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Hopefully I'm not hijacking Vascular's thread but you've certainly given me something to think about and to test. I was wondering how Ethernet could give worse performance than wireless (I even tried a new, store bought cable and bypassed by switch and in-wall wiring because I thought perhaps I was suffering packet loss) but now that you've mentioned Davilla's information I'm thinking it could be a QoS issue that my router is only applying over Ethernet.
I am and always have been running iOS 4.4.4 as that's what I did the jailbreak with. Weirdly I didn't experience these issues on Beta 1, nor did I update or otherwise change settings in my router, but that doesn't mean the router isn't at fault.
Thanks for the idea! I'll post back my results.
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I have tried everything I could find, I also found the post somebody quoted from Davilla. Nothing changes my situation but the strangest part is the fact that it all started after upgrading to beta3.
My ios version hasn't changed, my network hasn't changed and my server hasn't changed. Only the xbmc version! But what makes the whole situation weird is the fact that downgrading xbmc to beta2 or beta1 doesn't solve my problems.
So I have no clue what is going on.....
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I am getting a long network cable so I can test with the cable but that still doesn't explain why this suddenly started happening! And why downgrading doesn't solve it....
Devs, could there be something in a upgrade that stays even if you downgrade? Only other thing I could try is wipe the atv2 and start from scratch with beta1 without ever having beta3 installed? If that fixes the issue it could tell a lot about all the buffering issues everybody is having?
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2012-02-27, 01:07
(This post was last modified: 2012-02-27, 01:13 by Mister Negative.)
Okay, I'm back with the results of my findings...
My router is an E2000 running DD-WRT 16785. I made sure QoS was disabled and checked for any settings that would impact Ethernet performance but came up empty. I had the idea of just bridging the connection between my host computer sharing the content and the ATV2, so I used a cheap 10/100 switch to act as a coupler+crossover and only connected the two devices, each with their own static IPs.
Lo and behold everything plays great over Ethernet. Even my Xvid test file that normally makes my ATV2 buffer every 15 seconds over Ethernet and skips terribly on wireless performed, get this, flawlessly. H264 files were all okay. I power cycled the router and plugged both devices back into it (keep in mind there are no switches in line between them) and instantly all of my problems returned. I'm using all of the exact same wiring with this test, which confirms that the problem lies in either my router or in the way XBMC handles buffering. I didn't have this problem until beta 2 and I hadn't so much as power cycled my router since beta 1 but my fix is a direct connection, with wireless being the second best option.
I have two Ethernet drops by my home theater computer and since it only had a 10/100 card on-board I have a gigabit PCI card installed in it. I'm just going to connect the gigabit connection to the switch in the home theater and use what used to be the dedicated cable directly from the computer's 10/100 port to the ATV 2, bypassing all other network devices entirely. I'll post back my results later.
Edit: Wait, that's a terrible idea if I want online functionality for the Apple TV. I guess I'll keep digging...
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Quick update: I added a gigabit switch with the ATV2 on one port, the hosting computer on another port and then connected the switch to the router. Now I've got full performance, full connectivity and full reliability. I'll keep testing, but no news is good news!
Thanks everyone.
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Was anything else plugged into your router? What about to your switch? Either will slow down speeds to the slowest device on your network.
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Wonky router then. Or wonky router setup (might even not have a setting to change this).
ATV2 only has 100mbit/s ethernet. This is totally sufficient. I formyself use a tp-link wr1043nd running openwrt. It has a gigabit switch in it and i have connected my atv2 and nas directly to it and some other stuff via wlan. The switch only acts as a switch on local traffic. Thats how it should be for all routers (even with stock firmware). Obviously there are routers out there someone just didn't make his home work.
(of course i can imagine thousands of setups where the local traffic is routed over the wan interface and back for doing shaping or inspection or firewalling or whatever. But that would be a crap setup then ...)
AppleTV4/iPhone/iPod/iPad: HowTo find debug logs and everything else which the devs like so much:
click here
HowTo setup NFS for Kodi:
NFS (wiki)
HowTo configure avahi (zeroconf):
Avahi_Zeroconf (wiki)
READ THE IOS FAQ!:
iOS FAQ (wiki)
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I have no doubt that if anything is misbehaving it's my router as there's no reason for LAN traffic crossing it to get shaped in that manner. I have DD-WRT set to nearly stock settings, save for its wireless configuration.
For some reason connecting the Apple TV 2 to the router via wireless and the SMB share to Ethernet also worked. I still can't wrap my head around that behavior, but maybe wireless traffic is given some sort of priority in my router's firmware, especially since I use WPA2-AES.
The purpose of my posting all of this isn't to derail the developers into investigating the behaviors of cheap, low-end routers but to give other members a quick way to troubleshoot whether or not it's their very network causing the issue. The developers (Memphiz) giving me the idea to just copy a test file straight onto the ATV2 was great and it set me in the right direction.
For anyone having these buffering issues just try to eliminate your network entirely as a test. It really shouldn't take too long for someone comfortable with manual IP addresses to connect the player and the source straight together with Ethernet and try again. If it works, try my fix or start digging into your router. If it doesn't you can copy the file onto the device long enough to determine if it's a codec issue.