[doomedtx]

iMac 27" mid-2010 OSX 10.13.6 with 2.93 GHz i7 and 16MB RAM
Kodi nightly 18.0-RC1 Git:20181114-6f8f706bc2
Debug log: https://pastebin.ubuntu.com/p/kF7rj95QZz/
MediaInfo: https://pastebin.com/PvrNX9WD

During playback, the video frequently (~once every 5 minutes) stalls while the audio continues to play. The video will eventually 'catch up.' Backing up and replaying the stalled area almost never results in another identical stall, meaning it doesn't seem to be a problem with the file. File plays in VLC without stalling. I've read through the forums and tried enabling/disabling hardware decoding, changed the buffers, tried lots of different settings changes in order to fix the issue. I've been through multiple nightlies of 18. I've tried deleting the addons directory and letting Kodi recreate it. It's hard to pinpoint the time the issue started because it was happening for "awhile" before we realized "hey, that's been happening awhile." I know that's not particularly helpful, but it's hard to stop watching in the middle of a movie to troubleshoot Kodi.

The iMac is connected via Cat 5E to a Buffalo router that is connected via 2 Cat 5E cables to our Thecus N5200XXX NAS. The issue doesn't seem to be network related, but does seem to happen more frequently on higher-quality files. The full debug is posted above, but here is a snippet that seems to be relevant. Is there anything else I should try to fix this issue?
 

Code:

21:11:05.966 T:123145524723712   DEBUG: CPtsTracker: pattern lost on diff 83000.000000, number of losses 1
21:11:05.999 T:123145524723712   DEBUG: CDVDVideoCodecFFmpeg::GetPicture - eof
21:11:05.999 T:123145524723712    INFO: CVideoPlayerVideo - Stillframe detected, switching to forced 23.976024 fps
21:11:06.046 T:123145529552896  NOTICE: CVideoPlayerAudio::Process - stream stalled
21:11:07.142 T:123145540325376   DEBUG: CWebServer[8282]: request received for /jsonrpc
21:11:08.574 T:123145524723712   DEBUG: Previous line repeats 3 times.
21:11:08.574 T:123145524723712    INFO: CVideoPlayerVideo - Stillframe left, switching to normal playback
21:11:08.574 T:123145524187136   DEBUG: CVideoPlayer::SetCaching - caching state 1
21:11:08.574 T:123145524187136   DEBUG: CDVDClock::SetSpeedAdjust - adjusted:0.000000
21:11:08.578 T:123145530089472   ERROR: ffmpeg[70000D93A000]: [h264] co located POCs unavailable
21:11:08.580 T:123145529552896   DEBUG: CDVDAudio::Pause - pausing audio stream
21:11:08.722 T:123145524187136   DEBUG: CVideoPlayer::SetCaching - caching state 2
21:11:08.722 T:123145524187136   DEBUG: CDVDClock::SetSpeedAdjust - adjusted:0.000000
21:11:08.723 T:123145529552896   DEBUG: CDVDAudio::Pause - pausing audio stream
21:11:08.723 T:123145524187136   DEBUG: CVideoPlayer::SetCaching - caching state 3
21:11:08.723 T:123145529552896   DEBUG: CDVDAudio::Resume - resume audio stream
21:11:08.723 T:123145524187136   DEBUG: CDVDClock::SetSpeedAdjust - adjusted:0.000000
21:11:08.723 T:123145524187136   DEBUG: CVideoPlayer::SetCaching - caching state 0
21:11:08.723 T:123145528479744   DEBUG: ActiveAE - start sync of audio stream
21:11:08.723 T:123145524187136   DEBUG: CDVDClock::SetSpeedAdjust - adjusted:0.000000
21:11:08.832 T:123145528479744   DEBUG: ActiveAE::SyncStream - average error of -2332.043228, start adjusting
21:11:08.986 T:123145540325376   DEBUG: CWebServer[8282]: request received for /jsonrpc
21:11:09.072 T:123145528479744   DEBUG: Previous line repeats 1 times.
21:11:09.072 T:123145528479744   DEBUG: ActiveAE::SyncStream - average error -20.952269 below threshold of 30.000000
21:11:09.077 T:123145540325376   DEBUG: CWebServer[8282]: request received for /jsonrpc
21:11:09.385 T:123145524723712   DEBUG: Previous line repeats 1 times.
21:11:09.385 T:123145524723712 WARNING: CRenderManager::WaitForBuffer - timeout waiting for buffer
21:11:10.074 T:123145528479744 WARNING: Previous line repeats 1 times.
21:11:10.074 T:123145528479744   DEBUG: ActiveAE::SyncStream - average error 396.632805 above threshold of 100.000000
21:11:10.403 T:123145524723712 WARNING: CRenderManager::WaitForBuffer - timeout waiting for buffer
21:11:10.458 T:123145528479744   DEBUG: ActiveAE::SyncStream - average error 26.632805, last average error: 396.632805
21:11:10.564 T:123145528479744   DEBUG: ActiveAE::SyncStream - average error of 0.592602, start adjusting
21:11:10.564 T:123145528479744   DEBUG: ActiveAE::SyncStream - average error 0.592602 below threshold of 30.000000

[Memphiz]

It seems that you have mounted your NAS in the operating system level. Doing it that way prevents Kodi from knowing that this is a remote source. Depending on what protocol you are using it might be a problem then.
Could you try to use samba or nfs from within Kodi instead to access your data on the NAS and report back if this fixes the issue?
Based on the log file the stream is indeed stalling on the filesystem level. As said - Kodi treats your NAS Connection as local storage and doesn’t apply any caching measures like with Network sources.

[doomedtx]

I finally got to do this last night, and it seemed to work! We were watching a video that stalled and stuttered so badly we couldn't watch it, but after re-setting the library to use SMB directly instead of the Volumes directory, it played back flawlessly. It's hard to prove a negative, so the real proof will come over the next days and weeks as we see how playback continues to go. Thank you for the suggestion; I'm cautiously optimistic!