2014-08-16, 18:41
Anybody have any thoughts, suggestions, ideas on what is causing this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
2014-08-22, 17:31
I've managed to sort out all my problems. I've put them down to a number of things...
I changed skin to Quartz. Which seems to have fixed a number of crashes I was having hen navigating through film lists etc on confluence.
I had a bit of a strange network set-up. I have an ISP provided router (Sky) which doesn't provide a good wireless signal so I have turned off wireless on that and have another router (Apple Extreme).
I have a lot of kit so along with the two routers I have a network switcher.
I had daisy chained them all....so switcher into Extreme....extreme into Sky router. I had NAS plugged into Switcher and ATV2 into Extreme.
When I connected both ATV2 and NAS into the switcher I noticed an improvement. When I changed the switcher to be wired into the Sky router I noticed a dramatic improvement. I can now play extremely large 1080p files with no problems at all. One 11gb 1080p file I've never been able to play until now - it plays with no problems now.
I do get stuttering and stops perhaps once a week but a reboot of the switcher and routers and it all works perfectly fine again for another week or so.
Hope that helps
FYI I did make all those changes on the 2nd of August after talking to Ned on this thread. So it's been working and stable for 20 days now. It's working better now than it has ever worked for me and I've been using XBMC on this ATV2 since the first tethered hack.
I changed skin to Quartz. Which seems to have fixed a number of crashes I was having hen navigating through film lists etc on confluence.
I had a bit of a strange network set-up. I have an ISP provided router (Sky) which doesn't provide a good wireless signal so I have turned off wireless on that and have another router (Apple Extreme).
I have a lot of kit so along with the two routers I have a network switcher.
I had daisy chained them all....so switcher into Extreme....extreme into Sky router. I had NAS plugged into Switcher and ATV2 into Extreme.
When I connected both ATV2 and NAS into the switcher I noticed an improvement. When I changed the switcher to be wired into the Sky router I noticed a dramatic improvement. I can now play extremely large 1080p files with no problems at all. One 11gb 1080p file I've never been able to play until now - it plays with no problems now.
I do get stuttering and stops perhaps once a week but a reboot of the switcher and routers and it all works perfectly fine again for another week or so.
Hope that helps
FYI I did make all those changes on the 2nd of August after talking to Ned on this thread. So it's been working and stable for 20 days now. It's working better now than it has ever worked for me and I've been using XBMC on this ATV2 since the first tethered hack.
2014-08-24, 12:38
Yer jusnogood, thats a good tip. after reading your post i remembered that my qnap nas (in another room) was plugged into a tp-link router that was then plugged into a netgear switch then into my isp netgear router. All of my 3 apple tv's are plugged into the netgear switch.
I've eliminated the tp-link router and run it all through the switch and it does seem more stable now.
But that said, it's only stable if I use the "media info 2" view (confluence). If I use the "fanart" view I still have crashes. PS. I have background fanart disabled.
My guaranteed crash file (i dont know if I can post a link here? but lets just say its the 1080p Thor from yify!) will always crash (before video starts) in the "fanart" view, but will now always in the "media info 2" view.
I've had these crashes since the feb 14 gotham nightlies. (feb 14 was the last stable one for me)
PS for what its worth my pivos xios on the same network NEVER crashes with this or any other file!
I've eliminated the tp-link router and run it all through the switch and it does seem more stable now.
But that said, it's only stable if I use the "media info 2" view (confluence). If I use the "fanart" view I still have crashes. PS. I have background fanart disabled.
My guaranteed crash file (i dont know if I can post a link here? but lets just say its the 1080p Thor from yify!) will always crash (before video starts) in the "fanart" view, but will now always in the "media info 2" view.
I've had these crashes since the feb 14 gotham nightlies. (feb 14 was the last stable one for me)
PS for what its worth my pivos xios on the same network NEVER crashes with this or any other file!
2014-08-24, 18:49
This is some interesting information. I noticed the other day that I'm able to watch a movie from my downloads folder with relatively few or no crashes (this folder displays in the plain file view), however trying to play from the library (set to poster view) always results in a crash before the file plays. I'll have to test he library playback with the plain list view later today to see what happens.
In the meantime, does anyone have ideas on why the poster view would be causing a crash and what we can do about it?
In the meantime, does anyone have ideas on why the poster view would be causing a crash and what we can do about it?
2014-08-24, 23:45
It seems to be a memory thing, someone much smarter than me will have to tell you why!
Playing from the video/file list view never crashes for me, but the "media info 2" is stable enough for me. interestingly "media info 1" is somewhere in between stable/unstable.
i need to have a good go through all the different views to see how they go.
The other way i can get a file to play in fanart view is once you see the time come up in the bottom left corner, start repeatedly pressing play/pause button. This quite often gets the file playing. Thats how i used to do it, but now its easier to just use media info 2 view.
I have submitted logs re this previously, but Ned Scott said he couldn't see anything that jumped out at him.
Playing from the video/file list view never crashes for me, but the "media info 2" is stable enough for me. interestingly "media info 1" is somewhere in between stable/unstable.
i need to have a good go through all the different views to see how they go.
The other way i can get a file to play in fanart view is once you see the time come up in the bottom left corner, start repeatedly pressing play/pause button. This quite often gets the file playing. Thats how i used to do it, but now its easier to just use media info 2 view.
I have submitted logs re this previously, but Ned Scott said he couldn't see anything that jumped out at him.
2014-08-25, 00:55
Perhaps it's related to caching? Do you maintain a copy of your thumbs.db file locally on the ATV? My setup uses MySQL, but I keep a local copy of the thumbs.db from Eden. I know that Gotham stores the thumb info in the db now, but have read that a local copy of the thumbs db improves performance.
2014-08-25, 11:28
I am using MySQL also.
I believe thumbnails are only stored on the atv2. the userdata/thumbnails folder is full o jpgs. I dont believe there is a thumbs.db in gotham....?
I believe thumbnails are only stored on the atv2. the userdata/thumbnails folder is full o jpgs. I dont believe there is a thumbs.db in gotham....?
2014-09-03, 20:05
Hey,
I just realized three days ago, that the screensaver was using A LOT of ressources when I pressed a button right after it went on (I am using the Slideshow-Saver with Fanart)
Since I turned it off and use a black screen instead: Not one crash!!!
I waited two and a half days to post that here to be more secure that it is not a coincidence.
I think that was (at least one of) the problem(s) I had, because when the ATV was idle for hours and i turned it on, the screensaver needed a few seconds to turn off and another few seconds went by before the ATV reacted to inputs.
I hope this helps somehow - since a few of us are having the "restart after long pause" problem for a while now.
Right now, I am truly happy with that little thing.
I just realized three days ago, that the screensaver was using A LOT of ressources when I pressed a button right after it went on (I am using the Slideshow-Saver with Fanart)
Since I turned it off and use a black screen instead: Not one crash!!!
I waited two and a half days to post that here to be more secure that it is not a coincidence.
I think that was (at least one of) the problem(s) I had, because when the ATV was idle for hours and i turned it on, the screensaver needed a few seconds to turn off and another few seconds went by before the ATV reacted to inputs.
I hope this helps somehow - since a few of us are having the "restart after long pause" problem for a while now.
Right now, I am truly happy with that little thing.
2014-09-12, 03:23
Unfortunately, I only use the screen dim and no screensaver so no luck there for me. However I do wonder if maybe the issue is memory-related since the problem doesn't happen with smaller files.
As an aside, switching from thumbnail to list view in the library does reduce the frequency of the crashes and even allows some movies to play all the way through.
As an aside, switching from thumbnail to list view in the library does reduce the frequency of the crashes and even allows some movies to play all the way through.
2014-09-12, 12:03
One more time. On ATV2 everything is a plugin. This means any 3rd party app which is installed beside XBMC/Kodi will grab memory - even if it is not started. Its enough to have those plugins installed to consume memory. This is just for the people who have a lot of stuff installed via nitotv (like plex or firecore or so).
2014-09-12, 12:03
Yes, it is definately related to restrained resources! That's my conclusion too. I have an acceptably stable XBMC now, using the Quartz-skin, bare minimum of graphics in the menus, and only installed the most necessary add-ons. I have the occasional crash during high load, or after long running-time (memory leaks?).
I hope Helix will be optimized rather than heavier and more feature-rich...
I hope Helix will be optimized rather than heavier and more feature-rich...
2014-09-12, 12:44
(2014-09-12, 12:03)bthusby Wrote: Yes, it is definately related to restrained resources! That's my conclusion too. I have an acceptably stable XBMC now, using the Quartz-skin, bare minimum of graphics in the menus, and only installed the most necessary add-ons. I have the occasional crash during high load, or after long running-time (memory leaks?).
I hope Helix will be optimized rather than heavier and more feature-rich...
You have restrained resources. Spend money and buy something sensible.
2014-09-13, 07:04
Ok.....so it's a total 'cache' problem on Gotham.
Fresh wipe install 5.3 iOS
Fresh Firecore install and XBMC 13.2
NAS's streaming locally on cat6 with gigabit network and cable length of only around 25mtrs in total.
Running Quartz skin and over *many* tries turned on and off every possible setting to increase playback stability. (From library, artist info, subtitles, downgrade of audio, 44.1 rate to 48k, SMB and AFP share)
So basically final run has basically every feature turned off,
16bit audio setting in the native OS
And on movies with mixed codecs, .avi,.mkv with 2.0 DTS and AAC of max 1500k rates - it still constantly buffers
When checking the 'video codec' option from the menu during playback in 'quartz' you can see the "C" line and the percent of cached data run, during playback it quite quickly runs down to 0% and then the playback stops and buffers once again.
So what next?
Bout to try to get my NAS to NFS share properly, but beyond that....there's not much left except protocol of how Gotham is caching and network pulling read-ahead of data.
Please throw me back some other suggestions to try and I'll run them over the next day or so.
Oops! Also, when quitting and then trying playback of same video files in 'infuse' they work fine....BTW, but infuse is 'ehhhhh.....' XBMC/kodi is much better.
Also, the ATV1 is on the same network with all upto date and default settings with everything pretty much turned on but wireless, and so far from quick test is streaming perfectly fine......how is this so!?!?!?!? In the SMB shares of the movie files.
All I can say is....good luck!
Fresh wipe install 5.3 iOS
Fresh Firecore install and XBMC 13.2
NAS's streaming locally on cat6 with gigabit network and cable length of only around 25mtrs in total.
Running Quartz skin and over *many* tries turned on and off every possible setting to increase playback stability. (From library, artist info, subtitles, downgrade of audio, 44.1 rate to 48k, SMB and AFP share)
So basically final run has basically every feature turned off,
16bit audio setting in the native OS
And on movies with mixed codecs, .avi,.mkv with 2.0 DTS and AAC of max 1500k rates - it still constantly buffers
When checking the 'video codec' option from the menu during playback in 'quartz' you can see the "C" line and the percent of cached data run, during playback it quite quickly runs down to 0% and then the playback stops and buffers once again.
So what next?
Bout to try to get my NAS to NFS share properly, but beyond that....there's not much left except protocol of how Gotham is caching and network pulling read-ahead of data.
Please throw me back some other suggestions to try and I'll run them over the next day or so.
Oops! Also, when quitting and then trying playback of same video files in 'infuse' they work fine....BTW, but infuse is 'ehhhhh.....' XBMC/kodi is much better.
Also, the ATV1 is on the same network with all upto date and default settings with everything pretty much turned on but wireless, and so far from quick test is streaming perfectly fine......how is this so!?!?!?!? In the SMB shares of the movie files.
All I can say is....good luck!
2014-09-13, 07:08
ATV1, being basically a low powered normal Intel computer, has better control over memory management. It's either running linux or a modified version of OS X (depending on what you have installed), and that allows it to function normally. iOS ATV, on the other hand, is different, as Memphiz said. Everything can be loaded at once or things don't release RAM when they are done with it (Netflix loves to do this and often requires a reboot to let go of memory).
Basically, ATV1 and ATV2 are two very different monsters under the hood.
Basically, ATV1 and ATV2 are two very different monsters under the hood.
