Kodi Community Forum

At first I had XBMC on an old Acer Aspire Revo R3610. I had that up and running for several years, with varied amounts of success. I ran XBMCBuntu (is that what it was called) for a while, then moved over to OpenElec...both installed directly to the internal Hard Drive (not booting/running from the SD). More and more, though, I got frustrated with the frequency of buffering pauses and various unexplainable system freezes. I thought for a long time that the problem was with the way I was connected (Wi-Fi through a wireless access point to ethernet to the Revo), so I spent a ridiculous amount of effort finding a way to run a Gigabit RJ6 line to where the Revo was located. Long story short, no improvement.

About that time, the Raspberry Pi 2 was announced, and I figured that it would be an upgrade to the Revo, and a relatively inexpensive experiment. Again, long story short, no improvement. Some (most) videos stutter to buffer after playing less than 60 seconds. Some freeze at that point for a while then kick back to the file list / library. I tried all the advice I saw on a couple different "First things you need to do after installing XBMC on your Pi" blogs, including the Stuttering and Buffering advancedsettings.xml suggestions at http://www.htpcbeginner.com/raspberry-pi...ec-tweaks/ . If anything that seemed to make things worse.

I've got a Mac Mini PC in the office and a MacBook Pro that both have Kodi on them and neither of them has any issues with the videos that are choking the Pi2. So I'm not sure it's a matter of a problem with the video encodes (some downloads, but most are Handbrake mkv encodes from our personal DVD/Bluray collection).

But at this point, I'm at a loss. Part of me is compelled to look into building a more expensive / capably spec'd pc, like an Intel NUC, but the other part of me thinks this should work, based on others' apparent bliss running Kodi on a Pi, let alone a Pi2.

Is there a debug mode or something that would yield some log files that may report why it keeps choking? Please help me achieve the same success that others seem to be having with a Pi HTPC.

http://kodi.wiki/view/Log_file

Isolate your network by playing some files on the Raspberry PI 2 from a USB or the SD card. If it works fine, then something in your network is to blame.

When you tested your Macs, did you use the same hookup the Pi / Revo used? Normally people run CAT6, not RG6, on a gigabit network.

Dah, my bad. It was a CAT6 Gigabit line, not RG6.

Regarding the USB/SD test, wouldn't that test remove a few too many variables? I'll definitely try it tonight once the kids get to bed, though. Good thought, thanks!

If the USB/SD test is plays fine, it narrows down the issue a lot so it is worth testing. You can also try hooking the Mac to the same CAT6 as the Pi 2 to see how it plays over the network.

BTW, forgot to mention, as a latest-ditch try at something new I switched from an OpenELEC image to OSMC (before I wrote this post in frustration), to no avail. So right now what i've got running is the latest OSMC build. I also played around and found some debug settings that I enabled (CPU/Memory overlay, and log file enabled for Video). That being said...

Findings:
- Couldn't get a USB drive with 2 troublesome movies to mount (MS-FAT), so I enabled SMB and sent the test movies over to the SD card. They both ran without stutter pauses, but both had annoyingly-noticable audio drop-outs averaging once every 30-60 seconds. I clicked the center button and brought up the Video overlay and noticed what looked like a significant buffer in the timeline scrubber. CPU rarely pushed past 25% or so throughout.

- Tried those same movies again over the network (NFS mounts to a Drobo NAS). Both had more frequent audio drop-outs, before both eventually froze for several seconds then stopped on their own, dropping back to the file list. CPU again rarely pushed past 25% throughout playback. In the log file, I'm seeing some interesting lines: "WARNING: Read - timeout waiting for data" and "ERROR: ffmpeg[5FA38420]: [matroska,webm] Read error". Again, those same files copied from the Drobo to the SD card played without freezing (but with sporadic audio drop-outs)

Thoughts?

I would personally plug the macbook into the same CAT6 as the pi to see if the video drops on there as well.

You can include the log, just make sure you post it elsewhere as the wiki states.

What network infrastructure do you have between the Drobo and the PI? Do you ever see a rainbow square in the upper right corner of your screen? How are you powering your PI? What type/brand of sd card are you using?

Done. Disabled WiFi on the laptop, unplugged the ethernet from the Pi2 and plugged into the laptop. Loaded up Kodi, navigated to the same NFS share and path and played the same 2 videos....Flawless. Nary a video or audio stutter at all.

I'd say that narrows our problem surface to the Pi2. Now, hardware, software, networking, or some combination...

Log file at (removed) use http://paste.osmc.io/egoyutuyax
Plz don't judge vis a vis one of the the movies I've been trying to get to play. If you saw the disappointment from my daughter that we couldn't get this movie to play on the big TV....

Dilligaf:

Drobo and Pi each run single-cable to my AirPort Extreme router. I've never seen any kind of rainbow action in the corners. (nor any unicorns)

Pi's power adapter has this printed on it: "MW Switching Power Supply -- Model MWS158 -- Input: 100-240V AC 47~63Hz 0.35A -- Output: 5V 2200mA"

SD is a PNY 16GB MicroSD (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N2ROGYO).

A little off topic, but you may find it useful:

There is a Log Uploader function under MyOSMC that will allow you to upload all sorts of different logs and system information to a pastebin. You can then just post that link instead of putting something in Dropbox.

Are you able to provide the MediaInfo for a sample stuttery file? https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo

Groovy.

http://paste.osmc.io/egoyutuyax

I'll take down the dropbox link. Thanks for the tip!

General
Unique ID : 192946268846693315582679582074650081812 (0x91281984D29CEFF924F1DBEDDC75BA14)
Complete name : /Volumes/Plex/Kids Movies/Barbie - Princess Power/Barbie - Princess Power.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 1.10 GiB
Duration : 1h 13mn
Overall bit rate : 2 129 Kbps
Writing application : HandBrake 6509svn 2014111001
Writing library : Lavf55.12.0

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1h 13mn
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Standard : NTSC
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Writing library : x264 core 142 r2479 dd79a61
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=6 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=16.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=2000 / vbv_bufsize=1000 / crf_max=25.0 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color primaries : BT.601 NTSC
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.601

Audio #1
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 1h 13mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 448 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 236 MiB (21%)
Title : Surround
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio #2
ID : 3
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : A_AAC
Duration : 1h 13mn
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Title : Stereo
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No

Menu
00:00:00.000 : :Chapter 1
00:04:49.706 : :Chapter 2
00:09:22.437 : :Chapter 3
00:16:23.983 : :Chapter 4
00:23:26.405 : :Chapter 5
00:28:24.369 : :Chapter 6
00:33:44.564 : :Chapter 7
00:40:29.260 : :Chapter 8
00:48:55.516 : :Chapter 9
00:55:24.988 : :Chapter 10
01:00:39.302 : :Chapter 11
01:07:41.474 : :Chapter 12

I think you should wait for someone that is better at reading logs, but what options do you have in the network section of advancedsettings.xml? I am wondering if you have cachemembuffersize to high.

(2015-03-16, 07:10)katsup Wrote: [ -> ]I think you should wait for someone that is better at reading logs, but what options do you have in the network section of advancedsettings.xml? I am wondering if you have cachemembuffersize to high.

23rd line of the log link he supplied: <cachemembuffersize>0</cachemembuffersize>