Why does Emby intermittently behave badly?

[craggy 2]

Emby works for me 90% of the time. Working fne last night

When it doesn't a reboot of the iMac where I keep the server often works.

Occasionally it doesn't (like now) and thats when Emby becomes frustrating

 

Emby server is running (little green icon on top bar) I have also recycled this a couple of times

Click on browse library and the page that opens is the welcome wizard offering to guide me through the setup process. I don't need this, I don't need to set up a new user I'm already set up I just want to access my library!

So I try opening emby.mdia in the browser - sign in - select server - Cannot connect.

so I try Sign in with Emby Connect- enter credentials - select server - Cannot connect

Go to Forum to Troubleshoot Connection. Page (?122) is blank with large menu on the side none of which is intuitive to my problem

It would be nice to have a clear solution line for when the server won't connect 

 

Thanks

[Luke 42078]

Hi, what exactly do you mean by cannot connect? What exactly happens?

[craggy 2]

Hi Luke

 

I get a message which says 

Connection Failure

We're unable to connect to the selected server right now. Please ensure it is running and try again.

[Luke 42078]

Are you sure you entered the correct ip address? Did you enter your LAN or remote address?

[craggy 2]

I dont usually entered an IP address - maybe I did way back when I started using emby

Where does it ask for this?

After I log in, it asks me to select a server. I select the same server I have always done, this normally works, but today I get the above message

 

 

[craggy 2]

Any suggestions?

[Luke 42078]

I would suggest checking out our Connection Troubleshooter:

https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001849007-connectivity

Please try the steps listed there and let us know which ones succeed and which ones do not. Thanks !

[pwhodges 2012]

Perhaps your IP address has changed.

Paul

[craggy 2]

Pretty sure the emby server application is running - on iMac and i can see the green icon in the top right

When I type http://localhost:8096 on the same iMac, the Welcome to Emby page opens and I cannot get beyond it wanting to create a new user. No option to open existing user or go to dashboard.

[GrimReaper 4740]

43 minutes ago, craggy said:

Pretty sure the emby server application is running - on iMac and i can see the green icon in the top right

When I type http://localhost:8096 on the same iMac, the Welcome to Emby page opens and I cannot get beyond it wanting to create a new user. No option to open existing user or go to dashboard.

That sounds awfully suspicous of blank server setup. Are you running multiple server instances maybe? 

[craggy 2]

Thanks for helping

 

Not running multiple server instances to my knowledge. Would that put more than one icon on the top bar? If inadvertent would this not be corrected by a system reboot? How else might I exclude this possibility?

Again to mention everything working perfectly well up to around 72 hours ago. Intermittently failed to connect in the past and usually a reboot of the iMac sorted things

Not on this occasion

[GrimReaper 4740]

1 minute ago, craggy said:

Thanks for helping

 

Not running multiple server instances to my knowledge. Would that put more than one icon on the top bar? If inadvertent would this not be corrected by a system reboot? How else might I exclude this possibility?

Again to mention everything working perfectly well up to around 72 hours ago. Intermittently failed to connect in the past and usually a reboot of the iMac sorted things

Not on this occasion

Was referring to portable instance, nvm. 

Don't know anything about MacOS, but are you able to navigate to your install folder? 

Edited February 15, 2021 by GrimReaper76

[craggy 2]

Only one instance

[craggy 2]

Typing  http://localhost:8096 opens the Welcome to Emby page

This seems to only want me to 'Create a First User'

This does not seems to be what the Troubleshooter expects, ie I cannot get to the dashboard

Howevr, as I've not made progress for the last few days, I went ahead and started a new server (I think).That seems to be working fine over the local network. I have not tried remote connections yet

 

So any suggestions as to what happened with my original server?

 

[Carlo 4561]

Hi, Sounds like Emby didn't have access to write it's config files.
First things I would do is review permissions.

[Luke 42078]

Hi, has this helped? Are you still having an issue?

[craggy 2]

Thanks for following up.

I checked the Emby Server folder permissions just now and this is Read & Write so I presume OK.

The Config subfolder is the same

Should I be checking anything else. Is this what is meant by permissions? 

 

[Luke 42078]

Once you stepped through the wizard was everything else restored, or did you have to setup completely from scratch?

[craggy 2]

From scratch. I set up a new server, added the library folders and everything works with the new server over the local network. 

One attempt to access the new server over 4G failed, but I will find some time to troubleshoot this a bit more. I haven't added my Premiere key yet which may be impacting on external access. I can't retrieve the key from the old server so I'll email separately to get a copy of that

 

[Luke 42078]

Ok, in that case, it might be difficult to try and determine what previously happened. If it happens again then please let us know before you step through the wizard again.

Best guess: something related to your imac backup/restore/time machine configuration may have reset the contents of the server's data folder.

[craggy 2]

Is that the /emby-server/data folder?

Is there something there that would give some info?

 

[Luke 42078]

Yes. I think at this point unless it still contains log files from several days ago then it's probably too late to try and determine what happened.

But capture a log file now and make a note of the data path which is printed near the top of the log.

If this happens again, then we can compare to see if the same data folder is being used. (Which it most likely is, but we should be sure). If this is true, then that will help us confirm that something outside of Emby Server is either erasing or resetting the contents of the server's data folder. 

[craggy 2]

There are log files from 6 days ago which is when I think I last watched something. Will there be any clue in those?

 

[Luke 42078]

And that was before the problem occurred?

[craggy 2]

Yes