[Reverb]

Does some solutions written here also work on the combo with an Airport Extreme + external usb hard disk?

[TheShadowhawk]

Does some solutions written here also work on the combo with an Airport Extreme + external usb hard disk?

Curious if you had any luck with this?

I have a 4th generation Airport Extreme with a 2 TB External drive plugged in the USB. Connected via a Wired Network to the ATV2.

720p TV shows play fine on Eden Beta 2 for 30 mins then they splutter and gag and buffer every 2 mins or so which becomes very frustrating.

[Eric_S]

Curious if you had any luck with this?

I have a 4th generation Airport Extreme with a 2 TB External drive plugged in the USB. Connected via a Wired Network to the ATV2.

720p TV shows play fine on Eden Beta 2 for 30 mins then they splutter and gag and buffer every 2 mins or so which becomes very frustrating.

What are you using for your file transfer protocol? I have found afp to suffer from stutter/crash, while smb over the same wired network operates flawlessly.

[TheShadowhawk]

What are you using for your file transfer protocol? I have found afp to suffer from stutter/crash, while smb over the same wired network operates flawlessly.

I am currently using SMB.
My experience has almost been the opposite. AFP does not buffer a lot but
It crashes a lot.

SMB does not crash, but buffers a lot.

I will try those two sysctl settings as suggested in this thread to see if it MIGHT
make a difference!

[TheShadowhawk]

Well I tried those settings. It seemed to improve the buffering issue slightly but it was still bad.

So instead I connected the hard drive that was attached to the Airport Extreme to my Macbook Pro directory and use that as a data source (via AFP) and suddenly all the buffering issues were resolved.

Looks like the Airport Extreme is pretty crap at streaming the data to an ATV2 XBMC by either AFP or SMB.

I guess the main external drive will stay attached to my mac for now until we get another dedicated NAS.

[Eric_S]

Well I tried those settings. It seemed to improve the buffering issue slightly but it was still bad.

So instead I connected the hard drive that was attached to the Airport Extreme to my Macbook Pro directory and use that as a data source (via AFP) and suddenly all the buffering issues were resolved.

Looks like the Airport Extreme is pretty crap at streaming the data to an ATV2 XBMC by either AFP or SMB.

I guess the main external drive will stay attached to my mac for now until we get another dedicated NAS.

That"s very interesting, and very different than my experience with my Airport Extreme with attached USB hard drive.

Say, what generation of Airport Extreme do you have? Is it Gigabit Ethernet? An older device might explaine it (no Gigabit Ethernet). Else, you might want to time the duration of an ordinary file transfer and, if slow, contact Apple for assistance or exchange of your unit.

[TheShadowhawk]

That"s very interesting, and very different than my experience with my Airport Extreme with attached USB hard drive.

Say, what generation of Airport Extreme do you have? Is it Gigabit Ethernet? An older device might explaine it (no Gigabit Ethernet). Else, you might want to time the duration of an ordinary file transfer and, if slow, contact Apple for assistance or exchange of your unit.

I have a 4th generation Airport Extreme. I did wonder if the 5th generation was faster for data transfers?

What generation do you have?

[TheShadowhawk]

Ohh nice. Looks like there's a new firmware update for the Airport Extreme.

Hope it improves the Hard Drive access.

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/30/appl...n-bug-fix/

[GnarusLeo]

It didn't ... looks coller though.

During my 720p movies, xbmc buffers 5-10 times now. Better then before anyways, still suck though ...

How could this possibly be a Time Capsule problem ... Used it for years with other streaming devices. It would be so cool if someone could understand whats going on here

[TheShadowhawk]

It didn't ... looks coller though.

During my 720p movies, xbmc buffers 5-10 times now. Better then before anyways, still suck though ...

How could this possibly be a Time Capsule problem ... Used it for years with other streaming devices. It would be so cool if someone could understand whats going on here

I have given up. I now connect my 2 TB USB external drive direct to my macbook pro rather than the Airport Extreme. I get my ATV2 XMBC to connect through the MPB using the AFP protocol.

No buffering issues at all. It works as it should. AND this is over wireless. (go figure)

I think I will start saving for a dedicated NAS...

[deanmv]

I have a 4th generation Airport Extreme. I did wonder if the 5th generation was faster for data transfers?

What generation do you have?

The ATV2 is only 10/100 anyway so this shouldn't matter, just to add in my input I run my ATV2 Ethernet into my AEBS (4th gen I think, the one before dual band) and it plays everything including 1080p absolutely fine off the USB drive plugged into it. I can even stream 1080P wirelessly to my Macbook Pro and there is no buffering there either.

[TheShadowhawk]

The ATV2 is only 10/100 anyway so this shouldn't matter, just to add in my input I run my ATV2 Ethernet into my AEBS (4th gen I think, the one before dual band) and it plays everything including 1080p absolutely fine off the USB drive plugged into it. I can even stream 1080P wirelessly to my Macbook Pro and there is no buffering there either.

What type of external Hard drive do you have? I have a western digital, but I would not have thought that would have made a difference.

[deanmv]

What type of external Hard drive do you have? I have a western digital, but I would not have thought that would have made a difference.

I've got a WD one as well, shouldn't be the drive though.

[lsavery]

Ok, there is a known issue with TC/AE firmware 7.6 which will flip-flop AFP and SMB shares, this can cause the buffering seen in XBMC (both across wired and wireless connections).

This affects old and new TimeCapsules and Airport Extremes. Once you update to the new firmware (or buy a new unit with the 7.6 firmware) you will find that there is a connect-disconnect-reconnect process going on behind the scenes which causes a delay on the stream and thus the buffering.

The simple way around this is to downgrade the firmware to 7.5.2.

I went from 7.5.2 to 7.6 and had nothing but buffering problems, when I went back to 7.5.2 they went away. You can see the connection log on the Airport/TimeCapsule and it bounces up and down throughout - it seems to be a connection timeout which has been added for iCloud compatibility.

7.6.1 Firmware has just been released, but I am avoiding that at the moment until I get a clear couple of days to test.

Hope this helps.

[GnarusLeo]

Thats good to know, I will definately test it.

Nevertheless, this TC thing was bugging me so much, that I have now invested in a proper NAS.