v17 Slight stutter Live TV on one machine only
#1
Every now and then Live TV on Kodi starts stuttering on my main machine. If I open Kodi on another machine and tune into the same channel it is flawless. But the tuners are attached to the main machine.
If I open up VLC or Windows Media Player and open the same channel it is flawless as well. If I close Kodi and reopen it I still have the issue. If I restart the machine the issue is fixed.

If this happens the machine is not very busy (CPU and memory are not used a lot)

Any idea?
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#2
Nothing?
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#3
hi Plantje,

I have Kodi on the same machine as my backend as well as a couple RPI's and laptops, I haven't witnessed anything that you have described on my main HTPC (which also hosts the backend), I presume its the latest Beta you're using? Have you tried the latest nightly? might be worth a shot?
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#4
Ok, this morning I am experiencing the issue again. I am working from home today and no one needs Live TV for the next few hours, so I can do some testing here and there.

So, at the moment I am experiencing some stutter (only in video) on my HTPC while watching live TV. The facts:
-If I tune in on the same channel on Kodi on my Surface 3 there is no issue
-If I open VLC on the HTPC and tune in on the same channel and put them side by side Kodi has an issue and VLC doesn't.
-If I close Kodi and reopen it the issue is not gone
-If I kill the Kodi process from the task manager and open it again the issue still exists

There are two Floppy DTV tuners and one dual HDHomerun tuner connected to the HTPC. I tried using a different tuner on the HTPC, but the issue still exists.

I killed a lot of processes using memory and CPU. Currently memory and CPU usage is both at about 50%. That doesn't seem to be the issue.

I KNOW restarting the entire machine does solve the issue.

While experiencing this issue nothing was being recorded at the same time. My HTPC was the only machine using the tuners.
During the issue a recording started....so that is recording using those same tuners. If I watch the recoding created while experiencing the issue it doesn't have the issue.

I started another test: currently I am watching a channel on live TV and I see the issue. So I hit "Record". I wait for a while and then start playing the just created recording. And what do I see: the same part of a TV program that was running sluggish while playing as live TV is now smooth as a whistle!

Yes, I am running the latest beta and yes I have had this with previous beta's as well.

By the way: a few minutes later, while experiencing the issue the CPU usage was only at 30%. That for sure can not be the issue.

I'll leave it like this for a while. Perhaps someone can come up with some stuff to test or check. I know restarting the entire machine is the only way to fix this.
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#5
Im not sure what to sugest, maybe someone can help, i guess being logical we're saying its either hardware issue, Drivers? But your saying VLC works or some config in Kodi... i use DXVA2, not sure if that would make difference?

Have you tried 16.1 did that work?
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#6
It has been a while since I last responded here. However, the issue has not been solved yet. Just been busy Smile

Last week I noticed the issue again. I closed Kodi and waited for at least a day. Then noticed the issue was still there. I saw CPU was using about 40% in total and memory about 50%.
I am not sure how much the DVBLink Network Service was using, but that could be the culprit. Currently it uses 0.2% and when one or two tuners are in use this is about 10% I will check that the next time.

In the mean time the machine has been rebooted and all is well again.

And yes, VLC works just fine at the same moment Kodi is having issues. Restarting the machine always fixes the issue.

The latest version I used was 15, because 16.1 had an issue with my NVidia drivers. (Not sure anymore what it was) I will keep collecting data
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#7
One thing to add: in previous occurrences I noticed that the tiles on my start screen were blank. No live tiles were working and even the app name was not displayed. Currently the whole start screen is working. So, perhaps something is really wrong with the machine.
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#8
Had it again this morning:
CPU usage: nothing too bad. About 30%
CPU usage of DVBLink Network Service between 10% and 15%
Start screen looked normal

After restart:
CPU usage: up until 70% (because everything was still starting up)
CPU usage of DVBLink Network Service between 10% and 15%
Start screen looked normal
And no issue at all

I don't think I need to focus on CPU usage anymore. It's like looking for a needle in a hay stack, but I will find it eventually. It is not hindering me a lot since restarting the computer solves the issue that is what I am doing now. My girlfriend doesn't even seem to mind the stuttering...she notices it but doesn't mind...
If it really becomes a huge issue I'll try Kodi 15 again. Or perhaps check if Kodi 16.1 now works.
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#9
Another update... Smile

Today the issue occurred again. It is definitely no CPU load issue! That was on an all time low.

Just because I was curious I installed Kodi Jarvis 16.1. After installation I immediately had the same issue on that version as well. After a reboot it was gone of course. I will keep 16.1 installed for a while and see if it occurs again.
And I know as well again what the issue with 16.1 was: when I start a picture slide show I get an error message and it closes.
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#10
Still working on this. A week or so back I tried to reproduce it. Tried using all tuners at the same time. Tried recording something and using some tuners etc etc. There really is no logic to be found. This only happens in Kodi. And it only happens with live TV.

Would it be possible to add another free PVR add on and see if that one has the issue as well as soon as it occurs? There must be some free PVR add on that uses some TV channels that hardly anyone wants to watch....right?
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#11
Found it!

Today I had the stutter again and checked the time shift settings and they were enabled. I disabled that and now everything is fine.

That also clarifies why I don't have it in VLC and other clients. Other clients don't have the timeshift option.

And after enabling timeshift again this morning everything is still fine. Guess my hard drive sometimes has some issues doing the timeshift thing. Where is timeshift data stored? On the C:\ drive? Or on the location where my recordings are stored?
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#12
Hey Plantje,
Timeshift seems to be a pretty big factor with stuttering issues.
I played around with the timeshift locstion, which by default is in
dvblink/share/temp
I resolved some issues by moving it to a seperate ssd, which works great (i know this is not the most sane thing to do but it really helps smoothing things out)
Here is described how to move things around: https://forum.dvblogic.com/viewtopic.php...1b1f77e1c5

I use NextPVR as an alternative becauss of its simplicity. Free for home use.
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#13
Thank you for that reply! I will definitely look into that as I don't want to use my SSD for time shifting!
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#14
For now I have timeshift disabled on the main machine. I'm really happy I've found the culprit!
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