XBMC CFileSMB Slow to Seek > 4GB?
#1
If I try to seek forward [by pressing 'up' with a setting of 5 minutes] while watching a [large] movie shared over SMB using XBMC, it is very slow. To skip forward 5 minutes takes approximately 15 seconds.

The source was added from within XBMC specifying a path of smb://192.168.1.6/Movies and the log of this slow behaviour seems to show that it is the file seek which accounts for nearly all of that delay:

Code:
#
17:50:45 T:2880375696 M:1353285632   DEBUG: demuxer seek to: 312210
...
17:50:59 T:2880375696 M:1351446528   DEBUG: SeekTime - seek ended up on time 312228
#
17:50:59 T:2880375696 M:1351446528   DEBUG: demuxer seek to: 312210, success

Curiously, though, if I mount the directory the movie is in from the OS [Linux 2.6.28-15-generic #49-Ubuntu] using the command sudo /sbin/mount.cifs //192.168.1.6/Movies /mnt -o guest and then add a new source within XBMC which refers to the local mountpoint mnt, then the seek is near instant as shown in the second log.

I'm hoping there is some way around this, as mounting the volumes directly seems like it'll be a bit of a pain. Having XBMC take care of it all for me is preferable from my point of view! :-)

Notes

Hopefully I've provided what information may be useful but please shout up if I've missed something. The following are some observations regarding issue:

* It is not slow to seek with smaller files. I haven't tested it thoroughly, but it seems to be quick until file sizes are over 4GB.

* It is, unsurprisingly, not slow if the file is local to XBMC.

* The machines are running on a gigabit network and running iperf from the XBMC Linux box to the OS X server box shows speeds of around 941 Mbits/sec. The network was quiet during all tests.

Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated. This seems like a bug, rather than user error, but I am prepared to eat those words!

--
XBMC Build: 22278
Hardware: Acer Revo 3600, 2GB RAM (VDPAU)
SMB Server: OS X 10.6
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#2
After some more investigation, and the help of a friend with a similar setup, it seems that the salient point here is that the server is OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. One thing I hadn't noticed when I wrote my first post is that it also seems to bail out mid-playback of these movies.

To reiterate, the problem does not happen when the server is Linux, or even OS X 10.5. I'm still none the wiser as to whether it's an XMBC bug or an OS X one, though, since the problem goes away if it's the client OS that mounts the volume rather than XBMC itself.
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#3
I have the same problem.

Various MKV videos crash part way through. I have posted a log file here.

I have not tried directly mounting the drive. I am not having any other network issues. Everything is 1Gb Wired connection.

XBMC Build: 23588
Hardware: Acer Revo 3600, 2GB RAM (VDPAU)
OS: Linux xbmc 2.6.28-6-386 #20-Ubuntu Fri Apr 17 08:32:39 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux
SMB Server: OS X 10.6.1

Anyone else experiencing this? Help? Huh
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#4
An update: I was also able to workaround the problem by mounting the Mac OS X SMB shares following these instructions which a good friend shared.

@protoplasm
Thank you very much for pointing out this workaround.

@teamxbmc (anyone?)
This compatibility issue between XBMC SMB client and Mac OS X Snow Leopard SMB server is a major problem for anyone who wants to use their Mac as an SMB server for XBMC... Getting this solved was incredibly frustrating and would be impossible for anyone who is less than a technical expert.

I am not sure if this is something that should be reported as a bug? Please advise... Sad

Anyhow, I am happy that the workaround finally did work. The Rapier 2.0 skin is gorgeous!
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#5
I think this is related to this:

http://www.xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=65773

So how would one work around this problem if XBMC is also running on OS X 10.6.2? Those instructions seemed to be geared for linux.
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XBMC CFileSMB Slow to Seek > 4GB?0