Confirm the feature and release
The publisher requires Infuse 8.5.9 or later for the Now Playing service and says it is disabled by default. Its enable control is under Settings, Playback, Now Playing API. Record the actual release and preference before treating a missing local service as a general playback failure.
Keep this feature separate from Infuse URL actions that request playback or saving. The status service reports what is already happening, regardless of the media source. A read-only result should not be promoted into a promise that the same endpoint accepts control commands.
Discover the current service endpoint
Firecore documents local-network service discovery and an ephemeral port that must be read from the SRV record. An address copied from an earlier session should not be treated as a permanent fixed-port contract. Preserve the discovery result and request target with any integration diagnostic.
The documented status request uses GET on /nowplaying. The guide separately lists error responses for malformed requests or other methods and paths. Sending an unsupported pause request to that endpoint is therefore not a meaningful test of the player’s ability to control its own programme.
Interpret reported state within its scope
The response distinguishes playing, paused and idle, with item information absent when idle. Display those states accurately in a viewer-facing status panel instead of treating every missing title as a failed server lookup. A paused programme and an idle player have different meanings.
For help, provide Infuse release, enabled state, discovery method, requested method/path and redacted response. The publisher documents unencrypted local HTTP for this feature, so keep it within the intended trusted local integration rather than publishing it as a public endpoint. These facts separate feature availability, current discovery, status reporting and an unsupported remote-control assumption.