[lightspeed2008]

I apologize for the previous bad post. 
I have deleted everything and reinstalled Kodi 17.6. No changes other than to add a couple of plugins from https://kodi.tv/addons/plugins.
I am reposting my original post.
One example: Russia Today News live stream - Kodi caching seems slower than the playback causing continual pauses to "catch up".  Live streams in Safari or Firefox do not appear to have caching issues.

At the bottom of video is a white bar and a blue bar with timing counts.  I assume the white bar represents the length/cached portion of the video and the blue bar represents what is being played back.
My problem is the blue bar overruns the white bar causing a pause while the caching catches up. This can sometimes essentially be continuous.
Ethernet or wifi makes no difference.
I have played with advanced settings directly and through Aries Wizard and can't find a combination that eliminates this issue.  
Would appreciate any help, thanks.
basic info:
Mac Mini OSX 10.13 - 8GB
Kodi 17.6
Internet 6 Mbps - get a speed of 2-4 Mbps when Kodi is running
With this internet connection, I have NEVER had problems viewing Netflix, Tubi, YouTube, Britbox, or live streams. with any of the following - my Mac, Apple TV,  or a Samsung SmartTV

[lightspeed2008]

I forgot to remove the Aries comment - it has been deleted and the Kodi install is fresh.

[DarrenHill]

Thread moved to OSX section.

Please provide the link to a debugging enabled debug log (wiki) (which you can do easily using the log uploader addon in the official repo) showing the issue.

Details are in the wiki link on how to do it if needed.

[dgktkr]

While a problematic clip is playing, press cntrl-shift-o on the keyboard. On the line on the screen that starts with "vq" what is the indicated bitrate?

[lightspeed2008]

I did 3  several screen snaps
first
aq 0  kb/d 63  att 0.0 db
vq 0  mb/s 1.25  fr 24.0  drop 26  skip 297  pc none
vsyncoff 0.0

second
aq 0  kb/d 102.81  att 0.0 db
vq 0  mb/s 1.53  fr 24.0  drop 59  skip 809  pc none
vsyncoff 0.0

third
aq 0  kb/d 128.03  att 0.0 db
vq 77  mb/s 2.22  fr 24.0  drop 133  skip 2756  pc none
vsyncoff 0.0

[dgktkr]

Before vq goes to 0, does the corresponding codec bitrate exceed your download speed?

[lightspeed2008]

Not sure what to look for - here's a 5 minute video (no sound).

https://youtu.be/MJblAQS-_XU

[dgktkr]

From your YouTube clip it looks like your effective download bitrate is around 2.5Mb/s or less. You might try running a download speed test while you are streaming a video. Is there any other internet activity going on when you're playing videos?

[lightspeed2008]

Thanks for the help, by the way.

Another video showing Kodi, Netflix and a speed test together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aVcFn5p...gs=pl%2Cwn

Shows speedtest at 5.5 Mbps before running anything.
Netflix running shows 2.6 Mbps (unused?) with no disruption.
Kodi/RT shows Kodi freezing when "disrupted" by speed test and a speed of 5+ Mbps because Kodi has stopped processing the stream.
Then speed appears to be between 2-4 Mbps when Kodi is trying to process stream, about the same speed as Netflix.
And with both streams running together, speed is under 2 Mbps; but Netflix is running fine, while Kodi is continuously disrupted.

As someone not that technical on either Kodi or the dynamics of streaming, it appears to me (and something that creates confusion in my mind) that Kodi seems disruptible with any little thing that takes a little extra cpu or stream time (like just switching windows) while Netflix and others are not affected by this.

Whether it is Kodi, the stream source or some combination, I don't know; but it's confusing and frustrating that it's only Kodi that has this "disruption" issue.