Speed up home LAN


Recommended Posts

Hello, 

 

Apologies if this is in the wrong section, wasn't quite sure where to ask. 

 

I'm running unRaid on a Gigabyte Z490 Vision G motherboard, Intel Core i9-10900K, 64gb ram and Cat8 cables throughout the house. I have my server and WAN connection going straight into an UBNT EdgeRouter X and then that feeds into a Linksys LGS116V2 (16 port), which the rest of the house is connected to. 

 

My issue is whenever I try to "direct play" 4K files via Emby/Unraid, some work but most of the time they buffer/stutter and some even display no image. The video bitrate averages between 75-100mbps for the movies. 

 

I'm sure I'm missing something obvious, but shouldn't these be playing without issue? For reference my unRaid server is doing nothing else, just streaming when I'm having these issues. 

 

If any further information is needed to help diagnose the problem, please let me know. 

 

Screenshot_20211026-185652_Emby.jpg.c499fb63ea350a990783e969b4e9a36e.jpg

Link to comment
4 minutes ago, BeardedNoir said:

My issue is whenever I try to "direct play" 4K files via Emby/Unraid, some work but most of the time they buffer/stutter and some even display no image. The video bitrate averages between 75-100mbps for the movies. 

Are these wired or wireless client?

A 90+Mbps stream via a 2.4GHz WiFi Link is definitely presenting a challenge, especially if other clients are connected to the same channel/AP concurrently.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
9 minutes ago, Ford Prefect said:

Are these wired or wireless client?

A 90+Mbps stream via a 2.4GHz WiFi Link is definitely presenting a challenge, especially if other clients are connected to the same channel/AP concurrently.

 

Hello, 

 

Thank you kindly for replying so quickly. 

 

My connection is wired, however I have also tried via 5GHz WiFi and I am having the same problem. For reference, I have two of these WiFi access points in the house; Ubiquiti

Link to comment
5 minutes ago, BeardedNoir said:

My connection is wired

In that case, link speed should not impose a problem, in general.

Can you rule out the network speed/infrastructure as a root cause, maybe by directly connecting a wired client to unraid, without switch or router in between?

Other "problems" that can persist are:

  • the client/player is not capable of rendering the codec (either video , audio or both)
  • same, but emby is doing a transcode on the fly, thus overallocation of ressources (stress) on unraid can occur
  • the files you need to play are scattered across disks, which normally are sleeping and need to wakeup first when accessed, causing a delay and maybe timeouts on client side.
  • client and unraid are not on the same IP network, hence your edge-router will have to do some inter-network routing (maybe NAT is applied and you are reaching a limit)
  • same, but emby routes the traffic via another network or ressource in between emby/unraid and the client. Maybe caused by a misconfiguration in other Dockers (VPN, SWAG, wireguard, ...)
  • your switches have gone into "green" mode, thus limiting port/link speeds to 100M (one port along the path is enough to create the bottleneck)

...it really is hard to tell, from here..you should try to split the problem into smaller chunks and try every one, hence ruling out part by part as a root cause.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
18 hours ago, Ford Prefect said:

In that case, link speed should not impose a problem, in general.

Can you rule out the network speed/infrastructure as a root cause, maybe by directly connecting a wired client to unraid, without switch or router in between?

Other "problems" that can persist are:

  • the client/player is not capable of rendering the codec (either video , audio or both)
  • same, but emby is doing a transcode on the fly, thus overallocation of ressources (stress) on unraid can occur
  • the files you need to play are scattered across disks, which normally are sleeping and need to wakeup first when accessed, causing a delay and maybe timeouts on client side.
  • client and unraid are not on the same IP network, hence your edge-router will have to do some inter-network routing (maybe NAT is applied and you are reaching a limit)
  • same, but emby routes the traffic via another network or ressource in between emby/unraid and the client. Maybe caused by a misconfiguration in other Dockers (VPN, SWAG, wireguard, ...)
  • your switches have gone into "green" mode, thus limiting port/link speeds to 100M (one port along the path is enough to create the bottleneck)

...it really is hard to tell, from here..you should try to split the problem into smaller chunks and try every one, hence ruling out part by part as a root cause.

 

Hello mate,

 

Thank you for all of your suggestions. 

 

I started working through them and in the end I reset the router and all access points, readopted them and setup the UniFi Controller Docker so I could try and better see any bottlenecks, everything now appears to be running smoothly. 👍

 

Thanks again. 

Link to comment
54 minutes ago, BeardedNoir said:

Thank you for all of your suggestions. 

I actually did miss the most simple one...a defective patchcable, syncing to 10/100M mode.

 

54 minutes ago, BeardedNoir said:

I started working through them and in the end I reset the router and all access points[...]

That's actually the worst of errors you could possibly think of...but there is always murphy's law then ;-)

 

Hope you won't be hit by that beetlejuice kind of bug too early in the furure.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.