Playback pausing

Channels DVR Server
#1

So this is new. Last night all of a sudden playback will occasionally just stop or freeze. Then after about 30 seconds or so it will continue playing. It is worse on some recordings than other. We did just watch on recording that nothing happened. It doesn't skip anything. It always picks up right where it stopped.

After my last issue I am starting to wonder if my hard drive is about to go. It is an external 1.5 TB connected to a 2010 Mac Mini and runs two HDHomeruns, all connected via ethernet, not wifi.

lat night I thought it might have been because it was recording while we were watching recorded shows and maybe I was pushing the little MacMini too hard, even though we aren't doing anything that hasn't run great since we put it all together two weeks ago.

I've rebooted both the Mini and the DVR software a couple of times.

Nothing looks wrong in the log, but maybe I don't know what I am reading.

Joe

#2

Wired or wireless? If wireless what kind?

#3

I had the same experience a couple nights ago. When fast forwarding through commercials it just froze up, and took 10 seconds or so to unfreeze. It eventually jumped forwarded when it came out of being frozen.

I couldn't find any item in the logs to explain it, and also wondered if it was the computer, mac mini. I rebooted it as well, and haven't seen the problem again, but interesting coincidence we both saw similar issues.

I was running a pre-release, the one right before the current one with commercial skip improvements, but I can't remember the build date.

1 Like
#4

Wired, not wifi.

I have also recently noticed that it is taking an inordinate amount of time to skip/fast forward through the commercials.

Weird.

Joe

#5

What device are you running Channels on?

#6

An AppleTV 4K.
Joe

#7

Mine is wired too, also AppleTV 4K

#8

I'm just wondering if my Mini (a 2010) and the external hard drive are the bottle neck. I know with two Dual HDHomeruns EyeTV was really being pushed when three or four tuners were recording and I was watching either a live channel or one of the recordings. Add comskipping on top of that, I may just need newer/better hardware.

It is just weird in that it all ran fine for two weeks. Only this week has the set-up been flaking out on me.

Joe

#9

Do you see the issue when watching live tv, or only recordings? If it happens when watching live tv was well that implies it’s not related to the DVR portion (including the mini).

#10

Just recorded shows. Live TV runs fine. I really think the old Core 2 Duo is just not up to the task. The 2014 Minis on Ebay are fairly inexpensive. That and a large hybrid SSHDD should be a pretty good upgrade. Although it doesn't explain why this only occurred recently.

Joe

#11

Are you using original quality? If so the load on the server while watching a recording would be very minimal, I would think. It’s basically just reading the bytes from the disk and passing through the network card. If you’ve changed the quality setting, that would force transcoding, which would put way may load on the server.

#12

Original quality. Noticing the longer the recording and the further into the playback the more frequent the pauses. Took almost 10 minutes to watch the last 5 minutes of MacGyver. Almost 15 minutes to watch the last 5 minutes of America's got talent.

Joe

#14

run a smart test on the HDD.

#15

Check the DVR Log for any errors shown too

#16

No errors are showing on the log and the hdd checks out fine. But it is worse when I have scheduled shows recording. I think between the recording, commercial skipping and any other processes of finalizing the recording, it is just too much for my little old mini to handle. Looking back during the first two weeks I had the set up a lot of the shows we record were still in "off season" mode and now most have gotten back in the swing of things. So the recording schedule is a bit more intense these days. Plus I was still getting the swing of "Passes". That's all I can think of.

I just ordered a Mini with an i5, 2.4(?) GHz and I'll get a large internal hybrid drive for the DVR drive. Like I said, even with EyeTV my system was pressed when recording 3-4 shows and watching something else (live or recorded).

Will report back after that.

Joe

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#17

Hmm one thing to check.. what speed is your mini connected at? Almost sounds to me like the network bandwidth is tapping out.

#18

Network Utility says 1 Gbps.

Joe

#19

From a web browser on your LAN, go to http://client.ip.ad.ress:57000/speedtest and report the results. Similar for your server: http://server.ip.ad.ress:8089/speedtest. (N.B.: "thing.ip.ad.ress" is network geek placeholder notation for e.g.: 192.168.1.2 or whatever.)

#20

I downloaded MenuMeters and while watching a recording the Tx averaged in the 1-1.5Mbps.

I also used your speedtest and the server showed DL speed of 812 Mbps.

Joe

#21

So my old Mini definitely hates doing too many things at night. I was watching one recorded show this afternoon and no problem. Went to watch some live TV tonight while other shows recorded, the system seemed to have a problem juggling tuners (I have four) recording two shows while I tried to watch a different live show. So I went to finish watching what I was watching this afternoon and constant pauses.

The new Mini got in late today so I'll get it setup tomorrow and see how things go tomorrow night.

Joe