Report: "still don't see my Emby profile updated - watched items
should be marked read, partially-watched ones should show in Resume".
After two rounds of fixing PlayingItems/Progress's request shape
(missing MediaSourceId, then missing PlaySessionId), this pointed at
something more fundamental: this app deliberately never calls the
matching PlayingItems "Start"/"Stop" - a documented v1 scope cut - and
a bare Progress report with no corresponding Start may simply never
reach the resume-position/watched-history data real clients read,
regardless of how correctly-shaped the request is.
Confirmed directly against the real server that this data lives
somewhere else entirely, trivially readable/writable with no playback
session required at all: every item Emby returns already carries the
requesting user's own UserData embedded (PlaybackPositionTicks/Played/
PlayCount/IsFavorite/...) - the exact thing Continue Watching and the
watched checkmark actually read - via a plain
POST /Users/{userId}/Items/{itemId}/UserData.
Switched entirely to that instead of layering a third fix onto
PlayingItems:
- PlaystateService.updatePosition (replacing reportProgress, same
~20s sweep in index.ts) updates just PlaybackPositionTicks.
- New PlaystateService.markPlayed sets Played: true and resets
PlaybackPositionTicks to 0 - called once per connected member (with
a token) when the party moves past an item for good:
PartyService.advanceQueue (next episode) and
MusicQueueService.playNext (a track naturally finishing, or a
majority vote-skip - both go through this one method). Addresses
the other half of the report ("watched items marked as watched").
- Both go through one private fetch-merge-write helper: GET the item
first, apply only the field(s) being changed to a copy of its
current UserData, POST the whole result back. Emby's spec documents
the body as the complete UserItemDataDto with nothing indicating
merge-not-replace semantics, and this is the one write in the whole
app where guessing wrong risks actually erasing a user's own real
data (a favorite, a rating) - so never a bare partial POST.
Reverted the MediaSourceId/PlaySessionId plumbing rounds 1-2 added
(CatalogService.negotiateStreamTarget back to returning a bare target
path, PartyStreamService no longer caches either) - nothing needs them
now that UserData doesn't require an active PlayingItems session.
Not yet confirmed end to end against a real server (no safe way to
fire a real, state-mutating test call without one).
Tests: PlaystateService's fetch-merge-write behavior in detail (a
favorite/rating/play-count survives a position-only update byte for
byte, a Played-only update doesn't disturb IsFavorite, a failed read
skips the write entirely, an item with no UserData yet starts from an
empty object), its request/outcome logging including that the token
never leaks into a log line, and that advanceQueue/playNext call
markPlayed for the outgoing item only, only for connected+tokened
members. catalogService/partyStreamService tests reverted to their
simpler pre-existing shape. Full typecheck/test/build green
(107/107 tests). docs/architecture.md and README.md updated.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Real request logged after the last fix (MediaSourceId in the query
string) shipped: still a 400, now Emby's own "Value cannot be null.
(Parameter 'key')" - a bare .NET Dictionary null-key exception, not
the earlier problem (MediaSourceId was present and well-formed in the
logged request).
This exact message already burned this app once before, in
CatalogService.negotiateStreamTarget's hand-built fallback URL (see
its own long-standing TODO(verify) comment) - diagnosed there as Emby
indexing some internal state by a parameter the request hadn't
supplied. PlaySessionId is the standout remaining candidate: it's how
Emby/Jellyfin clients normally correlate a progress report with the
specific playback/transcode session it belongs to, and evidently
Emby's real Progress handler keys a lookup on it even though the
OpenAPI spec doesn't mark it required.
Fixed the same way MediaSourceId was: CatalogService
.negotiateStreamTarget already reads info.PlaySessionId from the same
PlaybackInfo response (it already used it in the hand-built fallback
URL) - its return type just needed to surface it too. PartyStreamService
now caches it alongside mediaSourceId and exposes both together from
one accessor, getCachedPlaybackIds(partyId), replacing the
round-1 getCachedMediaSourceId. PlaystateService.reportProgress and
index.ts's sweep both thread it through.
Not independently confirmed against a real server yet (no safe way to
fire a real, state-mutating test call without one) - flagged in
docs/architecture.md the same way every other real-server-dependent
guess in this app is, but grounded in this app's own prior confirmed
diagnosis of the identical error message rather than a fresh guess.
Updated catalogService.test's negotiateStreamTarget assertions to
cover playSessionId in both return branches, partyStreamService.test's
mocks/assertions for the new {mediaSourceId, playSessionId} cache
shape, and playstateService.test's request-shape and logging
assertions for the extra PlaySessionId param. Full typecheck/test/build
green (96/96 tests). docs/architecture.md and README.md updated.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Follow-up to the last fix (wrong Progress param shape): now that the
request shape is corrected, the obvious next question is "is it
actually being sent right, and is Emby accepting it" - answered from
the logs alone, without cross-referencing anything else.
PlaystateService.reportProgress now logs the exact outgoing request
right before sending it (method, path, query string - everything
actually sent) and its outcome right after (the real HTTP status and
whether it was ok, or that the call threw), all under
[watchparty:playstate]. EmbyClient's own generic [watchparty:emby]
failure log still fires too, independently, with the fuller error
body - this is a second, feature-scoped log so `docker logs | grep
watchparty:playstate` alone shows the whole story for this specific
sweep.
Deliberately safe to log the full path: the query string here is only
ever MediaSourceId/PositionTicks/IsPaused, never a token - the real
embyToken travels as a header, not the URL - unlike Logger.stream's
own request logging, which stays partial specifically because Emby's
own TranscodingUrl can carry an api_key.
Tests: request logging (path/params present, token absent), and
outcome logging for a success, a non-ok status, and a thrown error
each producing a distinct line. Full typecheck/test/build green
(96/96 tests). docs/architecture.md updated.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Checked the app's Emby-API assumptions directly against Emby's own
real OpenAPI spec (swagger.emby.media, pointed at a real server) after
a "watch status per user seems broken" report.
PlaystateService.reportProgress was wrong: POST
/Users/{UserId}/PlayingItems/{Id}/Progress does exist at that exact
path, but the spec declares PositionTicks/IsPaused as *query string*
parameters, not body fields - and a third parameter, MediaSourceId, is
*required* and wasn't being sent at all. The request body schema this
endpoint does list (Api.OnPlaybackProgress) covers unrelated fields
(PlaylistIndex/Shuffle/SleepTimerMode/...), none of these. So the
original guess sent PositionTicks/IsPaused somewhere Emby never reads
them, while omitting a parameter required just to accept the call -
almost certainly meaning every progress report was failing outright,
silently (best-effort by design, so nothing broke loudly).
Fixed: reportProgress now sends MediaSourceId/PositionTicks/IsPaused
as query parameters, no body at all. MediaSourceId comes from
PartyStreamService's own cache - CatalogService.negotiateStreamTarget
already resolves a real one for every party's shared stream
negotiation, so PartyStreamService now caches it alongside the target
path (negotiateStreamTarget's return type changed from a bare string
to {targetPath, mediaSourceId}) and exposes it read-only via a new
getCachedMediaSourceId(partyId) - deliberately passive, never triggers
a negotiation of its own, so a party where no one has started
playback yet this session simply has nothing to report; index.ts's
sweep skips it rather than paying for an extra PlaybackInfo round trip
every tick just for this.
While checking this, the other two flagged Emby-API assumptions (the
ffmpeg direct-stream URL, the /Playlists/{Id}/Items endpoint) were
re-checked against the same real spec too - both already correct, no
missing required parameter, consistent with them having been tried
for real successfully before.
Updated the 5 negotiateStreamTarget call sites in catalogService.test
to read the new {targetPath, mediaSourceId} shape, the 7
negotiateStreamTarget mocks in partyStreamService.test to return it
(plus 2 new tests: cache exposes mediaSourceId, a failed response
drops it too), rewrote playstateService.test's request-shape
assertions for query params instead of a body, and re-pointed
embyClient.test's generic body-encoding test at an arbitrary example
instead of implying it's still PlaystateService's real shape.
Verified: full typecheck/test/build (92/92 tests). docs/architecture.md
and README.md updated - the "Sync watch-party progress back to Emby"
section now documents the confirmed-wrong-then-fixed shape instead of
a standing TODO(verify), and README's "Not verified" paragraph moves
this (and the other two, now-confirmed) assumptions to "Resolved".
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This app has been read/proxy-only toward Emby so far. Queued right
after the playlist feature, asked for directly: while someone's in a
party, push their progress to Emby's own PlaystateService, so their own
Emby library (resume position, last-played state) stays in sync with
the watch/listen party, under their own account - not just the host's,
and not just this app's own memory of it.
Scoped to periodic progress reporting only for v1 - no explicit
start/stop calls (Emby's own "now playing" list won't show this app's
streams, and "mark fully watched" isn't guaranteed the way a clean Stop
near 100% would trigger it). Steady Progress calls alone already cover
the actual ask; wiring clean start/stop into every transition (item
change, leave, party destroy, a device takeover) is real complexity for
a secondary payoff - left as a documented follow-up.
- server/src/types.ts: PartyMember gains embyToken (null until known,
same shape as this session's own deviceId addition) - never sent to
the client, toPublicState's member mapping doesn't grow it.
- server/src/emby/EmbyClient.ts: fetch() now optionally takes
method/body (JSON-encoded once, here) - every existing GET-only call
site unaffected, both are optional.
- server/src/services/PlaystateService.ts (new): reportProgress(token,
userId, itemId, positionTicks, isPaused) - POSTs to
/Users/{userId}/PlayingItems/{itemId}/Progress. Catches and logs its
own failures (new Logger.playstate) rather than throwing - this runs
on a timer with nothing to catch a rejection, and one bad token or a
transient Emby hiccup must never touch real playback.
- server/src/services/PartyService.ts: new setMemberEmbyToken (records
a member's own token) and getCurrentPlaybackState (video: the host's
own tracked position - there's no per-follower tracking today, a
reasonable approximation given the player's own drift correction;
music: the one shared, server-authoritative position every member
already sees the same way). The one real piece of logic here is pure
and unit-tested on its own, same shape as this session's
absoluteToRelativeIndex/splitPlaylistByMediaType.
- server/src/realtime/SocketGateway.ts: attach()'s getSession callback
widened to expose embyToken - it was already being passed the full
EmbySession (AuthService.getSession), just typed down to {userId,
userName} before anything downstream could read the rest. The "join"
handler now also records member.embyToken alongside deviceId.
- server/src/index.ts: setMemberEmbyToken called after each of the 4
REST create/join call sites, so a member has a valid token from the
moment they're a member, not only once their socket first connects.
New ~20s setInterval (same shape as the existing removeIdleParties/
TranscodeService.reapIdleSessions timers): for every active party,
getCurrentPlaybackState once, then reportProgress for every connected
member with a known token.
- server/test/embyClient.test.ts, partyService.test.ts,
playstateService.test.ts (new): the new body-encoding path (and that
a plain GET stays untouched), getCurrentPlaybackState's video/music/
empty branches, setMemberEmbyToken, and that reportProgress's request
shape is right and a thrown failure never propagates.
- docs/architecture.md, README.md: design + the deliberate v1 scope and
the follower-position approximation spelled out.
No client changes - this is a pure server-side background process with
nothing for the browser to render or react to.
Verified: full typecheck+test+build on both projects (71/71 server
tests, 9 new). No Emby server is reachable from this dev environment,
so the actual endpoint/body shape is unverified end-to-end - flagged
explicitly in the docs, the third such Emby-API assumption this session
(after the ffmpeg direct-stream URL and the Playlists endpoint, both
fine once actually tried).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
