Weird buffering on playback from local network

  • Hi

    My LibreELEC install on a Raspberry PI 3 seems to have developed a weird buffering problem when playing content back from my local network. It's been working fine for months, then since around the 12th-19th of September it been unable to play anything back, immediately buffering, once the buffer is full, it plays for a few seconds, then starts buffering again. Playing the same file back from the SD card works just fine.

    I've tested the (wired) network between the PI, and my PC (running Fedora 29, which is hosting the files) using iperf3, and get a solid 10MB/s with almost not retransmissions, so the actual network doesn't seem to be at fault. For the bitrate of the files I'm playing back, that's more than enough bandwidth. Looking at packet traces between the 2 machines, I really can't see anything wrong. I've even replaced the fq_codel qdisc I had setup on my PC with the regular pfifo, but again the same issue.

    Next thing that was tested was SMB. I can play back the same file from my phone, over SMB without issue, so I don't think that's the issue. To be on the safe side I setup NFS, but I get exactly the same issue with that.

    But here's the odd thing, while trying to get to the bottom of this, it will eventually fix itself and start playing back just fine. Even a restart won't break it, but several hours later, maybe a few restarts (of the PI and my PC) and it's back again. This caught me out as I thought moving to NFS had fixed it as several files played back fine.

    I've stayed away from fiddling with the buffering settings as a) I shouldn't need it for local playback and b) if the file isn't being transferred fast enough for it to playback, no amount of buffering is going to solve that, the buffer will at some point empty.

    So my question is, does anyone know what could be causing this, or what debugging I can enable to figure out where the issue is (either on the PI or my PC).

    Thanks & Regards

    elFarto

  • Please provide a full debug log.

    How to post a log (wiki)

    1. Enable debugging in Settings>System Settings>Logging
    2. Restart Kodi
    3. Replicate the problem
    4. Generate a log URL (do not post/upload logs to the forum)

    use "Settings > LibreELEC > System > Paste system logs" or run "pastekodi" over SSH, then post the URL link
  • Here's the log file

    17:59:00.742 T:1944989696 NOTICE: ADDONS: Using repository repository.xbmchub

    Kindly first remove the banned repository and all related add-on crap from your Kodi device before we continue to lend support, as per our forum rules. Such add-ons have been known to interfere with Kodi's core functionality. And there is also our zero-tolerance stance on video piracy.

    17:59:00.399 T:1944989696 NOTICE: Disabled debug logging due to GUI setting. Level 0.

    Also enable debugging and restart LibreELEC for a clean and more in-depth kodi.log file.