VirtualTV plugin

[pünktchen 1418]

3 hours ago, alex77777 said:

Two issues I noticed with "Native (Live)"

1. Doesn't seem to show "Skip Intro" prompt or "Keep Watching/Next Episode" at the end of the episode.

2. If I were to skip forward to the end of the episode, it just puts be back to the "Live" position and doesn't auto advance the to next episode. But if the Live position hits the end of the episode it will advance the the next episode. 

This is all more or less by design, because with "Native (Live)" the videos are really treated like a live tv stream by Emby - with all positive or negative side affects.

[pünktchen 1418]

2 hours ago, alex77777 said:

@pünktchen This notification popped up when it was switching the next episode at one point. Ive seen this before with Playlist playback, seems if i switch to other Virtual TV channels with the overlay guide (the guide you can access while something plays in the background) it pops up. What I usually do is just press back which removes the notification from the screen and everything plays fine, so I'm not too sure why its popping up. 

I Appreciate the help.

Cannot comment on that other than i've never seen this with the Android app.

[alex77777 45]

18 minutes ago, pünktchen said:

This is all more or less by design, because with "Native (Live)" the videos are really treated like a live tv stream by Emby - with all positive or negative side affects.

That's understandable

[pünktchen 1418]

2 hours ago, The Mad Titan said:

The programing that is on the guide is not what the system will play. For example all live shows and movies are actually 2 selection ahead of what should be played.

Are the server and client devices in different time zones?

[The Mad Titan 9]

No they are not.

 

[pünktchen 1418]

2 hours ago, alex77777 said:

Switching from one "Native (Live)" channel to another "Native (Live)" channel using the overlay guide causes the video to start but the guide then pops up and you cant see what is playing, but you can hear it in the background. The only way to switch between "Native (Live)" Channels is to back out to the guide and then go the channel and click play, otherwise you'll just have the video stuck playing behind all the UI and you can't see it. This is essentially the same issue with the Playlist playback I was having when the remote playlist delay was set to 0. Seems more like an issue with the Emby App on the Apple TV itself than anything else.

Oh okay. And i've always thought the problem is the video stream does not play at all, but only the audio stream. But it's just hidden by some UI stuff?!

[alex77777 45]

1 minute ago, pünktchen said:

Oh okay. And i've always thought the problem is the video stream does not play at all, but only the audio stream. But it's just hidden by some UI stuff?!

Yeah its playing fine but has the UI completely covering it from what I can tell. Must be a bug with the Play on another Device Feature. If the Dev's fix this, the Playlist Playback delay should be able to be set to 0 and work fine with Apple TV.

@SamESNot sure if this is your department but if it is your help would be appreciated.  

[pünktchen 1418]

22 minutes ago, The Mad Titan said:

No they are not.

Then please enable debug logging for the Emby server and inside the plugin's general settings, replicate the issue and pm me your log file. Tell me what was playing at what time and what should have been played.

[The Mad Titan 9]

No they are not.

Andor should be playing according to the guide, but Milo Murphys Law plays instead which is exactly 2 to 3 shows up like all od them play even the movies does this. here is the attached log.

Thank you for looking into.

embyserver (1).txt

[pünktchen 1418]

@The Mad TitanPlease follow these instructions und tell me the result:

1. In a browser directly on your Emby server machine, open the Emby Dashboard and click on the API link at the bottom.
2. Scroll down to "ItemsService", open it and hit the "Try it out" button.
3. Fill in "Ids" with 42769591 and hit the "Execute" button.

[The Mad Titan 9]

1 hour ago, pünktchen said:

42769591

i pm'ed you

[pünktchen 1418]

@The Mad TitanI think i know what's happening. You have Bumpers activated for your channels, but your bumpers folder only has one or two videos.
This results in many repeated item ids within a single streaming session. Example from your log file:

VirtualTV: StreamingService > Channel: MagicKingdom TV, PushRemotePlaylist, StartIndex: 4, StartOffset: 26 min, ItemIds: 42769595|44060332|44060332|44060332|42769591|44060332|44060332|44060332|42772417|44060332|44060332|44060332|42784346|44060332|44060332|44060332|42784331|44060332

The StartIndex is zero based, that means the fifth element of the list of ItemIds should be played. That is 42769591 - an episode of Andor. But actually 42784346 was playing!
Why? Because Emby incorrectly removes all duplicate Ids from the playlist. So the resulting playlist is:

StartIndex: 4, StartOffset: 26 min, ItemIds: 42769595|44060332|42769591|42772417|42784346|42784331|42784329|42742837|42356797|42356784|42369904|42769568|42369868|42784379

StartIndex 4 - fifth element is now 42784346! I've already reported that unwanted behaviour some years ago to the Emby devs - but as you can see, nothing has happened on their end.

[The Mad Titan 9]

So remove the bumbers?

[pünktchen 1418]

28 minutes ago, The Mad Titan said:

So remove the bumbers?

Unless you can provide some hundreds of them, yes i would disable that option.

[The Mad Titan 9]

Lookeed like that worked. Content is playing what guide specified.... TY.... 

[elizabethK 0]

On 4/22/2026 at 5:15 PM, pünktchen said:

They are all valid, it's case insensitive. The difference is "&&" means that only a movie with both genres is a match, while "||" means it can have either the one or the other.

If you get no results when the "Use an AND query between the above rules" option is enabled, this usually means that none of your movies meet all of your conditions. But with 1000 movies and Action as genre it's very unlikely. So you probably hit a bug, maybe with the Parental Rating condition.

Please lookup Emby's Program Data folder by viewing your Server Info in Emby's Dashboard. Then open the VirtualTV.xml config file that you will find under "{Program Data}\plugins\configurations". Find your Action channel and copy paste here all things between <VirtualChannel> and </VirtualChannel>, except "UsersEnabled" and "ContentUserName".

Sorry for the delay. This is a hobby for me, and I am just now getting the time to get this. I am also having issues with one other channel but, if we can figure this one out, then I can look into fixing the other after this one is fixed. Is it possible that the channel is too large? Here is what you asked for. 

 

<VirtualChannel>
<Id>VirtualTV-a9b5e36d0b88413d951939d593576e9f</Id>
<StartDate>--.--</StartDate>
<EndDate>--.--</EndDate>
<ExportChannel>false</ExportChannel>
<CacheProgramData>true</CacheProgramData>
<ProgramIndicators>true</ProgramIndicators>
<Name>Action</Name>
<Number/>
<Logo/>
<PrimeTime>00:00</PrimeTime>
<PlaybackMethod>Playlist (Live)</PlaybackMethod>
<MoviesWatched>90</MoviesWatched>
<TvshowsWatched>80</TvshowsWatched>
<BumpersFolders/>
<BumpersBreakMin>1</BumpersBreakMin>
<BumpersBreakMax>1</BumpersBreakMax>
<BumpersRangeMin>3</BumpersRangeMin>
<BumpersRangeMax>3</BumpersRangeMax>
<ContentUserName>elizabethKC</ContentUserName>
<ContentSource>Rules</ContentSource>
<ContentType>Movies</ContentType>
<SortOption>Random Movies</SortOption>
<EpisodeBalancing>70</EpisodeBalancing>
<MixedContentMoviesCount>1</MixedContentMoviesCount>
<MixedContentEpisodeCount>3</MixedContentEpisodeCount>
<EpisodeRangeMin>1</EpisodeRangeMin>
<EpisodeRangeMax>3</EpisodeRangeMax>
<UserFolders>
<string>G:\Kids\Movies</string>
<string>J:\Movies</string>
</UserFolders>
<UserCollections/>
<UserPlaylists/>
<WatchedStateMovies>Watched & Unwatched</WatchedStateMovies>
<WatchedStateTvshows>Watched & Unwatched</WatchedStateTvshows>
<IncludedMovies>
<string/>
</IncludedMovies>
<IncludedTvshows>
<string/>
</IncludedTvshows>
<ExcludedMovies>
<string/>
</ExcludedMovies>
<ExcludedTvshows>
<string/>
</ExcludedTvshows>
<ExcludeTags>
<string/>
</ExcludeTags>
<AudioLanguage>
<string>English</string>
</AudioLanguage>
<SubtitleLanguage>
<string>English</string>
</SubtitleLanguage>
<MinCommunityRating>1</MinCommunityRating>
<MinCriticRating>1</MinCriticRating>
<MinParentalRating>1</MinParentalRating>
<MaxParentalRating>15</MaxParentalRating>
<MinRuntime>10</MinRuntime>
<MaxRuntime>500</MaxRuntime>
<ReleasedAfter>1930</ReleasedAfter>
<ReleasedBefore xsi:nil="true"/>
<Tags/>
<Genres>action && adventure</Genres>
<Actors>
<string/>
</Actors>
<Directors>
<string/>
</Directors>
<Studios/>
<AllConditions>true</AllConditions>
</VirtualChannel>

[pünktchen 1418]

On 5/21/2026 at 5:01 AM, elizabethK said:

I am also having issues with one other channel but, if we can figure this one out, then I can look into fixing the other after this one is fixed. Is it possible that the channel is too large? Here is what you asked for. 

Did you get any further? The config you have provided looks okay to me, at least in general. But do you really need all that rules? I would start with only one rule (probably Genres) and check the preview. Then add another rule if necessary and again check the preview...

[Tril0x99 0]

I just had to come in here and say this has become my absolute favorite plugin for Emby. I only installed it the other day, and I'm already having so much fun creating channels for my archive.

Thanks for making this one.