Solved LiveTV Buffer @ 2% unless I play a recorded TV file first
#1
Ok, so this one is weird.

Setup:
Kodi Helix 14.0
ServerWMC 1.0.0.52 build 1175 on a Windows 8.1 Pro w/WMC
PVR WMC Client 0.3.108
Titan Mediabrowser skin 3.2.30
Mediabrowser Server 3.0.5498.12299

Live TV and recorded TV work fine in Mediabrowser Theater and web clients.

When using ServerWMC with Kodi, though, when I go to start a Live TV channel, it stays stuck at buffering 2-10% and I might get a blip of tv, but then it just sits there buffering. I can try changing channels, stopping and starting the stream, and I continue to get a blip of live tv here and there, and then just sits at buffering.

But, if I go to Recorded TV, and play one of the wtv files, the first file will crap out and do the same thing as live tv. But if I try to play a second wtv file afterwards, then it starts up right away and plays without issue (all the while the buffer is >80%). Now, if I go to live tv, and start a channel, the channel starts right up and sits around 15-25% buffering (but plays smoothly). I'm guessing the low buffering percentage is due to it being a live stream.

I can then change channels, stop live tv, and start live tv fine until I close Kodi and open it again. This is repeatable.

Here is the serverWMC log. http://pastebin.com/LsaY5dgw

Thanks in advance for any help!
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#2
So after getting it working, and running a live tv stream. If I stop that stream, and let some unknown period of time pass, the issue resurfaces without closing down Kodi and opening it like I originally thought.

I tried turning on DLNA for Kodi, and that worked perfectly. Also, holy cow is that channel changing fast! Unfortunately, since there's no timeshifting, or instant record, I'd like to be able to use the transcoding way if possible.
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#3
Yeah, that's why we enable dlna by default for mbs (if the tuner device supports it) but not for kodi. The log you posted looks totally clean, I can see no issues with swmc. It seems more likely the problem is on the machine running the kodi client, what is this machine and what OS?

Also, what is all the buffering percentages you are quoting? What are you getting these from?
Windows Media Center PVR addon (pvr.wmc) and server backend (ServerWMC)
http://bit.ly/serverwmc
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#4
I'm getting the buffering from the Kodi OSD when playing the files/streams. The kodi machine is my gaming machine which is a Windows 8.1 virtual machine with 16GB ram, 4 cores of an i7 4790, dedicated physical nic passthrough, and dedicated ATI R9 270X vid card passthrough.

It can obviously handle the streams, as I can get it to play smoothly after playing 2 recorded tv files. It seems like it has some issue with the SMB initial connection maybe? But that doesn't make a whole lot of sense because I do get a blip of tv when I start it, so it obviously has access to the files.

ServerWMC is on another Windows 8.1 virtual machine that is using a shared nic. Both VMs are on the same host. Both the shared nic and the dedicated nic are attached to an ASUS RT-AC66u router.
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#5
Do you need to have credentials turned on? Have you tried turning them off?
Windows Media Center PVR addon (pvr.wmc) and server backend (ServerWMC)
http://bit.ly/serverwmc
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#6
Turning off credentials did not help. Same symptoms.

Also tried turning on Remux all, and that prevented me from playing any live or recorded. So I think it's a remuxing issue. I'm not sure why remuxing would work better after playing a wtv file that wasn't being remux'd though.
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#7
It seems like its behaving like the disk it is using (the one with the rec tv folder) is offline until you get something started then it stays up, at least for a while.
Windows Media Center PVR addon (pvr.wmc) and server backend (ServerWMC)
http://bit.ly/serverwmc
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#8
I agree with you and it makes sense from the symptoms. Except the Recorded TV folder is a share on a qcow2 image on an SSD. The drive won't go to sleep because it's actively being used for the VM to run. I'll investigate this further on my end then. Thanks for the help and ruling out any ServerWMC issues!
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#9
In retrospect what I said doesn't make sense, if swmc was having trouble writing to the rec tv folder when it was remuxing it would be in the log, but like I said there is no indication there that there is anything wrong.

If you look in the tempswmc folder in your RecTV folder you'll see the ts file that is being streamed. You might try playing this file directly from your kodi client.
Windows Media Center PVR addon (pvr.wmc) and server backend (ServerWMC)
http://bit.ly/serverwmc
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#10
Interesting. It's a Netbios issue. I switched to the network path on the "Folders" tab to use the IP instead of the netbios name and now it works great! Thanks for all your help!
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