Advance settings for expanding cache not working..

Quote from antonsn

<cache>
<memorysize></memorysize> <!-- number of bytes used for buffering streams in memory
<buffermode></buffermode> <!-- Choose what to buffer:
<readfactor></readfactor>
</cache>

That is the correct syntax for Krypton, but you need the <advancedsettings> / </advancedsettings> tags around the block.

Quote from Iridium

@antonsn
Use <network> for Kodi 16 and before
Use <cache> for Kodi 17 and above.
<memorysize> is "xxxMB cache" so convert to bytes, so 200MB is 209715200

Also read the header - The RPi3 may have 1G ram but only about 480MB of that is available.

[Conclusion]
For high bit rate over Ethernet a memorysize of 314572800 and a readfactor of 20 should suffice - as long as no other processes are running and using memory, transmission/SQL etc.

However, if multiple videos are watched, the system may still run out of memory - keep an eye on the memory usage and if it drops to less than 50MB decrease the memorysize by 50MB.

Hello,

I looked in logs I have:
16:49:12.182 T:1962029056 NOTICE: Starting Kodi (17.0 Git:a10c504). Platform: Linux ARM 32-bit
.....
16:49:12.465 T:1962029056 NOTICE: Contents of special://profile/advancedsettings.xml are...
<advancedsettings>
<cache>
<buffermode>1</buffermode>
<memorysize>314572800</memorysize>
<readfactor>20</readfactor>
</cache>
</advancedsettings>

...
16:49:12.849 T:1962029056 NOTICE: cache.memorysize: 300MB libass.cache: 0MB

It looks values are used. But when I start playing file I can not see buffering and memory stays the same round 100MB

LibreELEC:~ # free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 753340 281448 471892 5600 40508 129736
-/+ buffers/cache: 111204 642136

I also tried <advancedsettings>
<cache>
<buffermode>1</buffermode>
<memorysize>814572800</memorysize>
<readfactor>40</readfactor>
</cache>
</advancedsettings>

Cannot see any changes

I had to replace my RPI firmware to fix a CEC issue.. I might be dreaming but to me the buffer appears to be bigger than what it was before after applying it.

This firmware was provided to me by popcornmix so it would be interesting to see if this makes a difference or not.

backup your existing files, replace this on your SDCard and test.

start.elf?raw=true
fixup.dat?raw=true

I also believe that "expanding cache" is no longer functioning. In a previous release(many releases back) I could see buffing occur while I watched a video that was playing from my hard drive. If I paused playback, I could watch the amount of the video loading into the buffer, to the point where the whole video was in the buffer. This was nice because my hard drive is a little noisy, so after the entire show was loaded into memory cache, I could watch the show without any background noise, and no blinking light from hard drive. This is no longer working, it only seems to pre-load a very small amount and the hard drive is active throughout video playback.

Quote from treeno

I played around with advancedsettings.xml extensively and wasn't able to solve the buffering issues at all. I then stumbled across a thread that suggested using system mounts rather than what Kodi uses (which I think is libsmb). This has fixed the problem! No buffering at all.

To set this up, SSH into your box and make a copy of /storage/.config/system.d/cifs.mount.sample (in the same directory) and then follow the instructions contained within it.

Quote from treeno

cifs.mount.sample

Sorry to hijack such an old thread, but I am trying to do what is being suggested here. Amending the sample file was pretty straight forward so I have:

# The share we want mount
What=//192.168.178.10/Film6

# Where we want mount this share
Where=/storage/film

I also set the loginname and password for the windows smb share.

Then I named the file storage-film.mount, and put it in the storage directory, then ran enable storage-film.mount which it said was succesful.
But how do I then make it visible in Kodi? It does not show up when I go to add a location, and I actually also tried there to add an SMB share there by enterting the pi´s network IP address and then the folder named film, but it does not manage to connect to it..

I never had issues with buffering on xbian, so theres either a larger buffer there or they mount in the background in the way I´ve just done it, dunno. It plays fine from a USB stick and the pi is on cable to my router where it gets a 100 mbit speed.
I should also add that its not all content giving me this problem. Stuff where an hour is 2 GB works fine, but a movie I just wanted to watch which is 100 mins long and 9 GB in size would stop and buffer every 10 secs..

Edit: I checked the status of the mount and got the following. Maybe someone can provide an explanation based on that:

● storage-film.mount - test cifs mount script
   Loaded: loaded (/storage/.config/system.d/storage-film.mount; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sun 2019-04-21 20:30:57 CEST; 3h 40min ago
    Where: /storage/film
     What: //192.168.178.10/Film6
LibreELEC:~ # # The share we want mount
LibreELEC:~ # What=//192.168.178.10/Film6
LibreELEC:~ #
LibreELEC:~ # # Where we want mount this share
LibreELEC:~ # Where=/storage/film
LibreELEC:~ # Jun 22 13:11:56 LibreELEC systemd[1]: Mounting test cifs mount script...
LibreELEC:~ # Apr 21 20:30:57 LibreELEC mount[438]: mount: mounting //192.168.178.10/Film6 on /storage/film failed: Permission denied
LibreELEC:~ # Apr 21 20:30:57 LibreELEC systemd[1]: storage-film.mount: Mount process exited, code=exited status=255
LibreELEC:~ # Apr 21 20:30:57 LibreELEC systemd[1]: storage-film.mount: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
LibreELEC:~ # Apr 21 20:30:57 LibreELEC systemd[1]: Failed to mount test cifs mount script.
LibreELEC:~ # Jun 22 13:11:56 LibreELEC systemd[1]: Mounting test cifs mount script...
LibreELEC:~ # Apr 21 20:30:57 LibreELEC mount[438]: mount: mounting //192.168.178.10/Film6 on /storage/film failed: Permission denied
LibreELEC:~ # Apr 21 20:30:57 LibreELEC systemd[1]: storage-film.mount: Mount process exited, code=exited status=255
LibreELEC:~ # Apr 21 20:30:57 LibreELEC systemd[1]: storage-film.mount: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
LibreELEC:~ # Apr 21 20:30:57 LibreELEC systemd[1]: Failed to mount test cifs mount script.

EDIT (again): Went off to try doing this via NFS instead. This seems a bit more stable, less buffering occurs but is still there..

Another edit: I did as suggested in the beginning although I was under the impression that it would not work and took the 4th example from:

HOW-TO:Modify the video cache - Official Kodi Wiki

That didnt do nothing for SMB indeed, but seems to now have cured the buffering under NFS!

Still would like to know how to get things working with SMB though.

Rebooted at Fixing buffering problem with system mount on SMB