I've been running UnRAID for several years to store my video library, but I have a recent issue with mulitple clients freezing periodically when playing videos (at least last 6-9 months). At first I thought it was a Kodi issue with one of my clients, but even watching videos in Windows 10 Films & TV I am noticing it. Some shows I can get through without issue, others may pause 2-4 times in an hour long TV show. 

 

It's annoying to say the least.

 

I have a pretty robust system - Xeon processor, 32GB of memory and there are at most 2 separate video streams currently (though this can climb to 6-8 with Plex streams at times). It's confusing and honestly, I don't know where to search for the problem.

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

cydstorage-diagnostics-20180426-1640.zip

I've occasionally had issues like this, but my server doesn't have the horse power yours does.

 

So many variables involved here but a few things:

 - If you experience the issue on wireless -  try disabling the client's wireless adapter and using a network cable - see if that makes any difference.

 - If you have multiple streams going at once, do both pause simultaneously?

 - With Plex you can see whether the stream you're watching is being transcoded or not - does this issue affect transcoded streams more than others?

 - Do the pauses ever happen at the same spot in the video?  Possibly a problem with the file itself?

1 minute ago, skidz7 said:

I've occasionally had issues like this, but my server doesn't have the horse power yours does.

 

So many variables involved here but a few things:

 - If you experience the issue on wireless -  try disabling the client's wireless adapter and using a network cable - see if that makes any difference.

 - If you have multiple streams going at once, do both pause simultaneously?

 - With Plex you can see whether the stream you're watching is being transcoded or not - does this issue affect transcoded streams more than others?

 - Do the pauses ever happen at the same spot in the video?  Possibly a problem with the file itself?

 

Thanks for the suggestions. Here are responses:

 

- Wireless - Nope... everything is wired. I have 1-2 Plex clients wireless, but the PC I am doing playback on now and all the Kodi clients are wired.

- Not that I am aware of, though unfortunately it's sporadic enough to make it hard to validate when playback is occurring on different floors of the house.

- When I was having this issue today there were no Plex streams. When Plex is running the streams are transcoded though. Plex is used for family & friends, my daughter's iPad, and one bedroom in the house (Roku). I believe all Plex streams are transcoded, but as mentioned... this happens without Plex running

- No, I don't think it's file corruption. I can re-watch the same section without issue. The video can pause and then jump 2-5 seconds, which is annoying during dialog, so it's not uncommon for me to rewind and rewatch, which I can do without issue.

I had similar problems. Mine were caused due to other disks on my SATA controller spinning up. From what I read that's a fairly common problem.

 

My fix was to increase the buffer size in Kodi. Another fix would be to disable spindown.

Edited April 26, 20188 yr by NNate

I was planning on increasing the Kodi buffer, but when i started noticing it in Windows 10 as well I assumed it wasn't a client issue... though that may not be an accurate assumption I suppose. I will look at that for Kodi, but can't for Win10.

 

As for disk spin-up... you are saying that disks other than what I am watching on spinning up may cause this? I expect the long delay when I first start a video on a spun down drive, but didn't think other disks would impact things. I will need to monitor what is going on better I guess. 

 

thanks for the thoughts.

2 hours ago, bkastner said:

I was planning on increasing the Kodi buffer, but when i started noticing it in Windows 10 as well I assumed it wasn't a client issue... though that may not be an accurate assumption I suppose. I will look at that for Kodi, but can't for Win10.

 

As for disk spin-up... you are saying that disks other than what I am watching on spinning up may cause this? I expect the long delay when I first start a video on a spun down drive, but didn't think other disks would impact things. I will need to monitor what is going on better I guess. 

 

thanks for the thoughts.

Yes, a disk other than the one you're streaming from spinning up can cause those pauses - it can be a controller behavior.