Before I explain the situation you will want to know what version I am running: LibreELEC Kodi 17.x, and your next question will be to inquire as to the advance settings I have:
<advancedsettings>
<cache>
<buffermode>1</buffermode>
<memorysize>339460608</memorysize>
<readfactor>20</readfactor>
</cache>
</advancedsettings>
Now that those are out of the way:
The reason for writing is that random streaming providers will not cache, when this occurs I can quite often find a different provider that will cache just fine regardless of the quality of the stream. Symptoms on my end appear as if Kodi simply will not cache.
At first I thought it was the stream, then I noticed that shows which were playing would not cache when I paused them. I have tested this multiple times with pauses in excess of an hour (I am a slow learner.) For those times when the stream is not enough to keep the movie playing, and there is no caching, I will search until I can find one a stream that caches. This tactic works about half the time, and then there are days like today where I am not able to find a stream that caches. Thus this query.
A bit more background: I have only noticed this when I am streaming from the net. I have checked FAST.COM from other devices and am often in excess of 12MB download, I have checked FAST on Kodi with the same results. And before you ask Kodi is connected via WIFI, however on a dedicated 5GHZ channel. I am not using a VPN.
I welcome the community’s thoughts on this!