[Apple TV] Intermittent video pausing issue (ATV + XBMC)
#1
Hey all,

I'm having some issues with my Apple TV running XBMC pausing the video during playback. Every 5-10 minutes the video will abruptly stop and the display will pop up and say "PAUSED", after about 1-5 seconds, the video will then resume and play normally.

I would guess this is a caching issue however I've adjusted the cache to various levels with little/no effect. My other guess would be a network issue, but I have an Xbox running XBMC running off a less efficient connection that will play the same movies perfectly.

I previously had issues with the video dumping out to the menu, however after increasing the SMB timeout to 40 and the setting skiploop filter to 8 in advancedsettings.xml it no longer exits the video, but then the pausing problem began.

The XBMC build is current (through at least 12/20), Apple TV is running 2.2.

This is driving me bonkers. Any help would be appreciated.

- Jeff
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#2
I am experiencing the "Pause" problem too. Not exiting the movie, but pausing for a while and then continuing from there on.

I also had problems playing m4v files and therefore changed the advancesettings.xml file from 8 to 48 as other threads said to, but I think that then the pausing problem gets even worst and the m4v files don't play correctly, so setting is back to 8.

I am now running an ATV 2.2, Launcher 2.1 and Atlantis 8.10 bf1.

Has anyone got a solution for this?
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#3
I am also having this issue.

Video playback keeps pausing after some 10 minutes of playback.

I am streaming from a SMB volume. When I use frontrow everything works fine, but with XBMC it keeps pausing every 5 or 10 minutes. Before the update to launcher 2.2 it worked just fine.

Does anyone have a solution ?

I am running ATV 2.3, Launcher 2.2 and Atlantis 8.10 (bf1)
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#4
I'm having the same issues only with a few movies though. Adjusted the cache but same issue. <Pause> then <Buffering message....>

I thought it was my connection but then connected with network cable same issue.

Any other ideas would be great!
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#5
I'm getting the same issue if I am Wirelessly transfering from my Laptop to the NAS box while watching a movie. Both the ATV and the Laptop are connected via Wireless N. If I swap the laptop over the Wireless G the problem stops.

It's not a major concern for me as I know not to copy files while movies are playing but it would be nice to stop the pausing.

XMBC 8.10 bf1
Laucher 2.2
ATV 2.3
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#6
I also thought it was a wifi network issue but also tried using a network cable and the same pause issue happens....

How can I downgrade to Launcher 2.1 ? When I was using 2.1 there was no problems.
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#7
Hi,

I had similar problems with SMB mounts and changed to NFS, now I have no more stuttering and no more pausing. I simply deactivated SMB sharing in my system prefs and used the free NFS Manager Tool (http://www.bresink.de/osx/NFSManager.html) to create my NFS shares (actually just two folders: movies & tv with various subfolders) and it works with my wireless connection.

Hope this helps,
Randy.
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#8
Hi Randy,

Since it seems this is working for you, I was willig to try, nevertheless I was wondering if once you change the way to access your movies and tv folders from SMB to NFS, does that affect the XBMC library in some way or the folder are exactly the same and it is just a question on how you access them?

On the other side, is there any XBMC developer who can state if this might be a real solution, or is it just something that might work for some but not for all?

Thanks a lot.
Lorenzo
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#9
Yesterday I just did a factory reset and reinstalled all XBMC, and I guess it did the trick. Everything seems to be working again...... strange.... same software, but well, IT WORKS !
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#10
Hi Lorenzo,

it was really only a matter of removing the SMB sources from XBMC and then adding the new sources (TV Shows and Movies) as NFS shares, very easy. If you have NitoTV installed you can also automount them when ATV starts, making them instantly available in XBMC.

Randy.
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#11
Hi Randy,

I was abour to try your solution with NFS Manager. I have already created the NFS share on my iMac, but when trying to add a new share in XBMC there is no NFS protocol option. I get SMB, UPnP, FTP, etc. but no NFS. I have no Nito and therfore I can not automount as you told me to.

Hi nmpg,

When you said you did a factory reset, you mean an ATV complete factory reset from the frontrow? When doing that you probably get the latests ATV firmware 2.3 isn't it? Is that ok already with XBMC? I then need to do the patcstick allover again don't I? Please advise before I get everything messed up!!!

Thanks,
Lorenzo
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#12
lorenvazquez,

Yes I did a ATV complete factory reset from the frontrow.
I then installed ATV 2.3 and then did patcstick allover again. It worked.
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#13
Hi Lorenzo,

right, I forget you can't do it within XBMC. Just install NitoTV from the 3rd Party Software Menu and go to the Network settings to create your NFS mounts, XBMC will them see them automatically.

Randy.
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#14
Does anybody have a solution for this problem that doesn't involve nfs? Just that i use windows home server for all my media - the microsoft nfs component isn't available for whs and third party ones wont work because i use a storage pool not local disks...
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#15
I've got this problem as well, and I AM using NFS with no improvement. I've been chalking this up to problems with my wifi connection, but maybe this is something bigger.

I've noticed during my SSH sessions with ATV that it completely drops the network connection, sometimes for minutes at a time, as well. During this time it will not even answer to pings. I am not using Frontrow at all, so I can't really test whether this is an XBMC-issue or a general ATV issue.
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[Apple TV] Intermittent video pausing issue (ATV + XBMC)0