VirtualTV plugin

[pünktchen 1409]

On 2/18/2026 at 7:38 AM, jansipi said:

The plugin doesn't appear in my catalogue.

Under which section did you look for the plugin?

[RSTMU 0]

Hello!

Apologies in advance, I am much less knowledgeable than the average Emby user, it's a miracle I've muddled my way this far! I feel way out of my depth setting this up to be honest, so please be patient...

I set up a pretty basic (so I think...) Virtual TV Channel, just 10 seasons of the Simpsons or so. I think I have all the settings correct, I added an API, and have tried toggling almost everything on and off, but nothing will get the Virtual TV channel to start in Live TV.

I've generated (and re-generated) an API key, I tried refreshing the TV guide and resetting the server, and I have an active subscription to Emby.

At first, the episodes were not all the same audio/video format, so I converted them all, and I made sure that the format that they converted into is the same as in the settings. However, the Live TV is still not playing... I just get a perpetual loading ring. It's been there for 12 minutes now...

What am I doing wrong?

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Here are some of my settings:

Edited 3 hours ago by RSTMU

[pünktchen 1409]

1 hour ago, RSTMU said:

At first, the episodes were not all the same audio/video format, so I converted them all, and I made sure that the format that they converted into is the same as in the settings. However, the Live TV is still not playing... I just get a perpetual loading ring. It's been there for 12 minutes now...

I hope you've done a library scan and (forced) guide refresh after converting your episodes?!

1 hour ago, RSTMU said:

What am I doing wrong?

In the end, only some (debug) logs will tell us the story. Have you also tried some other browser or a dedicated Emby app? Why you've chosen "Continous" as playback mode?

[RSTMU 0]

5 minutes ago, pünktchen said:

I hope you've done a library scan and (forced) guide refresh after converting your episodes?!

In the end, only some (debug) logs will tell us the story. Have you also tried some other browser or a dedicated Emby app? Why you've chosen "Continous" as playback mode?

I've definitely done a library scan, and I /think/ I've done a forced guide refresh? Possibly just a guide refresh, but I'll redo. I'll add that the channel appears normally when I check the channel guide, and shows which episode should be playing.

I will also try other apps. I know it's the same on Android. I chose continuous because I love the idea that the channel is 'playing' in the background, and I can turn it on and catch something random mid-episode, like on cable. Is there another way to achieve this?

I will say though that I tried 'playback mode', and all I got was the minute long black screen that's meant (right??) to be there, but no actual media (afterwards it went right to another minute of nothing).

[pünktchen 1409]

10 minutes ago, RSTMU said:

I chose continuous because I love the idea that the channel is 'playing' in the background, and I can turn it on and catch something random mid-episode, like on cable. Is there another way to achieve this?

Playlist Playback (Live).

15 minutes ago, RSTMU said:

I will say though that I tried 'playback mode', and all I got was the minute long black screen that's meant (right??) to be there, but no actual media (afterwards it went right to another minute of nothing).

There could be several reasons for the failure, like a missing websocket connection because of a wrong configured reverse proxy or Emby sends the playback command to the wrong client if multiple are used on the same device. Or it's just the same underlying problem as with Continuous Playback.

[RSTMU 0]

Hurrah! I refreshed everything, and now using Playback (Live) works! is the only difference between Playback (Live) and Continuous (Live) that Cont. creates a large file to play back from? is there any downside to using Playback?

Thanks for the help!