On Device" page:

 

(Note, I do plan to add a green bar in the bottom of posters, indicating current progress. But it was proving harder than expected, so that'll wait for later.)

[Baenwort 118]

Just letting you know that at least one Windows Mobile 10 user is out there awaiting your release of a store app. Let me know if you need a tester to confirm if your menu problem doesn't exist on mobile.

[PrincessClevage 175]

Is this open to public testing now for IOS, android, windows store?

Edited September 11, 2017 by PrincessClevage

[Dibbes 514]

Is this open to public testing now for IOS, android, windows store?

 

It's in the Android playstore. As I understood it, iOS and Windows will come soon

[Inrego 76]

Just letting you know that at least one Windows Mobile 10 user is out there awaiting your release of a store app. Let me know if you need a tester to confirm if your menu problem doesn't exist on mobile.

Actually, I have solved the menu problems on Windows. Only thing I need to fix before release on Windows, is adding icon, and making list items taller, so they're easier to tap with touch.

 

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