Kodi Buffering, Randomly

[newoski]

First, I believe this is an Unraid issue, not Kodi, thus the post here. 

 

I have a Gigabit Cat6 home network connecting my Unraid server and my LibreELEC Kodi boxes. I have tested, many times, the Jellyfish test video files at bitrates up to 110MBps without issue. 

 

Lately, after upgrading to latest release, I'm running into an issue where Kodi playback starts to buffer and then time out. It happens on both of my Kodi boxes, and again it's totally random, which leads me to believe that something is happening on the Server side that is tripping things up. 

 

What can I post to try to troubleshoot? I don't see anything at all occuring in my logs at the time it happens? What should I be looking for?

[newoski]

Anybody?

[Squid]

On 10/18/2018 at 12:21 PM, newoski said:

What can I post to try to troubleshoot?

diagnostics.  Might not show anything, but has to be done at a start.

[newoski]

Thanks Squid. I'll grab a log the next time it happens

[newoski]

diagnostics.  Might not show anything, but has to be done at a start.

Attached. Buffering around 8:40PM, right after a Sync started via Emby for Kodi on one of my mobile devices

 

http://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/5be78a4bc581d/tower-diagnostics-20181110-2044.zip

 

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

 

 

 

[NNate]

I haven't looked at your logs, but I've experienced similar issues. It normally happens when another disk on the same controller spins up. I had similar questions at the time and was told there wasn't anything to do about it and it was a hardware limitation in a lot of hard drive controllers.

 

Here are some options:

• Adjust your buffer size in Kodi to allow for more wiggle room when this happens. https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Modify_the_video_cache
• I moved all my Emby scheduled tasks to happen overnight as that was the cause of most of my random spinups. Not sure if that'll help you with a mobile requested sync, however.

• Adjust your drive spinup/spindown schedules (ie disable or extend out) .

• Create spinup groups to spin up all disks on your controller together - so when one spins up the others do too.

I'd be curious to hear if anyone has any other suggestions. It's frustrating having to work around the problem as opposed to solving it.

Edited November 11, 2018 by NNate

[newoski]

Thanks. I already have cache settings, which never seem perfect. Don't want to disable syncs it limit them, as the real-time nature is what I love about Emby

I haven't looked at your logs, but I've experienced similar issues. It normally happens when another disk on the same controller spins up. I had similar questions at the time and was told there wasn't anything to do about it and it was a hardware limitation in a lot of hard drive controllers.
 
Here are some options:

• Adjust your buffer size in Kodi to allow for more wiggle room when this happens. https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Modify_the_video_cache
• I moved all my Emby scheduled tasks to happen overnight as that was the cause of most of my random spinups. Not sure if that'll help you with a mobile requested sync, however.
• Adjust your drive spinup/spindown schedules (ie disable or extend out) .
• Create spinup groups to spin up all disks on your controller together - so when one spins up the others do too.

I'd be curious to hear if anyone has any other suggestions. It's frustrating having to work around the problem as opposed to solving it.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[newoski]

Are there any controllers that are known NOT to have the limitation?

I haven't looked at your logs, but I've experienced similar issues. It normally happens when another disk on the same controller spins up. I had similar questions at the time and was told there wasn't anything to do about it and it was a hardware limitation in a lot of hard drive controllers.
 
Here are some options:

• Adjust your buffer size in Kodi to allow for more wiggle room when this happens. https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Modify_the_video_cache
• I moved all my Emby scheduled tasks to happen overnight as that was the cause of most of my random spinups. Not sure if that'll help you with a mobile requested sync, however.
• Adjust your drive spinup/spindown schedules (ie disable or extend out) .
• Create spinup groups to spin up all disks on your controller together - so when one spins up the others do too.

I'd be curious to hear if anyone has any other suggestions. It's frustrating having to work around the problem as opposed to solving it.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[UncleDirtNap]

On ‎11‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 9:10 AM, NNate said:

I haven't looked at your logs, but I've experienced similar issues. It normally happens when another disk on the same controller spins up. I had similar questions at the time and was told there wasn't anything to do about it and it was a hardware limitation in a lot of hard drive controllers.

 

Here are some options:

• Adjust your buffer size in Kodi to allow for more wiggle room when this happens. https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Modify_the_video_cache
• I moved all my Emby scheduled tasks to happen overnight as that was the cause of most of my random spinups. Not sure if that'll help you with a mobile requested sync, however.

• Adjust your drive spinup/spindown schedules (ie disable or extend out) .

• Create spinup groups to spin up all disks on your controller together - so when one spins up the others do too.

I'd be curious to hear if anyone has any other suggestions. It's frustrating having to work around the problem as opposed to solving it.

I'm having the same issue and was going to try the spinup groups next but I'm having some difficulty doing so.   I have spinup groups enabled in the settings but even still I'm only seeing one drive at a time being accessed and spun up at a time.  So I assume the groups have to be further defined or setup, but I can't find where to create or define groups.

[Squid]

27 minutes ago, UncleDirtNap said:

So I assume the groups have to be further defined or setup, but I can't find where to create or define groups

From the Main tab, click on each drive in turn and you can give it a spin up group.  The "group" can be anything (ie: 1, group1, movies, etc)

[UncleDirtNap]

3 hours ago, Squid said:

From the Main tab, click on each drive in turn and you can give it a spin up group.  The "group" can be anything (ie: 1, group1, movies, etc)

Wow, I must have looked at that setting half dozen times and not seen it.

 

Thanks!