4 ms·

I love jellyfin but their web model is just bizarre. Why on earth, when you go to 192.168.whatever:8096 does it ask you what server you want to connect to? Lik

I love jellyfin but their web model is just bizarre. Why on earth, when you go to 192.168.whatever:8096 does it ask you what server you want to connect to? Like.. THE ONE SERVING THE PAGE. Just now I decided to connect to Jellyfin over tailscale and it's asking me to add a server; on 100.xxx, which is the jellyfin server which served the UI. And it doesn't seem to want to accept any answer as to what the server URL is.

polymo1 2y ago
I am pretty sure that's a config option
- foobiekr 2y ago
  It may be, but it's also the default behavior and .. really... makes no sense at all.
bhaney 2y ago
While the most common jellyfin distribution bundles the server and web UI together, the web UI (jellyfin-web) is a separate project from the server (jellyfin) and can be used to connect to multiple backends (which can run on the same or different hosts), which is why that functionality and UI is there. For what its worth, the web client should be autodetecting the server it was bundled with and using it without asking you each time. The only time it didn't do that for me was when my network was misconfigured and some requests were getting swallowed, which confused the client and caused it to fall back to the server-connection UI.
RiverCrochet 2y ago
> Why on earth, when you go to 192.168.whatever:8096 does it ask you what server you want to connect to? This lets you connect to and play another friend's Jellyfin rather nicely. I think it's also so the HTML and JS that forms the web interface can basically be the app as well. > And it doesn't seem to want to accept any answer as to what the server URL is. Should be "http://192.168.100.xxx:8096 http://192.168.100.xxx:8096" - make sure your jellyfin isn't just set to listen on localhost only though.
- foobiekr 2y ago
  If you can connect to a friend's jellyfin, you can also get the UI package delivered from the friend's server. They've sort of conflated three different ideas - one, the non-browser clients are separate and need a way to select multiple servers from a common wrapper app; two, for development purposes separate the server of the UI package from the backend being accessed; three, have a server based application. None of these items are uncommon, they are just commonly solved by making the separate front-end server an exception rather than a weird and senseless default. Most people solve this by making the dev mode case an exception. Moreover, why not just add a button to the UI to automatically connect to the _UI serving server_ instead of having the user type it? I love jellyfin, but this stuff is just terrible design for out of box experience or connecting from a new client instance, and it breaks when you're traversing a network boundary with something like Tailscale.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
jchw 2y ago
Just for what it's worth, I've never had that screen pop up on my Jellyfin instance. I'm just using the official OCI image with a pretty boring configuration. Maybe there's something weird going on? I don't think it's expected in the basic use case.
- behringer 2y ago
  It may show up on first login. It should auto detect the server and offer that as an option to click on.
  - jchw 2y ago
    I just gave it a shot, by running: $ podman run --rm -it -p 8096:8096/tcp jellyfin/jellyfin And I get the "Welcome to Jellyfin!" page, which lets you set the language/setup a user account. So I think in general if you are just running the OCI image it is not typically expected to see the server list. (I'm sure it's still possible to get to, and presumably you can wind up there if some RPC fails.) That said, I might've found a clue: if you re-run it, you get another randomized hostname, and then you get the server select page. If I clear cookies and reload, it again skips the server select page. So it seems like if you have the hostname of your jellyfin instance change, say, by starting a new Docker container with a different name, but have it accessible at the same place, that might cause this weirdness. Other issues may include improperly configured reverse proxies. (If you're using a reverse proxy, you should make sure it's configured right for Jellyfin's websockets and CORS usage and potentially some other stuff.)
    - behringer 2y ago
      Correct. I usually only see it when I have a proxy issue, eg, my jellyfin is flat out down and my proxy is still up.
ekianjo 2y ago
Because they separate the client from the server. You can connect to any other local instance of jellyfin locally, not just the one that is served at the current address
- foobiekr 2y ago
  This is silly however for the typical use case of a web browser connecting to a server and very silly as default behavior.
  - phito 2y ago
    I literally have seen that screen only once and then forgot about it. It's really not a big deal.
    - __float 2y ago
      Well, that commenter seems to have chosen it as their single pet peeve against Jellyfin.
stevenwalton 2y ago
> Why on earth, when you go to 192.168.whatever:8096 does it ask you what server you want to connect to? I don't know what the answer is, but I ran into this when I was trying to harden my systemd settings. I'll link my override below and maybe someone can give something more conclusive (and any suggestions to my override or for other services are greatly welcomed. I'm happy to add even ones I don't use). Where I hit this error was when messing with RestrictAddressFamilies, which are network socket addresses. For example, when I restrict AF_PPPOX or AF_UNIX I get that issue. IIRC I also hit that issue when I had moved a file, but I forgot which one (I noticed it got autogenerated again). So I suspect it has to do with access to some file location where it stashes a config file. Fwiw, this works with tailscale just fine. https://github.com/stevenwalton/.dotfiles/blob/master/skeletons/systemd/jellyfin_override.conf https://github.com/stevenwalton/.dotfiles/blob/master/skelet... (docs for RestrictAddressFamilies) https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd.exec.html#Sandboxing https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/syst...
dagi3d 2y ago
Depending on your needs, you can also connect to your 192.168.x.y machine while connected to tailscale by advertising that subnet

polymo1 2y ago

I am pretty sure that's a config option

foobiekr 2y ago
It may be, but it's also the default behavior and .. really... makes no sense at all.

bhaney 2y ago

While the most common jellyfin distribution bundles the server and web UI together, the web UI (jellyfin-web) is a separate project from the server (jellyfin) and can be used to connect to multiple backends (which can run on the same or different hosts), which is why that functionality and UI is there. For what its worth, the web client should be autodetecting the server it was bundled with and using it without asking you each time. The only time it didn't do that for me was when my network was misconfigured and some requests were getting swallowed, which confused the client and caused it to fall back to the server-connection UI.

RiverCrochet 2y ago

> Why on earth, when you go to 192.168.whatever:8096 does it ask you what server you want to connect to? This lets you connect to and play another friend's Jellyfin rather nicely. I think it's also so the HTML and JS that forms the web interface can basically be the app as well. > And it doesn't seem to want to accept any answer as to what the server URL is. Should be "http://192.168.100.xxx:8096 http://192.168.100.xxx:8096" - make sure your jellyfin isn't just set to listen on localhost only though.

foobiekr 2y ago
If you can connect to a friend's jellyfin, you can also get the UI package delivered from the friend's server. They've sort of conflated three different ideas - one, the non-browser clients are separate and need a way to select multiple servers from a common wrapper app; two, for development purposes separate the server of the UI package from the backend being accessed; three, have a server based application. None of these items are uncommon, they are just commonly solved by making the separate front-end server an exception rather than a weird and senseless default. Most people solve this by making the dev mode case an exception. Moreover, why not just add a button to the UI to automatically connect to the _UI serving server_ instead of having the user type it? I love jellyfin, but this stuff is just terrible design for out of box experience or connecting from a new client instance, and it breaks when you're traversing a network boundary with something like Tailscale.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

jchw 2y ago

Just for what it's worth, I've never had that screen pop up on my Jellyfin instance. I'm just using the official OCI image with a pretty boring configuration. Maybe there's something weird going on? I don't think it's expected in the basic use case.

behringer 2y ago
It may show up on first login. It should auto detect the server and offer that as an option to click on.
- jchw 2y ago
  I just gave it a shot, by running: $ podman run --rm -it -p 8096:8096/tcp jellyfin/jellyfin And I get the "Welcome to Jellyfin!" page, which lets you set the language/setup a user account. So I think in general if you are just running the OCI image it is not typically expected to see the server list. (I'm sure it's still possible to get to, and presumably you can wind up there if some RPC fails.) That said, I might've found a clue: if you re-run it, you get another randomized hostname, and then you get the server select page. If I clear cookies and reload, it again skips the server select page. So it seems like if you have the hostname of your jellyfin instance change, say, by starting a new Docker container with a different name, but have it accessible at the same place, that might cause this weirdness. Other issues may include improperly configured reverse proxies. (If you're using a reverse proxy, you should make sure it's configured right for Jellyfin's websockets and CORS usage and potentially some other stuff.)
  - behringer 2y ago
    Correct. I usually only see it when I have a proxy issue, eg, my jellyfin is flat out down and my proxy is still up.

ekianjo 2y ago

Because they separate the client from the server. You can connect to any other local instance of jellyfin locally, not just the one that is served at the current address

foobiekr 2y ago
This is silly however for the typical use case of a web browser connecting to a server and very silly as default behavior.
- phito 2y ago
  I literally have seen that screen only once and then forgot about it. It's really not a big deal.
  - __float 2y ago
    Well, that commenter seems to have chosen it as their single pet peeve against Jellyfin.

stevenwalton 2y ago

> Why on earth, when you go to 192.168.whatever:8096 does it ask you what server you want to connect to? I don't know what the answer is, but I ran into this when I was trying to harden my systemd settings. I'll link my override below and maybe someone can give something more conclusive (and any suggestions to my override or for other services are greatly welcomed. I'm happy to add even ones I don't use). Where I hit this error was when messing with RestrictAddressFamilies, which are network socket addresses. For example, when I restrict AF_PPPOX or AF_UNIX I get that issue. IIRC I also hit that issue when I had moved a file, but I forgot which one (I noticed it got autogenerated again). So I suspect it has to do with access to some file location where it stashes a config file. Fwiw, this works with tailscale just fine. https://github.com/stevenwalton/.dotfiles/blob/master/skeletons/systemd/jellyfin_override.conf https://github.com/stevenwalton/.dotfiles/blob/master/skelet... (docs for RestrictAddressFamilies) https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd.exec.html#Sandboxing https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/syst...

dagi3d 2y ago

Depending on your needs, you can also connect to your 192.168.x.y machine while connected to tailscale by advertising that subnet