Posts by viper803

Quote from Iridium

Thanks - There is another thread Here which was related to "Flow Control" on the router.

I completely forgot about the flow control issue when I wrote that. I did read a lot about it but I saw somewhere that it wasn't relevant for "dumb" switches. This definitely should be a top troubleshooting step.

Quote from chewitt

There are niche but known issues in the Pi firmware used in 8.2.5 but current milhouse releases will have newer firmware that resolves some of them. Update and retest, then if issues are still present, post in the milhouse support thread in the Kodi forum to ensure the issues are flagged to Pi foundation staff for further diagnosis.

More info here for spectators not familiar with Milhouse builds... LibreELEC Testbuilds for RaspberryPi (Kodi 18.0)

I've gotten my problems mostly solved so I'm not going to take the leap yet.

I got a little over ambitious and ordered 4 of the new Pi 3B+ units to replace increasingly older ION boxes. I thought, "New boards are faster with gigabit and that's better!" Turns out the new ones are having quite a few problems with networking for a variety of reasons. I was getting frequent drops of network data and sometimes drops of the network link altogether. This would cause my Pi to soft lock, stutter, poor playback, etc. It was worst on twitch streams using the twitch plugin. Streams would hang, buffer, drop to 1fps, and just disconnect. I thought I had defective Pis and bad PSUs. I have 4 of both so I swapped parts and the issue persisted. I even tried another media distro with similar issues.

If you get network instability on the Pi 3B+ here are a two quick things to try. First, check your power. Even if you're convinced it isn't the problem, replace it as a troubleshooting step. Thin wires and cheap cables can cause a big voltage drop. The Ethernet controller is the first thing to go when the voltage sags. If the problem persists try adding dtparam=eee=off to your config.txt file and reboot. This fixed it for me. I use cheap 8-port gig switches (Trendnet) and apparently the 3B+ doesn't like them. This also is apparently an issue on long Ethernet runs.

Hope this helps others. I spent a lot of time reading, reformatting, testing, and troubleshooting network components. If you have network stability problems this is easy and should probably be high on the list of stuff to try.

If you have network performance issues - especially sending data to the Pi at gig speeds, refer here RPi 3B+ gigabit ethernet bad download speeds. - Raspberry Pi Forums

I used AnyDVD and ripped to folder but the result was the same. Also did to an ISO - same. The issue is oddly platform dependent. My Pi works fine, ION does not. I also found that if Kodi has a bookmark mid-movie and I resume then it plays fine. (Clients use a shared videos DB.) The bookmark was set on my Pi and I was able to resume on the ION.

I also downloaded a clean version of LE and installed to a fresh bootable USB flash drive. I could still reproduce on my ION. For fun I powered off my main rig (has a somewhat more recent nvidia 460 card) booted the flash drive and it reproduced the problem as well.

I've tested on the hardware types I have here. But it seems like these movies are going to break on at least nvidia systems. This may be why the reports are consistent yet not reproducible. Something bizarre about their DVD menus is tripping up either this LE generic build or the nvidia hardware. I don't have an Intel or AMD graphics chip to test.

This debug log taken on the gaming rig w/ GTX460, fresh install of LE, watching Last Jedi ISO ripped with AnyDVD. Nothing clear in the log. Just a mention of a still frame then log silence until I push the stop button.

Debug log 3

Well that's encouraging. I use the free version of DVDFab. I have a lot of stuff to try so I'll work the problem and report back. Hopefully I can isolate the issue.

Since I eliminated SMB as a potential cause I went back to it. I'll run another log file tonight from local storage after family goes to bed.

This week I'll try both AnyDVD and MakeMKV. I also found this problem on "Planes: Fire & Rescue" - another Disney movie. I use DVDFab on Windows with the "Full Disc" option, DVD9 output (no compression) to a folder.

I decided to go through all my movies and pull out broken ones. This morning I grabbed my RasberryPi w/ LE and set it up on my desk. I assumed it would be able to find affected movies because my Windows PC cannot. To my surprise the Pi running LE plays these movies fine!! I think I'll also creating a fresh LE install for my ION. Perhaps I have a setting that's problematic.

Here's the full debug log from boot up including playback.

Debug log 2

Another rip program is an option. Also going to try some different settings to see if I can better isolate the cause (full disc vs main movie etc.)

I did copy one of the broken films to USB drive and it wouldn't play there either. I'll get a full debug log tonight and post it. It looks like Cars 3 is a multi-angle movie. Different angles on the DVD maybe based on language/localization? Seem to be different scenes for when words appear on screen (billboard for example.) One angle has the English another has no words at all. Playing it gives VLC fits when it hits a timestamp that has multiple available angles.

I have two relatively recent Disney DVD backups that refuse to play on my frontend. This system runs LibreElec on an (albeit old) Nvidia ION box. I had Libre 8.0.2 but also updated to and tested with 8.2.5. Same result on both versions. Affected movies play fine on my Windows PC running the same version of Kodi (tested both 17.3 and 17.6.) Both frontends (Windows and Ion) access via SMB share on an Ubuntu server.

I enabled debug logging at 23:43:53 log time and attempted to play Cars 3. The Kodi menu stays on-screen, unchanged, but the playback timer starts. The timer continues to run but no movie. I can still move about the menus and pushing the stop button kills the playback timer. Also tested on Cars 2 and the movie plays normally. SW The Last Jedi also broken in the same way. All movies are stored the same way - raw DVD folders. I've reviewed permissions on the server and everything seems correct.

Because the Windows PC plays it, I can't really implicate Kodi or the movies as problems. Other DVDs work so there's nothing wrong with this system in general - ie drivers, SMB, libdvd, etc. Rather stumped at this point what the problem is. Maybe another set of eyes will spot something I missed.

23:40:28 - Successfully played Cars 2

23:43:53 - Enable debug logging

23:44:01 - Fail to play Cars 3 with debug

23:44:36 - Debug logging disabled

Debug log