OMV to Kodi Streaming Issues

[cogito808]

I have got a showstopper and I am not sure where to place the fault, but maybe someone has some insight as I am sure there have to be several builds similar to mine. Using the NAS Case set up all bought from the store. Ayufan’s OMV (armhf) for the NAS with NFS and SMB shares and Raspi with the LibreElec flavor of Kodi. Videos start good but will randomly stop after some time. OMV is fine, but Kodi locks up. Oddly it plays fine through WMP on a Win10 machine (smb obviously). I tagged onto this post, but the OP says he thinks it is hardware. I also saw this bug report but it isn’t a memory issue that I see through HTOP (although the MEM bar does seem to fill up some and never go back down). I am not an advanced Linux user, but am smart enough to search and follow directions. Any help would be appreciated.

[Luke]

You are not alone. I have been investigating the issue for the past few days without success.

[edit] here is what I tried:

1) Updated to mainline on OMV (armhf)
2) Limited SMB to SMB2
3) Tried NFS
4) Tried GbE and Fast Ethernet
5) Tried steaming via Plex's DLNA
6) Tried different players - e.g. VLC also behaves this way

None of the above solved the issues.

I have both of my HDDs on the OMV install mounted on my Linux box, and when streaming movies directly from the mounted folder using MPV I have no issues.

[edit2] So now I spent the better part of my free time today looking into this. I have come up completely empty handed, but what what I can say with certainty is that KODI on Android TV works much more reliably than when streaming to LibreELEC. That said, its spotty. Sometimes it works well and sometimes it doesn't.

KODI on a high-end PC, on two different SBCs (one Rock64 and a RPI3) as well as Android TV for Rock64 exhibit the same issue when streaming from RockPro64 OMV.

[cogito808]

[edit2] So now I spent the better part of my free time today looking into this. I have come up completely empty handed, but what what I can say with certainty is that KODI on Android TV works much more reliably than when streaming to LibreELEC. That said, its spotty. Sometimes it works well and sometimes it doesn't.

KODI on a high-end PC, on two different SBCs (one Rock64 and a RPI3) as well as Android TV for Rock64 exhibit the same issue when streaming from RockPro64 OMV.

I think this makes me feel better. The whole thing is inconsistent to me. It doesn't stop at the same place on each file. Restarting OMV seems to help increase the amount of time for the freeze, SMB seems to work better then NFS. I have made it through a 30 minute TV episode after a reboot that froze in the first 10 minutes just prior. Even weirder is that WMP hasn't given me a problem once. I messed with advanced setting for caching in Kodi on my computer that seemed to help but the problem still occurred. Like I said I cant confirm it actually did anything as it is not consistent. It almost seems obvious that it is Kodi, but it happening on VLC throws a monkey wrench and still doesn't make sense. I am stuck at where to go next.

[Luke]

[edit2] So now I spent the better part of my free time today looking into this. I have come up completely empty handed, but what what I can say with certainty is that KODI on Android TV works much more reliably than when streaming to LibreELEC. That said, its spotty. Sometimes it works well and sometimes it doesn't.

KODI on a high-end PC, on two different SBCs (one Rock64 and a RPI3) as well as Android TV for Rock64 exhibit the same issue when streaming from RockPro64 OMV.

I think this makes me feel better. The whole thing is inconsistent to me. It doesn't stop at the same place on each file. Restarting OMV seems to help increase the amount of time for the freeze, SMB seems to work better then NFS. I have made it through a 30 minute TV episode after a reboot that froze in the first 10 minutes just prior. Even weirder is that WMP hasn't given me a problem once. I messed with advanced setting for caching in Kodi on my computer that seemed to help but the problem still occurred. Like I said I cant confirm it actually did anything as it is not consistent. It almost seems obvious that it is Kodi, but it happening on VLC throws a monkey wrench and still doesn't make sense. I am stuck at where to go next.

The issue is strange indeed. I have managed to watch a complete 45min episode of a show with wife today without any issues. I also noticed that KODI was buffering (the white line on the progress-bar) nicely today, in contrast to other days when there is literally close-to-no buffer line. Next up, I'll be logging the server (RPro64) network now - particularly packages sent/received. Could you do that too please (especially since I don't know I'll have to watch a movie/show tomorrow)?

When you get ready to watch a movie/TV show SSH into RPro64 and as root run (don't close the SSH connection). Then watch the movie:

Code:

/usr/local/sbin/rock64_diagnostics.sh -n > netdiag.txt

This will log whats happening on the server to the .txt file. Once you experience a freeze you can stop the log. After that upload it here or provide a pastebin link and lets see if it sheds any light on what is happening.

[cogito808]

Code:

/usr/local/sbin/rock64_diagnostics.sh -n > netdiag.txt

This will log whats happening on the server to the .txt file. Once you experience a freeze you can stop the log. After that upload it here or provide a pastebin link and lets see if it sheds any light on what is happening.

No problem. I used NFS to stream.
https://pastebin.com/FD9u6Xty

[Luke]

Code:

ethtool --offload eth0 rx off tx off

Please try this and let me know if you see any improvement. I am on mainline so cannot try that.

[cogito808]

Code:

ethtool --offload eth0 rx off tx off

Please try this and let me know if you see any improvement. I am on mainline so cannot try that.

I will try and report back this evening. I see it is doing something to the network but can you explain exactly what it is doing and what you saw to think it might help. Learning is more important than just doing for me.

[Luke]

Code:

ethtool --offload eth0 rx off tx off

Please try this and let me know if you see any improvement. I am on mainline so cannot try that.

I will try and report back this evening. I see it is doing something to the network but can you explain exactly what it is doing and what you saw to think it might help. Learning is more important than just doing for me.

I would lie if I said that I knew exactly, but I have been instructed by mth in IRC to try it. That said, a quick google search offers an  an explanation.

[cogito808]

OK, that seems to have done it. I will continue to test but so far through a 45 minute show and mostly through a movie with no stops.
I get what it did, but why eludes me too. My googlefu failed me on that search (twisted pairs and old Linux forums).
Many, many thanks, but leads to other questions. Do I have do this on every reboot (although I am sure there is a way to automate that)? And what about a permanent fix, would that be something ayufan does on the next release or is the problem somewhere else?

[Luke]

I reverted back to 4.4 and will try if this fixes it for me too.
As for how to implement it at boot ... there is probably a smart way of doing it, but here is a stupid way that ought to work:



[edit] already reported to ayufan and asked for fix in next pre-release.