[Jester]

@midgetspy

try and download the latest SVN build, re-test, since you use gigE, if your NAS supports jumboframes please turn them on.

[ashlar]

midgetspy, I'm on gigabit too and all my media is on an external server. No problems such as the ones you're describing, with both 720p and 1080p material.

[midgetspy]

OK this is driving me insane. Same problem, over and over. I confirmed a few things tonight:

- It happens whether I watch movies over a mapped drive or over a smb:// source in XBMC
- I turned the cache for Local HDD and Audio/Video Local Network as high as it would go, but I still encountered the problem. It seemed less frequent but I don't really have enough testing to say that for sure.
- Sometimes it is nothing more than a slight stutter, sometimes the video freezes and audio loops for only a fraction of a second, and sometimes it lasts for 10 or 15+ seconds. When it lasts really long playback usually doesn't recover (it kicks me back to the menu).
- Every single time I can find the exact same thing in my xbmc.log:

Code:

22:04:15 T:3932 M:571875328 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(audio)::Get - retrieved last data packet of queue
22:04:16 T:3132 M:571895808 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(video)::Get - retrieved last data packet of queue
22:04:16 T:3132 M:571879424    INFO: CDVDPlayerVideo - Stillframe detected, switching to forced 23.975986 fps
22:04:21 T:1888 M:566857728   DEBUG: Alloc resources: 1.12ms (0.00 ms skin load, 0.46 ms preload)
22:04:21 T:3132 M:563761152    INFO: CDVDPlayerVideo - Stillframe left, switching to normal playback

Code:

22:41:07 T:3792 M:549785600 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(audio)::Get - retrieved last data packet of queue
22:41:08 T:3404 M:550055936 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(video)::Get - retrieved last data packet of queue
22:41:08 T:3404 M:550191104    INFO: CDVDPlayerVideo - Stillframe detected, switching to forced 23.975986 fps
22:41:19 T:1516 M:559529984   DEBUG: Alloc resources: 13.40ms (0.00 ms skin load, 0.41 ms preload)
22:41:19 T:1516 M:557912064   DEBUG: Error: Requested setting (lcd.enableonpaused) was not found.  It must be case-sensitive
22:41:19 T:3404 M:557912064    INFO: CDVDPlayerVideo - Stillframe left, switching to normal playback
22:41:19 T:3792 M:557912064   DEBUG: CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:2515348604.177156, should be:2503995562.509298, error:-11353041.667858
22:41:20 T:1516 M:557137920   DEBUG: Error: Requested setting (lcd.enableonpaused) was not found.  It must be case-sensitive

Code:

23:28:04 T:612 M:562483200 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(audio)::Get - retrieved last data packet of queue
23:28:04 T:3736 M:560807936 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(video)::Get - retrieved last data packet of queue
23:28:05 T:3736 M:560820224    INFO: CDVDPlayerVideo - Stillframe detected, switching to forced 23.975986 fps
23:28:21 T:612 M:561889280   DEBUG: CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:5061375229.192257, should be:5045226666.666668, error:-16148562.525589
23:28:21 T:1908 M:563519488   DEBUG: Alloc resources: 17.38ms (0.00 ms skin load, 0.55 ms preload)
23:28:21 T:3736 M:561496064    INFO: CDVDPlayerVideo - Stillframe left, switching to normal playback
23:28:22 T:612 M:553627648   DEBUG: CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:5046232666.666668, should be:5045877333.333335, error:-355333.333333

These are from 3 separate xbmc.log files trying to play the same file 3 different ways (from mapped drive, from smb:// source, and from smb:// source with cache all the way up)

Note the timestamps: when it detects the stillframe absolutely nothing happens for the next few seconds - this is time when XBMC is showing a single frame and looping the audio. The log resumes when the video starts again (many seconds later). What is XBMC doing during this time? Why is there nothing logged? Shouldn't it at least say "Trying to read video, buffer empty" or something over and over while it's frozen?

Also of note is that if I copy the movie to my local HD it always plays flawlessly.

The "retrieved last data packet" part of the log makes me think it must be some kind of network problem. Is there any way I can increase the buffer size to something ridiculous to see if that helps?

I'm streaming them from a linux box running samba - I will try streaming something from my Vista box and see what happens (it's really difficult to test because it occurs maybe 5 times in a whole movie so I end up just watching entire movies with debug on, heh).

This has been happening to be since before the Atlantis alphas all the way to my current svn 17261 build.

Any insight would be appreciated.

[salnajjar]

It might not fix it, but...

I play back HD files (MKV's mostly) via my Gig lan without problems. The one difference I have is that I don't use the XBMC share client and instead map my drives directly in windows.

This is also coming off a Linux box running samba that I use as my primary file server.

If this still doesn't work then I can send you the additional tuning parameters I used on my XP network stack and the sysctl.conf tuning settings I used on my fileserver to increase throughput.

It might be worth trying.

Seri

[DoughBoy]

I have same problem on a new Vista 64-bit system. I am using the killa sample.mkv and it pauses with audio still looping almost immediately. I also experience on many other mkv. I am serving off a readynas. Just for fun, I copied the killa sample over to an older linux box which is only 100Mbit btw, and it plays back perfect streaming (although it does drop a few frames because killa sample is demanding).

Not sure how to go about fixing now.

[DoughBoy]

An update...

I figured out that the problem is a result of some ethernet hardware and/or drivers and certain Samba servers. My case it is an Asus P5N-EM HDMI board with onboard Nvidia Gigabit ethernet and a Netgear ReadyNAS NV.

The only ethernet device I had around to test in this machine was an Apple USB to Ethernet dongle used for my Macbook Air.

I searched how to hack driver to install in Vista 64.

After install, I plugged ethernet into the USB dongle and now I can stream perfectly! Not one stutter or audio loop/crash!

I am going to look for a PCI-X Ethernet tomorrow so I can keep all inside the case nicer.

FYI, my system is an Asus P5N-EM HDMI and uses NnForce 630i chipset. I tried latest Nvidia ethernet driver and it didn't solve the problem.

Tomorrow I am also going to redo with Vista 32-bit since the store I bought it all from accidentally provided 64-bit along with it. Be interesting to see if Vista 32-bit works with onboard lan.

Hope this helps someone... just change to a different ethernet card.

[midgetspy]

The problem for me was the linux driver for the chipset on the onboard NIC on my NAS didn't work properly. Turns out the RealTek 8168/8169 drivers are garbage on linux and it's a know issue that they suck :-|

I just bought a different NIC with a different chipset and it has been working perfectly ever since.

[DoughBoy]

I just installed a Dlink DGE-530T and it works fine - no stutter or pausing whatsoever! The USB adapter I had tested was not quite fast enough to stream some HD content and XBMC would drop frames (unrelated to stuttering/pausing issue).

[paninari]

hi there i actually have an antec fusion case with the AMD variant of the motherboard you mentioned above this uses the nvidia nforce 630 chipset.

shall i just replace the network card also? will this solve the issue?

thanks in advance.