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Hi all i'm having major buffering issues and it's driving me nuts. I've got an acer revo (windows 7) hooked up to a WD external 2tb drive connected to wifi BT Homehub and am sharing my external drive. I've added my media drive as a source to my MBP smb :, (brand new 16gb ram) running xbmc 13.1 which i'm trying to watch in my bedroom. However i keep getting buffering issues, i've tried messing around with advanced settings etc. these are my current settings i tried whacking up the read rate also... please help!

<advancedsettings>
  <network>
<buffermode>1</buffermode>
    <cachemembuffersize>2000000000</cachemembuffersize>
<readbufferfactor>10</readbufferfactor>
  </network>
</advancedsettings>
Does that distance to your wifi ap change the behaviour?
hi sorry for late reply didn't get an email!, sometimes it will run without buffering (i think if my htpc is doing something it won't have enough bandwidth to output ) although i don't get this as wifi should output at over 100 mbps? and the new macbook pro's have very fast wifi i just ran a speediest and got over 60 mbps! i don't understand why it's buffering... i've got plenty of ram so it can just cache to that it doesn't even need to use the disk...
What kind of files are you streaming? 60mbit/s is not that much if we are talking about gross bandwidth this might even be as low as 20mbit/s only...
(2014-07-16, 10:45)jhowe Wrote: [ -> ]Hi all i'm having major buffering issues and it's driving me nuts. I've got an acer revo (windows 7) hooked up to a WD external 2tb drive connected to wifi BT Homehub and am sharing my external drive. I've added my media drive as a source to my MBP smb :, (brand new 16gb ram) running xbmc 13.1 which i'm trying to watch in my bedroom. However i keep getting buffering issues, i've tried messing around with advanced settings etc. these are my current settings i tried whacking up the read rate also... please help!

<advancedsettings>
  <network>
<buffermode>1</buffermode>
    <cachemembuffersize>2000000000</cachemembuffersize>
<readbufferfactor>10</readbufferfactor>
  </network>
</advancedsettings>

Try mounting, using connect to server, and mount the server drive on your MacBook Pro and then play a movie and see if you get the buffering issue. I found that when I streamed over SMB without mounting the network drive I was getting a lot of buffering.
Hi i'm streaming standard HDTV files and blu ray rips so maximum file size i would say is around 7 gb. Just did a speediest from my laptop and it came out at 66.30 Mbps. What setting to i have to put on to get emails? i have admin emails checked i'm not receiving anything...
There's a box to check at the bottom when making a post - "Subscribe and receive email notification of new replies".
Maybe it then defaults to whatever you choose, I'm not sure.

By the way, if you answer questions that people ask about your problem, or state whether you have tried the suggestion, you will likely get more help.

File size is irrelevant, bit rate is more important. But if you have a 7 GB file of about two hours length, you are probably pushing the limits of your wifi.
I have an old mac mini running on OsX 10.7 and an older version XBMC and have no problems playing movie files and buffering as there is a scratch disc option and also subtitles work. Regrettably this version does not work on Mavericks. In my humble opinion, the inability of newer versions of XBMC to use drives on the mac for scratch discs is a problem as 15 minutes into any file, regardless of size or whether one uses Wifi or cable, buffering is exceeded and things like sound delays happen. If I restart the mac and replay the movie, I can get another 15 minutes before the same thing happens.I have had issues with wifi also with XBMC and mac. I have gotten over this by putting my Mac's on 5GHz and the TV's on 2GHz. I can't always figure a subtitle option this way though which restricts my viewing somewhat. I Love XBMC but find myself using Eye Connect, both cabled and wifi and it works a dream on Sony Bravia as there is a enhanced viewing experience on more recent Bravia TV's, so file sizes do not matter so much anymore and I see no real difference between a 1 Gb file or a 250Mb file in viewing quality. Mavericks has a few bits built in to boost CPU performance like "Click To Flash" and are working on a principle of if you are not using an app, the mac turns it off with "App nap" but bypassing this does not help also preventing screensaver and discs going to sleep helps but buffering falls apart after 15 minutes.I have had the same macs running on 10.8, no problem XBMC worked a dream. Also there seems to be less problems with MacBooks and XBMC than with Mac Mini's If someone out there has cracked this please post as I do miss using XBMC and would love to watch past 15 minutes.
Setting cachemembuffsize to 0 will use the hdd for caching - if this is what you are after... see:

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW...ideo_cache
Hi,
I haven't got the exact same setup, but I stream through a OpenVPN tunnel between two sites. I found out (also as winestock suggests) that if I stream from a mounted SMB volume in OSX, XBMC will use all available bandwidth (~100Mbps) to fill up the buffer. But if I stream the file from XBMC's build in SMB client, it'll only use ~16Mbps. I've also played around a lot with those buffer settings in advancesettings.xml. So that says to me that the issue is somewhere in XBMC's network client, because OSX seems to handle it very well, and XBMC not that good.

I've made a thread about this, you could take a look at it here: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=201699

Cheers!
i had similar situation, when i updated my Mac mini to Mavericks, i solve it with bumping the memory from 4GB to 16GB, the Mavericks uses all the memory available on the machine, which is good by was creating that buffering problems.

i have my sharing NAS in cellar, 5 levels under my apartment, the steaming is through a power line, which at best brings it up to 30Mpbs and actually since the memory update, i don't have any problem to see any kind of files, even ripped DVDs
(2014-07-29, 12:49)Memphiz Wrote: [ -> ]Setting cachemembuffsize to 0 will use the hdd for caching - if this is what you are after... see:

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW...ideo_cache

I've tried this but it made no difference.

Can you tell me where you cache file is located on your HDD, please, as I can't find one.

I've also tried setting the value to 1 gig (1000000000) so it should cache that to Ram (I have loads of free Ram) but again, no buffering or caching.

It it was, in either case, I'd see the buffer bar increase when paused, I'd see the cache cache in MB rise when I press 'o' during playback (I don't - it stays at 0) and activity monitor (AM) would show the network for xbmc receiving bytes.

None of this happens.

Also, if caching to HDD, AM would show the disk writing. If caching to Ram, it would show the ram rising.

None of this happens.

Any idea why?

All help much appreciated.

here's my whole advanced settings.xml

<!-- zerocache -->
<advancedsettings>
<network>
<buffermode>0</buffermode>
<cachemembuffersize>0</cachemembuffersize>
<readbufferfactor>10</readbufferfactor>
<curlclienttimeout>45</curlclienttimeout>
</network>
<gui>
<algorithmdirtyregions>3</algorithmdirtyregions>
<nofliptimeout>0</nofliptimeout>
</gui>
<videoscanner>
<ignoreerrors>true</ignoreerrors>
</videoscanner>
</advancedsettings>

iMac quadcore i7 3.4ghz 16gig Ram 2TB HDD OS 10.9

All the best.
Cache can be found at:

/Users/<your_user_name>/Library/Application Support/XBMC/userdata/

By default, Mac OS X 10.7 hides the user's Library folder, which is where XBMC's userdata folder and logs are stored. There are a few ways to get around this:
While in the Finder, click on the "Go" menu and hold down ⌥ Option, then select Library.
You can use programs such as TinkerTool to change the visibility of all or some hidden files/folders.
To permanently reveal the ~/Library folder, open up Terminal and run this command:
chflags nohidden ~/Library
Note: Anytime there is an OS X update (e.g. from version 10.7.3 to 10.7.4) you will have to run this command again as the folder will be hidden again.
(2014-10-10, 21:57)smera Wrote: [ -> ]Cache can be found at:

/Users/<your_user_name>/Library/Application Support/XBMC/userdata/

By default, Mac OS X 10.7 hides the user's Library folder, which is where XBMC's userdata folder and logs are stored. There are a few ways to get around this:
While in the Finder, click on the "Go" menu and hold down ⌥ Option, then select Library.
You can use programs such as TinkerTool to change the visibility of all or some hidden files/folders.
To permanently reveal the ~/Library folder, open up Terminal and run this command:
chflags nohidden ~/Library
Note: Anytime there is an OS X update (e.g. from version 10.7.3 to 10.7.4) you will have to run this command again as the folder will be hidden again.


Cheers, mate.

That's where I thought it should be. But it's definitely not there.

I'm running 10.9 and while the Library folder in <my name> is a lighter blue than the normal folder icons, you can just click on it as normal and get all the way to user data.

I put the advancedsettings.xml in there, so I know I'm in the right place.

But there is no cache folder.

Or nothing similar.

I've gone through every cache I have in spotlight and have none associated with XBMC in any way.

All I have is:

.DS_Store
addon_data
advancedsettings.xml
Database
favourites.xml
guisettings.xml
keymaps
library
peripheral_data
playlists
profiles
profiles.xml
RssFeeds.xml
sources.xml
sources.xml.1412638322.xml
Thumbnails
upnpserver.xml

And in the above folder - the xbmc one that contains user data, all I have is:

.DS_Store
.setup_complete
addons
media
sounds
system
userdata
XBMCHelper.conf

See what I mean?

I'm at a loss, especially as the non iPlayer streams were buffering.

btw - does iPlayer buffer for you? and does the cache rise in the codec options during playback when you press 'o'?

Also, when this non-iPlayer stream is buffering when I look at Xbmc in Activity monitor, the network use is rising, but disk write and read is static (which shouldn't be the case if it was writing the buffered data to cache). I checked Ram in case it was still caching the buffer to ram, but no joy.

Annoyingly, I have 16 gig of Ram, and am using very little, so it would be no problem to buffer to ram.

Though I'm only using the 32bit version of xbmc (as when I installed it a few days ago, the websites said use the 32 bit version. Was this right?)

Now a 32bit version only allocates a max of 4gig for each app (which is very annoying given Mac didn't bring out a 64-bit version of Final Cut Pro - after 7, they stopped the proper app, and bought out a 64-bit Final Cut X that is just a fancy windows movie maker. If it was 64-bit, I could keep a full HD 10 minute 10gig film all in my Ram while I edited. But I digress.)

But xbmc is only using 130 meg, so even with the 32-bit app, and the need to keep 3x the buffer allocated free, I should be able to buffer 1 gig to ram with no problems.

I tried that, but like the HDD (which I've reverted to) it made no difference for BBC iPlayer.

So I still can't find the cache, and I still get no buffering on iPlayer.

But does it buffer/cache for you?


Thanks for such a prompt response.
what kind of streams does iplayer use? http?