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Settings

The Settings view is the configuration hub for WSDashboard. From here you connect your media servers, manage Live TV across Emby, Jellyfin, and Plex, and tune the behavior of cover art, pause rules, analytics, and transcode cleanup. Settings opens as a flyout panel over the Streaming Dashboard, alongside the Watch Analytics and Activity Logs panels.

Admin only

The Settings view requires administrator privileges and the wsdashboard feature flag enabled in Settings > General > Feature Flags. Regular dashboard users cannot see or change any streaming settings.


What you can configure

Connection Settings

Connect Emby, Jellyfin, and Plex — server URL, access token, and a connection test for each

Live TV Sources (Emby & Jellyfin)

Map Emby and Jellyfin tuner hosts to friendly, color-coded source labels that appear on Live TV sessions

Plex Tuners

View and manage Plex tuner devices classified as active, staged, or orphaned — rename, enable, disable, and remove them

Plex Live TV Guide

Point Plex's program guide at Dispatcharr, repair the channel map, and scan for duplicate guide IDs

Cover Art Providers

Choose between TMDB and TheTVDB artwork with per-category routing, or fall back to native server images

Pause Rules

Automate warnings or stops for idle streams after configurable pause durations

Transcode Cleanup

Automatically purge stale transcode files to reclaim disk space, with safety limits


Connection Settings

Connection Settings is where you tell WSDashboard how to reach each media server. There is one card per server type — Emby, Jellyfin, and Plex — and you can configure all three at once. Each card has the same three controls:

FieldDescription
Server URL
The address WSDashboard uses to reach the server on this machine — typically http://127.0.0.1:8096 for Emby/Jellyfin or http://127.0.0.1:32400 for Plex
Access token
An API key (Emby/Jellyfin) or X-Plex-Token (Plex) that authorizes WSDashboard to read sessions and library data. Tokens are stored securely and are never shown back in full
Test
Verifies the URL and token before you save, so you can confirm the connection works rather than discovering a typo later

After entering a URL and token, click Test to verify the connection, then Save. Once a server is connected, its sessions and library appear throughout WSDashboard.

Plex is often configured automatically

If you install Plex with a claim token (qb install plex -u username -pct '…'), WSDashboard detects the server URL and extracts the X-Plex-Token for you, so the Plex card is already filled in. See the Plex WSDashboard Integration section for manual token setup.


Live TV management

WSDashboard gives you Live TV management for all three media servers, with two cards on the Settings page that reflect how each platform models Live TV:

  • Live TV Sources — for Emby and Jellyfin, which expose their tuner hosts through a common /LiveTv/TunerHosts interface. You map those tuner hosts to friendly, color-coded labels.
  • Plex Tuners — for Plex, which models Live TV as DVRs and grabber devices instead of tuner hosts. You manage those devices directly (state, capacity, usage, rename, enable/disable, remove).

The two cards exist because the platforms expose Live TV differently — not because one is favored over another. Each card appears only when at least one matching server is configured.


Live TV Sources (Emby & Jellyfin)

The Live TV Sources card maps Live TV tuner hosts on your Emby and Jellyfin servers to friendly source labels. When a viewer tunes a channel served by a mapped tuner, WSDashboard shows that label as a color-coded badge on the session — so you can tell at a glance whether a stream is coming from your antenna, an IPTV provider, a specific HDHomeRun, and so on.

Expand the card to see your configured sources. Each source row shows its color dot, label, the number of tuner hosts it maps, the server type, and a LIVE indicator when one of its tuners is actively streaming.

Creating a source label mapping

Click Add Source to open the inline form. A mapping has the following fields:

FieldDescription
Label
The friendly name shown as a badge on matching Live TV sessions — for example Antenna, Cable, or HDHomeRun
Server Type
Scope the mapping to Emby, Jellyfin, or All Servers. Choosing a server type filters the tuner host list to that server
Badge Color
An optional color for the badge, so different sources are easy to distinguish in the live sessions view
Tuner Hosts
Select one or more tuner hosts to include in this mapping. The list is read live from each server's /LiveTv/TunerHosts and groups hosts under Emby and Jellyfin, showing each host's friendly name, URL, and source
Enabled
Toggle the mapping on or off without deleting it

Pick at least one tuner host and enter a label, then click Create Source. Use the Refresh button in the tuner picker to re-read the host list if you have just added a tuner on the server. Existing sources can be edited (pencil) or deleted (trash) from their row.

Tuner hosts come from your Emby/Jellyfin server

The tuner hosts you select are discovered from each media server’s own Live TV configuration. If the picker is empty, add a tuner in Emby or Jellyfin first (Dashboard → Live TV in the server’s own interface), then click Refresh.

What source labels are for

You want to

  • Tell at a glance which tuner a Live TV stream is using
  • Distinguish antenna vs IPTV vs a specific HDHomeRun in live sessions
  • Group several tuner hosts under one human-readable name
  • Color-code your Live TV sources for quick scanning

Do this

  • Open Dashboard → Streaming → Settings → Live TV Sources and click Add Source
  • Give the mapping a clear label and pick the tuner hosts it covers
  • Assign a distinct badge color so each source stands out
  • Watch the source badge appear on matching sessions in Live Sessions

Plex Tuners

The Plex Tuners card lists every Plex tuner (grabber device) your server knows about and lets you manage them directly from the dashboard. Plex models Live TV as DVRs and grabber devices rather than tuner hosts, so it has its own card. It appears only when Plex is configured — expand it to load the current tuner list.

This card exists because Plex has no built-in way to clean up unused tuners from a remote interface, and Live TV setups — especially those using Dispatcharr’s HDHomeRun emulation — tend to accumulate leftover and test tuners over time. The Plex Tuners card surfaces them all in one place so you can see what is actually in use and remove what is not.

Tuner states

Every tuner is classified into one of three states, shown as a colored badge:

StateWhat it meansTypical action
Active (green)
Bound to a working DVR and serving Live TV channels. The row shows the DVR name and channel count
Leave it — this is a tuner in use
Staged (amber)
Registered and reachable, but not yet bound to a DVR — typically a test tuner you set up but never finished wiring in
Bind it in Plex, or remove it if it was a test
Orphaned (red)
Registered but unreachable (dead) — a leftover device that is no longer in use
Safe to remove

Each row also shows a small alive/dead indicator (whether the device currently responds), the device model, and when it was last seen.

Concurrent-stream capacity

A tuner’s number — for example 4 — is the number of simultaneous streams that one tuner can serve, not the number of separate tuner devices. A single Dispatcharr HDHomeRun profile advertising “4” means up to four people can watch Live TV through it at the same time. This is a common point of confusion: one tuner row with a capacity of 4 is not four tuners.

Usage gauge

Each tuner row shows a live usage gauge in the form X / N streams in use, where X is the number of streams currently active on that tuner and N is its concurrent-stream capacity. The gauge updates when you click Refresh. It lets you spot at a glance which tuners are saturated and which are sitting idle — useful for balancing Live TV load or deciding whether a tuner is even being used.

Display name (local rename)

You can give any tuner a friendly display name by clicking the pencil icon on its row, typing a name, and pressing Enter. This is helpful when your tuner titles come from upstream sources (such as an XMLTV lineup name or a Dispatcharr HDHomeRun friendly name) that are not very descriptive.

Display names are a QuickBox-side label only

The display name is stored by QuickBox and overrides the tuner’s title in the dashboard only — it is never pushed back to Plex, because Plex has no API to rename a tuner. When you clear the display name, the row falls back to showing the original Plex title. Hover the renamed tuner to see its original Plex title in a tooltip.

Enable, disable, and remove

Each tuner row has two management actions:

  • Enable / disable — the toggle switch turns a tuner on or off in Plex without removing it. Disable a tuner to temporarily take it out of service while keeping its configuration.
  • Remove — the trash icon deletes the tuner device from Plex. This is the way to clean up orphaned and leftover/test tuners.
Removing an active tuner stops its channels

Removing a tuner that is currently active (bound to a DVR) detaches it from that DVR and stops the Live TV channels it serves. The dashboard asks for a stronger confirmation in this case — naming the DVR and channel count — so you do not remove a working tuner by accident. Removing a staged or orphaned tuner uses a standard confirmation.

Removing a tuner is idempotent — if the device has already been removed in Plex, the action still succeeds rather than erroring.

Cleaning up leftover and test tuners

You are seeing this

  • Multiple Plex tuners listed when you only set up one
  • A leftover tuner from an old Dispatcharr instance or a test you abandoned
  • An orphaned (red) tuner that no longer responds
  • A staged (amber) tuner you never finished binding to a DVR

Do this

  • Open Dashboard → Streaming → Settings → Plex Tuners and expand the card
  • Check the alive/dead indicator and state badge to confirm which tuners are unused
  • Remove orphaned and abandoned test tuners with the trash icon
  • Leave active tuners alone — they are bound to a working DVR and in use

Plex Live TV Guide (Dispatcharr)

If you run Live TV in Plex through Dispatcharr, the Plex Live TV Guide (Dispatcharr) card holds the tools that keep Plex’s program guide correct:

  • EPG override — points Plex’s guide at Dispatcharr’s data instead of Plex’s own cloud guide
  • Re-sync Plex channel map — repairs Plex’s cached channel map after you renumber channels in Dispatcharr (previews first, backs up before applying)
  • Check duplicate guide IDs — a report-only scan for channels that share a guide ID

These tools are documented in full on the Dispatcharr page — see Keep Plex’s TV guide correct.


Other settings on this page

The Settings view also hosts several configuration cards that are documented on their own pages:


Best practices

Do

  • Click Test before saving any Emby, Jellyfin, or Plex connection so you catch URL or token typos early
  • On Emby/Jellyfin, give each Live TV Source a clear label and distinct color so streams are easy to identify
  • On Plex, periodically review the Plex Tuners card and remove orphaned (dead) tuners to keep the list clean
  • Use display names (Plex) and the usage gauge to confirm a tuner is actually in use before relying on it

Don't

  • Don't remove an active Plex tuner unless you intend to stop its Live TV channels
  • Don't expect a Plex display name to appear in Plex — it is a dashboard-only label
  • Don't read a Plex tuner's number as a device count — 4 means four concurrent streams, not four tuners
  • Don't paste tokens into a server card without verifying the URL is reachable on this machine first

Troubleshooting

Symptom

  • The Live TV Sources tuner picker is empty (Emby/Jellyfin)
  • Source badges do not appear on Live TV sessions
  • The Plex Tuners card does not appear at all
  • The Plex tuner list is empty after expanding the card
  • A Plex tuner shows as orphaned (dead) but you expect it to work

Resolution

  • Add a tuner in Emby or Jellyfin first, then click Refresh in the picker to re-read the host list
  • Confirm the source maps the correct tuner host and is enabled — only matched, enabled sources show a badge
  • Confirm Plex is connected under Connection Settings — the card only shows when Plex is configured
  • Click Refresh; if still empty, no grabber devices are registered in Plex yet
  • Check the device's network reachability (for Dispatcharr, confirm the HDHomeRun emulation is running)

FAQ

Because Emby, Jellyfin, and Plex expose Live TV differently. Emby and Jellyfin present their tuners through a common tuner-host interface, so WSDashboard lets you map those hosts to friendly labels in the Live TV Sources card. Plex models Live TV as DVRs and grabber devices instead, so it has its own Plex Tuners card. The split reflects the platforms, not a preference for one over another — all three are fully supported.
A source label maps one or more Emby/Jellyfin tuner hosts to a friendly, color-coded name (such as Antenna or HDHomeRun). When a viewer tunes a channel served by a mapped tuner, that label appears as a badge on the session in the Live Sessions view, so you can immediately see which source a stream is using.
The picker reads tuner hosts directly from your Emby and Jellyfin servers. If it is empty, add a tuner in the server's own Live TV configuration first, then click Refresh in the picker to re-read the host list.
An active tuner is bound to a working DVR and serving Live TV channels (the row shows the DVR name and channel count). A staged tuner is registered and reachable but not yet bound to a DVR — usually a test tuner. An orphaned tuner is registered but unreachable (dead) — a leftover device that is safe to remove.
Yes. Removing a tuner deletes the grabber device from your Plex server through the Plex API. The action is idempotent — if the device is already gone, the removal still reports success. Removing an active tuner detaches it from its DVR and stops the channels it serves, so the dashboard asks for a stronger confirmation in that case.
No. The display name is a QuickBox-side label that overrides the tuner's title in the dashboard only. Plex has no API to rename a tuner, so the name is never pushed back to Plex. Clear the display name to fall back to the original Plex title.
No. That number is the tuner's concurrent-stream capacity — the maximum number of streams that one tuner device can serve at the same time. A single Dispatcharr HDHomeRun profile advertising 4 means up to four people can watch Live TV through it simultaneously.

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