Kodi Community Forum

Hey Guys,

I have noticed that when trying to watch videos on my XBMCBuntu box I get video stuttering and eventually get taken back to the menu within XBMC. This only seems to occur when the server in which my content resides is also running my external Plex media server. So to make it a little bit more clear, i have the following:

Media-PC
*Contains 6 hard drives with TV and Movies on each drive
*Also runs Flex Media for external streaming

XBMCBuntu Box
*This is a standalone box on a relatively decent rig - have no issues here in terms of hardware etc (unless running plex on Media-PC).

Can i NOT be running Plex on the server i am streaming media from .. into XBMC? Is there an XBMC addon that would allow me access from external applications to stream my media files?

I can install Plex on a different computer for outside access, but i would rather not if i could get around it. Is this something that COULD be causing my stuttering, or is it just a coincidence that stopping plex means streaming is smooth with no stopping or stuttering (i don't believe in coincidences!!!).

Can someone give me some thoughts? ideas? Known issue?

Sounds like your server is not powerful enough to run plex and stream files (which would have to be a pretty low power server!).

What sort of load average are you seeing on the server.

The server is a Q6600 with 6GB of memory. This even occured when i was streaming and running plex on my i7 920 with 12GB ram. So i know its not a hardware issue (at least it doesn't make sense to be).

Unless someone is streaming Plex files, the CPU usage is less than 10%, when streaming all 4 cores of the q6600 are pretty much utilized to the maximum, but the behavior i am seeing occurs regardless of concurrent streaming with plex to an external source, or if the server is sitting idol.

I assume there is some cross over in terms of protocols or something with xbmc pulling the media off the server, and Plex running in the background? But then maybe not - I am not an expert in this...

Cheers in advance for the input

Could also be io related. iotop helps track that down. But more easily look at top and see if wa (wait) is high. That would usually indicate hard drive io problems.

You have good cpu, but plex (or any transcoding) is very intensive.

post your logs from xbmc and a debug when you try to play a movie

also how are you 'streaming' the media from the plex server? what protocol etc?