Emby 4.8.1.0 + DLNA = recognised but no play

[KneelBeforeZod]

Emby 4.8.1.0 running as an app on TrueNAS SCALE

Emby app on Android (v8 IIRC) phone
TrueNAS SCALE 22.12.3.2
Primare NP5 network streamer`
FireFox 122.0.1 (64-bit) (but this is not browser related)

TrueNAS SCALE is not a factor in this problem; it's just hosting Docker images with the Emby server.

Installation onto the TrueNAS box (as an app from the Truecharts catalogue) worked fine and the server started up ok. Added a library and all well. From the web client I can play music to my laptop and Android app also works (neither use DLNA AFAIK).

The Primare NP5 network streamer is hardwired via an Ethernet cable to the TrueNAS box. The Primare Prisma Android app detects the NP5 on the network and connects (but the app is rubbish an crashes when any network media server is selected and I do not wish to use it). Emby detects the NP5 too. "Enable DLNA Play To" is enabled in Emby I can select the NP5 as the target, yet no music is played and the player control does not appear at the bottom of the screen as it would normally do. It's as if the "Play" contrrol had not been clicked.

I tested with Jellyfin (a fork of Emby so the codebase will be substantially similar), I can select the NP5 as the target and stream a file to it. The playback control bar appears at the bottom of the browser window as you would expect and Jellyfin also reflects the NP5's playback state. In addition, the Primare Prisma Android app reflects the NP5's playback state too, showing the file being played and the elapsed time etc. But I don't want to use Jellyfin as I greatly prefer Emby. So devices do seem to be correctly connected on the network and communicating as they should. Same FireFox 122.0.1 (64-bit) browser used in all cases and from a fresh restart with all data cleared.

The attached logs are from a completely fresh install of the Emby app on TrueNAS and the defaults accepted.

I have spent most of today fiddling around with Emby, Jellyfin and Plex (urgh), searching for answers online and even looking at the source code but with no success. I'd be very grateful for your help in resolving this issue.

 

[KneelBeforeZod]

So I enabled debug logging and looked into this in more detail.

This always appears in the logs when trying to play a track on the NP5:

2024-02-12 13:04:15.587 Warn Server: AUTH-ERROR: 192.168.0.125 - Access token is invalid or expired.
2024-02-12 13:04:15.588 Error Server: Access token is invalid or expired.

It looks like Emby successfully establlishes a session with the NP5 and an API key is generated but later that same key is rejected. It's not clear to me from the logs whether the key is rejected by Emby or the NP5.

I have attached the latest server debug log and the XML files retrieved from the NP5 when the session is established.

It's worth mentioning that although the log files suggest a successful session to the NP5 has been established, and I can select the NP5 as a target for playback, the NP5 is not shown in the "Devices" screen (other clients are such as the web browser and Android phone).

Any ideas?

 

[KneelBeforeZod]

Update for anyone else who comes across this: it looks like Primare are using an antiquated DLNA implementation which does not deal properly with authentication. Despite providing them with diagnostic logs from the device, they have not responded. This is odd, since AFAIK the only difference between the mk1 NP5 and the mk2 is a different clock chip, necessitated by the AKM factory burning down. Everything else is equal, including the firmware and thus the DLNA implementation. Presumably this problem would manifest itself for any media server which correctly implements the current DLNA spec and that other media server vendors have implemented a workaround or simply support older devices.

The Emby project developers however have implemented a workaround in their product for such DLNA issues and this has worked for me when I tested a MacOS beta release. Should work fine when the fix is included in the next TrueNAS SCALE release (for which there is not a beta release channel).