[newoski]

Hi Guys,

I'm totally stumped. I have a Gigabit network (FiOS Gigabit, Linksys EA9500, TP-Link SG108E x2, Cat6) and I'm running an Unraid server with multiple Kodi clients. When there isn't heavy traffic on the FiOS connection, IE no computers saturating the downlink via heavy downloads, then I have perfect Kodi playback. However, when I have my 1gbps FiOS downlink nearly saturated with a Google Drive download, then my Kodi immediately begins to buffer heavily. 

I'm totally stumped. I have great cache settings that work the rest of the time and I'm not sure why the heavy Internet download on an unrelated computer would have any impact on communication between my Kodi client and Unraid server. 

Can anyone help? Happy to provide whatever logs would be helpful, but as this is such a weird problem, I'm not sure where to start...

[asavah]

I'm not sure why the heavy Internet download on an unrelated computer would have any impact on communication between my Kodi client and Unraid server. 

That totally depends on how your devices are connected physically to switches and router, and where your server, the device eating all the bandwith and kodi devices are connected.
Provide a schematic (drawing) of your physical network topology.

You have 1 Gbit LAN.
If a link/segment is saturated then you obviously don't have enough bandwith for media playback.
It doesn't matter whether the traffic is coming from inet or a local server.

This is a more a general networking question than a Kodi question.

[newoski]

I'm not sure why the heavy Internet download on an unrelated computer would have any impact on communication between my Kodi client and Unraid server. 

That totally depends on how your devices are connected physically to switches and router, and where your server, the device eating all the bandwith and kodi devices are connected.
Provide a schematic (drawing) of your physical network topology.

You have 1 Gbit LAN.
If a link/segment is saturated then you obviously don't have enough bandwith for media playback.
It doesn't matter whether the traffic is coming from inet or a local server.

This is a more a general networking question than a Kodi question.

Thanks so much for at least confirming that it can happen and there may be a root cause that makes sense! I've attached a crude network map. My router is in my living room and I have 7 Cat6 lines fished to different areas of the house. All connections are Cat6, with the exception of the initial connection from the Fios Fiber box to my router (this will be near impossible for me to change to Cat6 anytime soon, but I have no issues with internet speed). Any optimizations that would improve the situation would be tremendously appreciated

[easy123]

I have similar network diagram as what you have. I use two gigabit NIC on my server, one for direct connection to my HTPC which runs Kodi and one for connecting to the switch for internet access. This way, I can be sure that when I play using Kodi, no other device would interrupt the network between the server and the PC with Kodi. I had similar symptom in the past - when playing 4K UHD files, buffering happens before I set up the dedicated link between the server and the PC with Kodi.

[newoski]

I have similar network diagram as what you have. I use two gigabit NIC on my server, one for direct connection to my HTPC which runs Kodi and one for connecting to the switch for internet access. This way, I can be sure that when I play using Kodi, no other device would interrupt the network between the server and the PC with Kodi. I had similar symptom in the past - when playing 4K UHD files, buffering happens before I set up the dedicated link between the server and the PC with Kodi.

Thanks! That's an interesting thought. I have a 2 gigabit NIC on my server, as well, but I've never thought to leverage it this way. Could you explain a bit more about how you're connecting the "dedicated" NIC to your HTPC(s)? A quick and dirty map would be a massive help!

[easy123]

 

Thanks! That's an interesting thought. I have a 2 gigabit NIC on my server, as well, but I've never thought to leverage it this way. Could you explain a bit more about how you're connecting the "dedicated" NIC to your HTPC(s)? A quick and dirty map would be a massive help!

Use a dedicated CAT6 cable between NIC1 of your server and your HTPC. And leave your NIC2 of on the server for getting IP address from your router. You can setup static IP address for NIC1 and the HTPC so they can communicate without issue. If you want your HTPC to e able to access internet you have two choices. #1, bridge NIC1 and NIC2 on your server. I use Windows 10 for both server and HTPC so it is an easy task. #2, add wifi adapter to your HTPC or 2 2nd NIC which have IP from your router.