[SOLVED] video streaming stutters

[Baron_Harkonnen]

Hi,

 

I have a problem - when i play movies from unraid (v.4.7) (with VLC, on MAC OS X Lion), the video stutters.

it rarely happens with short movies (like tv series), but with long movies, especially HD video, it happens quiet often (sometimes every 10 minutes no huge 16+ GB movies)

I'm pretty sure it has something to do with buffering (because when i raised VLC file buffering to 3000 ms - it helped a bit).

i don't think the problem is with VLC or OS, because when i play the same movie from local HDD everything runs smoothly.

my LAN is Gigalan, and everything seems to be configured right (i mean the router and stuff...)

my shares are configured to Fill-up, and split level set to 0, so it not like video is stored on different drives...

 

on a side note, i remember when i just got the unraid up and running i had no problems (but i had less HDDs, and less movies...maybe it has something to do with that?).problems started after a month or so...unfortunatly i don't remember doing anything particular to unraid, or to OS X, that could trigger the problem.

 

What do you think?

maybe cache drive can help?

if yes - which is best? how big it should be? can i use laptop drive (i just have one lying around...)?

 

let me know if any additional info is needed

 

Appreciate your help

 

 

[mbryanr]

Post a syslog...maybe there is a clue there.

 

You shouldn't have any problem from the unRAID side of streaming full BD (high bitrate) over your network.

 

Cache drive won't help.

 

Here is a thorough test completed recently...

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=9746.msg93536#msg93536

[Baron_Harkonnen]

here's part of log around the time i tried to watch a movie yesterday (i excluded "minor isuess" because all i've seen is "Tower shfs: duplicate object: /mnt/disk2/MEDIA/MOVIES/._.DS_Store (Minor Issues)" repeating over and over), but i also included a full log (with minor isuess and everything) in a file.

 

 

Dec  2 20:01:33 Tower kernel: sky2 eth0: Link is down. (Network)

Dec  2 20:01:34 Tower ifplugd(eth0)[1530]: Link beat lost. (Network)

Dec  2 20:01:42 Tower kernel: sky2 eth0: Link is up at 1000 Mbps, full duplex, flow control both (Network)

Dec  2 20:01:42 Tower ifplugd(eth0)[1530]: Link beat detected. (Network)

Dec  2 20:07:10 Tower kernel: sky2 eth0: Link is down. (Network)

Dec  2 20:07:10 Tower ifplugd(eth0)[1530]: Link beat lost. (Network)

Dec  2 20:07:18 Tower kernel: sky2 eth0: Link is up at 1000 Mbps, full duplex, flow control both (Network)

Dec  2 20:07:19 Tower ifplugd(eth0)[1530]: Link beat detected. (Network)

Dec  2 20:09:20 Tower kernel: mdcmd (21): spindown 5 (Routine)

Dec  2 20:09:30 Tower kernel: mdcmd (22): spindown 5 (Routine)

Dec  2 21:09:56 Tower kernel: mdcmd (23): spindown 3 (Routine)

Dec  2 21:09:57 Tower kernel: mdcmd (24): spindown 4 (Routine)

Dec  2 21:10:07 Tower kernel: mdcmd (25): spindown 2 (Routine)

Dec  2 22:55:30 Tower dhcpcd[6458]: sending DHCP_REQUEST for 192.168.1.15 to 192.168.1.1  (Routine)

Dec  2 22:55:30 Tower dhcpcd[6458]: dhcpIPaddrLeaseTime=86400 in DHCP server response.  (Routine)

Dec  2 22:55:30 Tower dhcpcd[6458]: dhcpT1value is missing in DHCP server response. Assuming 43200 sec  (Routine)

Dec  2 22:55:30 Tower dhcpcd[6458]: dhcpT2value is missing in DHCP server response. Assuming 75600 sec  (Routine)

Dec  2 22:55:30 Tower dhcpcd[6458]: DHCP_ACK received from  (192.168.1.1)  (Routine)

Dec  2 22:56:02 Tower kernel: mdcmd (26): spindown 0 (Routine)

Dec  2 22:56:03 Tower kernel: mdcmd (27): spindown 1 (Routine)

Dec  2 22:56:04 Tower kernel: mdcmd (28): spindown 5 (Routine)

syslog-2011-12-03.txt

[mbryanr]

Do you know why you lost the network connection?

I would setup a static IP for your unRAID server.

 

Also, anything else included in your network? Switch? Router #?

And results from

ethtool eth0

ethtool -i

ifconfig eth0

^^these can also be found from unMENU--->System Info-->Ethernet

for comparison

Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 
                        100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 
                        1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full 
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 
                        100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 
                        1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full 
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 1000Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: MII
PHYAD: 0
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: on
Supports Wake-on: pumbg
Wake-on: g
Current message level: 0x00000033 (51)
Link detected: yes

NIC driver info (from ethtool -i)
driver: r8169
version: 2.3LK-NAPI
firmware-version: 
bus-info: 0000:04:00.0

Ethernet config info (from ifconfig)
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 48:5b:39:79:f8:84  
          inet addr:192.168.1.108  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:312852 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:603844 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:25851072 (24.6 MiB)  TX bytes:862584373 (822.6 MiB)
          Interrupt:30 Base address:0x8000 

[lishpy]

You may be having network issues, but I'd also recommend scrapping VLC and using MPlayerX. VLC is known to not have the smoothest playback in OS X and I've experienced it first hand especially with larger 1080p files. Just a recommendation once you get your network issues under control.

[Baron_Harkonnen]

Hi

my ethtool results

 

NIC info (from ethtool)

Settings for eth0:

Supported ports: [ TP ]

Supported link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full

                        100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full

                        1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full

Supports auto-negotiation: Yes

Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full

                        100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full

                        1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full

Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes

Speed: 1000Mb/s

Duplex: Full

Port: Twisted Pair

PHYAD: 0

Transceiver: internal

Auto-negotiation: on

Supports Wake-on: pg

Wake-on: d

Current message level: 0x000000ff (255)

Link detected: yes

 

NIC driver info (from ethtool -i)

driver: sky2

version: 1.25

firmware-version: N/A

bus-info: 0000:06:00.0

 

Ethernet config info (from ifconfig)

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1e:8c:33:1e:a7 

          inet addr:192.168.1.15  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0

          UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:914060101 errors:0 dropped:110124 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:462267047 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000

          RX bytes:3364991412 (3.1 GiB)  TX bytes:122399017 (116.7 MiB)

          Interrupt:18

 

i did not set a static IP yet, i will sure try try it soon (sorry didn't had time to read on how to do it , i can do it from unmenu right? "view/edit" -  /boot/config/network.cfg, right?

regarding my network i do have a hub beffore router - D-Link DGS1008D, which is connected to router NETGEAR ProSafe VPN Firewall FVS336G. it's configured to give specific IP address to certain MAC address (so my router makes tower to be always 192,198,1,15).

 

regarding the stutter - i started to use MplayerX - it's nice, and i had no stutter on 1,7 GB files (40min 720p serial) at all with that player so far. briefly checked some huge 1080p (watched like 20min or so - no stutter) ill watch some whole movie tomorrow (i hope)

 

mean while, thanks for all your help,

and please let me know if you still see some problem with my network, even with mplayer i'd still like to correct it

 

vadim

[Joe L.]

RX packets:914060101 errors:0 dropped:110124 overruns:0 frame:0

 

You are dropping packets.    Step 1.  Try a different cable

[Baron_Harkonnen]

Hi,

 

I did several things - i did change cables (external ones - not inside the walls yet...)

also switched to MplayerX - stutter stopped right away in MplayerX wonderful player!

the dropped packets did not stop however...(at least i think so - because it spiked from 110124 to something around 2,500,000 (maybe it spiked couse i changed cables without shutting down the server?)

 

but i also disabled DFS on my server

after the restart i had no dropped packets! not a single one in 2 days now!

 

so i guess problem solved!

 

Thanks for helping me!

 

P.s. i would like to know though, just out of curiosity - was it the cable, or the DFS thing?