Windows network file serving intermittent issue with Kodi

Forums › Microsoft Windows › Windows network file serving intermittent issue with Kodi - Feb 2018

timmmay

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#230317 18-Feb-2018 16:17

I've had my Raspberry Pi2 running Kodi connected to my PC to play movies and such running fine for a couple of years, maybe more. It's generally very good, only stuttering on very high bitrate 1080p movies.

The past few days or so Kodi has started regularly pausing during movies it used to play 100% perfectly with no pauses. During slow parts of the movie it pauses less, it's worst during action scenes. It can pause for 3-5 seconds every 30 to 60 seconds. It's getting really annoying.

Kodi CPU usage is about 5% during that time. PC CPU / network / disk are all just over idle. The movie peaks around 8Mbps, the PC is connected to the Fritzbox at 1Gbps Ethernet. The R.Pi2 is connected to Ethernet but only has a 100Mbps adapter, but it has more than enough bandwidth for this. My W10 install is fairly old, I started with the beta version and it's been regularly updated ever since. Might be time for a fresh reinstall, if I ever have time.

I noticed the problem started around the same time as the last big Windows update, which was a few days ago.

Any ideas how to track the problem down? Anyone else seeing anything similar?

PANiCnz

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#1960219 19-Feb-2018 10:58

Just wondering if it’s anything to do with the wider shift away from SMB 1. I know with the later releases of LibreELEC they disable SMB 1 support.

Edit - Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (1709) removed SMB 1 also

robjg63

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#1960223 19-Feb-2018 11:07

I have a Pi2 running OSMC(Kodi) and using wifi to a windows 7 share.

I have noticed that when I get this sort of problem it is usually my PC. Seems to happen if I have been downloading or had a lot of connections to the internet open. Rebooting the PC seems to fix it - so it seems to be the PC side of things as far as I can see.

In my case it doesnt happen too often though.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

timmmay

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#1960256 19-Feb-2018 11:32

Rebooting unfortunately didn't help. I rebooted a few times. I noticed a couple of upgrades this last weekend, including one big one then a small one after. Rebooted Kodi too. At one point I resorted to watching it on a tablet, from local storage.

Usually this kind of stuttering would be the R.Pi2 not able to keep up, but this video has always played perfectly - it's one my son watches very regularly so we know it well.

robjg63

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#1960284 19-Feb-2018 12:15

So I am guessing that the Pi is certainly on wifi.

What about the other PC?

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

timmmay

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#1960294 19-Feb-2018 12:24

I slightly tweaked my original post to clarify that both PC and R.Pi2 are connected to a Wired ethernet network. It's a gigabit network off a Fritzbox 7390 but the R.Pi2 only has a 100Mbps ethernet adapter. There's a cheap switch between the 7390 and the PC, but it's been there for 5 years with no issues.

robjg63

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#1960369 19-Feb-2018 13:58

There seems to be a bit of discussion of SMB v 1 being 'retired' from windows and I found quite a lot of discussioon on what the KODI people were going to do about it.

Windows article here https://support.microsoft.com/en-nz/help/4034314/smbv1-is-not-installed-windows-10-and-windows-server-version-1709

But then if it works (a bit/badly) it must still be using SMB - perhaps MS have stuffed it somewhat?

Maybe its work investigating setting up your share in NFS and seeing if KODI can connect to that.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

timmmay

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#1960414 19-Feb-2018 15:18

I don't really know the difference between SMB and NFS. I just set up a share in Windows by right clicking and choosing Share. How would I set up an NFS share?

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PANiCnz

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#1960416 19-Feb-2018 15:20

I’d start by seeing if SMB1 is disabled and if it is try reenabling it. This will confirm if the issue is with SMB. Once the issue is confirmed you can begin trying to isolate the specifics.

timmmay

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#1960457 19-Feb-2018 17:04

SMB1 is enabled in Windows Features. In my LAN properties for the Realtek PCIe GBE family controller I have the following enabled:

Client for Microsoft Networks
File and print sharing for MS Networks
VirtualBox Driver
QOS
IP4 over TCP
Microsoft LLDP Protocol Driver
Link Layer Topology Responder
Link Layer Topology Mapper I/O Driver

The following is disabled:

IP6
Microsoft network Multiplexor Protocol:

In advanced network settings I have

Private: Network discovery on, file and printer sharing on
Private: User accounts to connect, not homegroups (I just changed this - Homegroups have never worked for me)
Guest: everything on
All networks: Public sharing on (just switched it on again, Windows reset it during updates), Media streaming just turned on again, 40 bit encryption, password protected sharing off (just turned off again)

I find Windows resets these settings to the most restrictive after every major upgrade - pretty annoying.

So based on poking about I've changed a few minor settings. None of them have made any difference, as I think they're all "all or nothing" settings - if any was causing the problem it'd have prevented access at all.

Watching the movie with my son we had pauses of 16, then 5, then 18 seconds. That's waaay too much for simple buffering.

There's nothing suspicious in the Kodi log. The only odd thing in the Windows 10 log is "The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID" - no idea if it's related or not.

I'm a bit stuck here. I might try plugging a USB stick with the movie into the R.Pi and see if I can play from that. If it skips there then it's not computer or network. If it doesn't... not sure.

timmmay

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#1960569 19-Feb-2018 20:12

I think I've managed to mask the problems by turning on caching on Kodi for the local network. I haven't solved why it started happening, but it works for now and I'm probably not going to bother looking at it again unless it fails again.

I used code from this page that looks pretty much like this in my advancedsettings.xml file (which is in .kodi/userdata/ from memory)

BufferMode turns on caching for local file systems - default is only for internet based. I doubled the buffer to 40MB (which for some reason takes 120MB of RAM). The read factor increases the buffer fill rate, ie max network bandwidth.

As a result, in a quick test I got no skipping, but time will tell.