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rizzo1987 · (This post was last modified: 2013-03-07, 00:55 by rizzo1987.)

Hi all,

I built a media center and its been running great, sadly my dad is disabled and so I wanted to share my films with him so he doesn't get so bored, I have a windows 7 pc with 3 Movie drives shared, I then setup a pc added the SMB shares (no problems). however, my whole collection is .ISO and when i go to play the files they either take FOREVER to open or crash XBMC, I am on a 100mb network, I have just one switch between the two machines.

If anyone has any suggestions on what I can do to improve the situation I am all ears, I have spent 3 days working on it to no avail!
Also happy to include a log file if someone would be kind enough as to instruct how,

Huge thanks in advance,

Matt

Nate8727 · 2013-03-07, 05:23

Make sure you have all advanced sharing options selected or there could be permission issues

rizzo1987 · 2013-03-07, 08:46

Cheers for that thought but I can browse the shares freely from the machine and they do play (somemtimes)!

artrafael · 2013-03-07, 09:00

Sorry to hear about your dad's condition. Please refer to the debug log (wiki) article in the wiki. Enable debug logging on your dad's system and start a video. When it crashes XBMC, locate the log (as explained in the wiki article) and upload its contents to www.xbmclogs.com and post the assigned URL link to the uploaded log here with your reply.

**Kib** · 2013-03-07, 09:30

I have several ideas what could be happening:

a) Please check the network transfer speed between the Windows 7 PC and the PC where you added the shares by copying a ISO from one end to the other. No need to let it complete, but just look at the average speed after a few seconds have passed. Make sure your transfer speed is about 7 MB/sec.
b) Disable virusscanners on both sides and try test (a) again. Also test from XBMC. It is possible you have a virusscanner on the XBMC machine that does not object to Explorer copying or accessing a file, but wants to scan the file on access from another program (eg. XBMC ). Obviously it would have to download the entire ISO first. Most sane virusscanners don't do this anymore, but I have run into it before.

rizzo1987 · 2013-03-07, 19:17

Hi Guys,

Thanks so much for the responses!

The transfer speed is averaging out at 11MB a second. no anti virus on either machine as they are never used for internet etc.
I have saved the log file to http://www.xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=2829

Really appreciate any help.

all the best,

artrafael · 2013-03-07, 23:39

If you copy the ISO file from your server to your dad's system, does it play OK in XBMC as a local file or does it still have problems (long time to start or crashes)? This may help isolate whether the problem is network related or with the ISO file itself.

rizzo1987 · 2013-03-08, 00:26

It plays fine, no problems at all. I also removed the smb shares to ensure it was th local file that showed. Odd thing is upon re adding the shares it seems to play them ok 50% of the time. The network tests fine though Sad

Nate8727 · 2013-03-08, 02:39

How do you have each PC connected to each other?

bluray · (This post was last modified: 2013-03-08, 15:45 by bluray.)

I'm assuming that you are using homegroup networking. You can try using classic workgroup networking instead. I found that workgroup is giving me better networking throughput than homegroup networking. You can disable homegroup by following this "Leave a homegroup" and then change encryption levels, open the Control Panel, select Network and Internet, then Network and Sharing Center. Once there, in the left-hand pane choose change advanced sharing settings as a shown below. You can change homegroup to workgroup as shown in this video- DailyDiscussions Tutorial on making a WorkGroup......

If you are familiar with REGEDIT, you can add the highlight stuffs in my screenshot below to your registry (do it with cautious and at your own risk).....with these above/below settings, I can playback the same movie "40+gb blu-ray movie size" on three HTPC's at the same time over my wired network without buffering issue.....

Good luck!

rizzo1987 · (This post was last modified: 2013-03-08, 12:42 by rizzo1987.)

I have added the registry entries but it is sadly still the same, I also did the workgroup. I'm really strained as to what the problem could be! I have samsung spinpoint F4 Drives 2TB per drive in a hpn40l server, http://www.xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=2829 is there anything in the log file that is interesting?

I have just one switch between the two and a direct copy and play seems fine and the copy speeds are 11MBps so that should be fine surely?

thanks all for continuing to help its very much appreciated!

one more thing is that it doesnt seem to matter what the format is, it all seems to take about 30 seconds now before the file plays. sometimes i get moments when i can just play them instantly. again though this cant be traffic related as there is one switch and nothing else using it.

rizzo1987 · (This post was last modified: 2013-03-08, 12:57 by rizzo1987.)

I made the changes in the registry as advised but sadly I'm still having problems in getting it all to work, it does play but only after average 40 seconds delay.
Also of huge confusion to me..... If i open ANYTHING in VLC media player it plays absolutely instantly with no wait time whatsoever, i can even play lots of files at once.

omg am I stumped!

bluray · 2013-03-08, 15:57

(2013-03-08, 12:43)rizzo1987 Wrote: I made the changes in the registry as advised but sadly I'm still having problems in getting it all to work, it does play but only after average 40 seconds delay.

Have you try to increase IRPStackSize (the max is 50) and SizReqBuf further?

rizzo1987 · 2013-03-08, 16:06

(2013-03-07, 09:00)artrafael Wrote: Sorry to hear about your dad's condition. Please refer to the debug log (wiki) article in the wiki. Enable debug logging on your dad's system and start a video. When it crashes XBMC, locate the log (as explained in the wiki article) and upload its contents to www.xbmclogs.com and post the assigned URL link to the uploaded log here with your reply.

(2013-03-07, 09:30)Kibje Wrote: I have several ideas what could be happening:

a) Please check the network transfer speed between the Windows 7 PC and the PC where you added the shares by copying a ISO from one end to the other. No need to let it complete, but just look at the average speed after a few seconds have passed. Make sure your transfer speed is about 7 MB/sec.
b) Disable virusscanners on both sides and try test (a) again. Also test from XBMC. It is possible you have a virusscanner on the XBMC machine that does not object to Explorer copying or accessing a file, but wants to scan the file on access from another program (eg. XBMC ). Obviously it would have to download the entire ISO first. Most sane virusscanners don't do this anymore, but I have run into it before.

(2013-03-08, 15:57)bluray Wrote:
(2013-03-08, 12:43)rizzo1987 Wrote: I made the changes in the registry as advised but sadly I'm still having problems in getting it all to work, it does play but only after average 40 seconds delay.
Have you try to increase IRPStackSize (the max is 50) and SizReqBuf further?

So edit the registry again? if so what values should I try? thanks mate, appreciate you looking into this!

**Kib** · (This post was last modified: 2013-03-08, 16:24 by Kib.)

If the network speeds are ok, then what could be the issue is the amount of buffering XBMC uses.
The default buffer is 5 MB, but this can be enlarged by using advancedsettings.xml

Check Advancedsettings.xml#.3Csamba.3E (wiki) and Advancedsettings.xml#.3Cnetwork.3E (wiki)

Code:
<cachemembuffersize>5242880</cachemembuffersize><!-- number of bytes used for buffering streams ahead in memory 

    XBMC will not buffer ahead more than this. WARNING: for the bytes set here, XBMC will consume 3x the amount of RAM

    When set to 0 the cache will be written to disk instead of RAM, as of v12 Frodo -->