[steveearle86]

Hi all,
I am running Kodi 15.2 on two Android Devices (Galaxy Note 8 and HTC One) as well as the same version on my PC also.

All my sources are set up as SMB shares on my local network, I have full length movies and TV Shows, some in HD, some in SD. This is all I use Kodi for - network video streaming

I have been using the same advancedsettings.xml on all three devices (The Android devices each have 2GB RAM and The PC has 8GB RAM)

Code:

<network>
   <buffermode>1</buffermode> <!-- Default is 1 -->
   <cachemembuffersize>500000000</cachemembuffersize> <!-- Default is 20971520 bytes or 20 MB -->
   <readbufferfactor>4</readbufferfactor> <!-- Default is 1.0 -->
</network>

I find that on the PC, I get the behaviour I want (I can see from the play bar that the buffer is slightly ahead of the current playback point and remains so throughout the whole playback) This has been tested on a number of videos including 1080p movies.

I am having problems on both of the Android devices, I find that the buffer quickly fills to a certain point and then suddenly stops increasing. As playback goes on, the point at which the video is buffered to does not increase and eventually the playback catches up to it, playback stops and Kodi exits back to the previous video menu.

I can see with the debugging information available that when the video starts, the available memory decreases quickly (as expected) and then stays constant when the buffer stops (approx 180000/1800000)

I have found that on the same video file, the point at which the buffer stops can be different each time I play.

This behavior is the same on both Android devices, I have tried tweaking the cachemembuffersize and readbufferfactor settings on both devices with a number of different combinations (including cachemembuffersize of 0) to no avail.

Can anyone help please me out? It's driving me crazy

[steveearle86]

Just playing a bit more with this and it seems to be worse with MPEG2 videos (some get about 20 seconds in and crash out)

Sometime a H264 will buffer to end, sometimes it won't. Perhaps this is an issue with a codec or something?

[steveearle86]

I'm still having trouble with this. Here is the debug log from the Galaxy Note tablet from opening Kodi, to loading a video, which buffered about 30sec of video and then stopped and crashed when the playback caught up with the buffer

I can't see anything obvious with it but perhaps someone more experienced can help?
Debug log here

[steveearle86]

<deleted>

[steveearle86]

<deleted>

[steveearle86]

So I've done some further troubleshooting. On my PC, where Kodi has been working fine, I disabled the Ethernet connection and connected to my network using the wireless card.

Playing the same file with VLC Media Player (outside of Kodi altogether) I get buggering very early on in the file.

I then ran Kodi on the PC running on wireless and was getting similar behaviour to what I was getting on the Android devices meaning this is not specific to Kodi on Android or the Android OS (could a moderator therefore move this post to somewhere more appropriate if possible please)

Something else I have noticed over time is that on all three devices [PC running on wireless] the buffering behvaiour can change with each Kodi restart - sometimes it will buffer only to a certain point then on a Kodi restart, it may not buffer at all, then restarting again, it may buffer all the way through as expected.

I'm a bit stuck here as to where the issue lies. Clearly my wireless network streams poorly (may be the network, may be my SMB configuration)
however, the point of Kodi buffering is overcome network issues and be able to playback regardless and there is something stopping this happening consistently.

Can anyone please offer any advice at all?