NO INTERNET = NO EMBY

[revengineer 142]

So today my cable and internet went out for six hours. Thankfully I also have OTA TV and thought I watch this instead. However, when I tried, Emby running in the browser would not start live TV because it would not recognize my Emby Premiere license and the Emby Theater app would not launch either, probably for the same reason. I find this absolutely unacceptable and this needs to be addressed ASAP. 

[clarkss12 304]

That's scary. 

Can you temporarily connect with your cell phone mobile hotspot, then disconnected it?  Or does it require and internet connection at all times?

 

[revengineer 142]

My understanding was that Emby caches the Premiere license but this does not seem to be the case. The Emby server runs 24/7 and it seems unlikely that the license expired in exactly the 6 hour window when the internet went down. This should work like a cable card authorization, which validates on a daily basis and sets the expiration 4 weeks in the future.

I cannot connect my server and network rig to the internet via my cell phone but presumably that would have worked for checking the licenses. To be honest, it would be easier to install Jellyfin as an alternate server than to go this complex route.

[ebr 16184]

12 hours ago, revengineer said:

when I tried, Emby running in the browser would not start live TV because it would not recognize my Emby Premiere license

Do you normally watch in the browser or somewhere else?

[revengineer 142]

I use both the browser and the Emby Theater app on my PC but mostly the latter. I use Emby Theater several times a week although probably not daily. I should have noted that this occurs on the latest Windows version v4.5.4.0 of Emby Server. I have done a Google search this morning and noticed that this was not a discovery of mine but that others have reported this issue previously. 

Edited December 28, 2020 by revengineer

[ebr 16184]

Had you watched in the browser in the past week or so?  We do cache the validation but, if you haven't used that particular app in a while, then that cache might have expired.

The Theater issue actually isn't Premiere validation I don't think.  I think that app is hanging up checking for updates.  How long did you wait before giving up on it?

[revengineer 142]

It is possible that in the last week I used exclusively the Emby Theater app. And I tried the browser yesterday as a fallback when the app would not start. It felt like I waited a few minutes for the app to start. The icon would show in the task bar but the window would not appear. I tried several times to start the app in between closing the app by right clicking on the task bar icon and then selecting "close". If this was the updated process preventing the start, then the timeout is definitely too long.

I was under the impression that the server validate the premiere app and then gives out licenses to the apps. From your response it seems that this is not the case and that instead the apps must phone home to get authorization, which of course is not possible when the internet is down. This is pretty crummy because it punishes the honest paying customer.

[pwhodges 2012]

The reason that the clients have to validate is that there is a limit on the number of Premiere clients, but this can't be policed by the server because you are allowed to use your Premiere key on multiple servers. 

To change this would either require changing the T&Cs or adding code to the server to enable you to specify a way for the servers to share their client info (either by each knowing the other's client numbers, with sufficient identification to enable duplicates to be ignored, or by designating one server as the Premiere "master" which the others check the client usage with).

Paul

[revengineer 142]

I understand that it is all about "policing" but try to explain that to the family. My guess is that this is one of those situations where 99% of customers suffer because of 1% that abuses the system. My suggestions would be to find a more fault tolerant solution. For example, let the server "check out" a certain number of licenses to be given away to clients; all servers together cannot check out more licenses than authorized. Or be otherwise more generous.

If money needs to be saved somewhere, cut the guide data as paying for these data does not seem sustainable in the long run (and I will refuse to have my lifetime license turned into a monthly subscription). In the meantime, I will need to look for a solid backup solution to emby. (Interestingly, the HDHomerun app does not start either without internet; they claim it's a feature!)

[clarkss12 304]

I would be more than happy to pay for guide data.........  You don't watch or record live TV?

[revengineer 142]

11 minutes ago, clarkss12 said:

I would be more than happy to pay for guide data.........  You don't watch or record live TV?

This is getting off-topic but... I do watch and record TV. I watch a lot of international stations for which emby does not offer guide data. So I have to subscribe to guide data separately anyway, and I am happy to pay for it. I just would not want this bundled with emby because at some point the running cost for guide data may exhaust the cost of the lifetime licenses, and unless there is a sufficient number of monthly/yearly subscribers the bundling of guide data may no longer be economic or may come at the expense of feature development. Separating cost of guide data from emby licensing seems to be better and those who want these data can pay for them just like I do now. (I am using the emby guide data only for OTA TV because the channel management is terrible and I have not yet found the time to map other data.)

Edited December 28, 2020 by revengineer

[ebr 16184]

I think that, if we correct the issue with Theater starting without an internet connection (an open issue I believe), then everything would have worked fine for you here.  We have built in some major tolerance for outages in the validation system.  Your issue, I'm pretty sure, was specific to the Theater app.

[revengineer 142]

50 minutes ago, ebr said:

I think that, if we correct the issue with Theater starting without an internet connection (an open issue I believe), then everything would have worked fine for you here.  We have built in some major tolerance for outages in the validation system.  Your issue, I'm pretty sure, was specific to the Theater app.

Fair enough, if emby Theater would have worked yesterday, I would not have discovered the browser issue so solving the start-up issue would indeed be satisfactory in the short term. 

I do suggest to consider whether two-week caching is an option or letting the server grant a very small number of client licenses to make this more robust. The goal should be for the average user not to notice the behind the scenes policing.

[Luke 42078]

We will look at improving this. Thanks for reporting.

[revengineer 142]

Thank you as always @Luke! Happy New Year!

Edited December 31, 2020 by revengineer

[RXSeven 1]

Hi. I had an internet outage yesterday so I thought I'd watch some movies (locally stored) on my Emby server. Emby Theater on my Xbox One S and (also) on my Amazon FireTV Lite wouldn't play due to my Emby Premiere license not being validated. A bit frustrating. Didn't try the web client. Local caching of the license (even if it's only for 24 hours) would be great.

[Carlo 4561]

2 hours ago, RXSeven said:

Emby Theater on my Xbox One S and (also) on my Amazon FireTV Lite wouldn't play due to my Emby Premiere license not being validated. 

Hi, have you used the Xbox One S Emby Client or the Fire TV Emby Client in the last week?

[RXSeven 1]

Just now, cayars said:

Hi, have you used the Xbox One S Emby Client or the Fire TV Emby Client in the last week?

Yes, I've used both. Normally use the FireTV but also tried Xbox One client to confirm the problem was the Premiere license validation. Do you have any specific questions?

[Carlo 4561]

But I'm asking specifically if you had used them a couple days BEFORE the outage so the premier info would be cached short term.

[RXSeven 1]

Yes I use the FireTV every evening and had used it about 12 hours before my internet outage. I hadn't used the Xbox One client for several weeks.

If you want I can do some testing later today (I'm in Australia). 

[Carlo 4561]

If you wouldn't mind.  Try pulling your Internet connection for a few minutes.

Does the client still work?  How about if you restart Emby Server and restart the client?

[RXSeven 1]

2 hours ago, cayars said:

If you wouldn't mind.  Try pulling your Internet connection for a few minutes.

Does the client still work?  How about if you restart Emby Server and restart the client?

Hi. Sorry this is a false alarm. Everything works perfectly with NO internet connection. I can't reproduce the problem. The only change is this morning I upgraded the server from 4.6.0.6 beta from 4.6.0.10 beta (Synology).

To confirm, I disconnected my ISP modem from the network then power cycled the server, the Xbox One and the FireTV Lite. With ISP still DISconnected the Emby client on XBox One plays all my media no problems. The FireTV Lite won't display it's Home screen at all but that's an Amazon issue (deliberate?) and nothing to do with Emby.

Cheers.

[Carlo 4561]

Thanks for re-testing this!

[Q-Droid 989]

8 hours ago, cayars said:

Hi, have you used the Xbox One S Emby Client or the Fire TV Emby Client in the last week?

This is the second post I've read in this thread indicating that a client must be validated over the internet even though the server is the licensed device.

If the server has a current and validated key, let's call it a token, and the same server knows the licensing level and restrictions and it knows which clients are connecting then why do the clients have to also go thru a validation process beyond the server itself?

As long as the server token hasn't expired then all old and new clients should be able to use the features allowed by the key.

 

[ebr 16184]

21 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

even though the server is the licensed device.

Hi.  That is not completely accurate.  There are device limits as well.