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Does Android Mobile have any buffer that can be increased?


MBSki

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MBSki

I'm having a really hard time listening to music in my car. The music continually stops and starts. If I could set a buffer of at least 10 minutes I don't think I'd get the constant stops and starts. Is there a buffer that I can adjust? Or can Emby add a 10 - 15 minute buffer for music playback? 

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Hi, no there is no an adjustment to buffer size that can be made.

However, we do recommend downloading or syncing media for offline use or for when using Emby in situations where the network is questionable.
Have you explored this yet?

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MBSki
Just now, cayars said:

Hi, no there is no an adjustment to buffer size that can be made.

However, we do recommend downloading or syncing media for offline use or for when using Emby in situations where the network is questionable.
Have you explored this yet?

Of course, but if I'm on the road every day that's an awful lot of time spent downloading then cleaning up the downloads. That shouldn't be necessary. This seems like a pretty basic function. At a minimum can't Emby fix the buffer size to something much higher?  

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That's something only a dev can answer but in general buffers on streaming apps are limited for reasons.

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MBSki
4 minutes ago, cayars said:

That's something only a dev can answer but in general buffers on streaming apps are limited for reasons.

Is there a different reason it constantly stops and starts constantly? The buffer seems to be the issue, but maybe there's something else. Music streaming services don't have the same issue as Emby.

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rodainas

The Android mobile app could have a buffering level set by user as the Android TV app.

But buffer problem is not related only to the setting of the app, the peering speed to the server used is a major culprit on that department.

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A buffer that large isn't feasible. Android uses memory management to determine when an application has become too greedy for resources. Once another application needs the RAM and has a higher priority the other process is forcefully terminated that runs in the background.

When you increase the size of the buffer it increases the footprint in RAM that Android sees that app taking. Maybe it can break the buffer into a background process. Well that background process if it gets greedy will get killed pretty quick.

That might be what is happening especially if you are playing on Mobile over cellular data. The signal may become too weak and the buffer reaches end. Playback stops. It doesn't rebuffer because it already failed the "max retries" attempt. That would happen if you are say driving while playing music. You lose signal. The signal doesn't come back quick enough. The maximum retries occurs.

Not knowing Android entirely I am making assumptions. The maximum retries once the signal comes back may revive itself and try again. But I believe this isn't what is happen. When the signal gets poor the buffer erodes until playback must stop.

 

Music streaming services use multi peering from colocations and have multiple geographies. Your Emby server has a single peering point with no colocation using a single geography.

Edited by speechles
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MBSki

Thanks @speechles! That was really helpful. I wonder if there's any solution to this. Only thing I can think of is an auto download or something when starting to play on cellular data. I'd imagine there are much better solutions, but that's just a simple idea. 😁

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Syncing/Downloading the media is really the ideal way to handle music.  You can take 10 to 50 albums with you on the go pretty easily.

This is a really good way to go especially if you can use an external SD card which are cheap these days in your phone.  Drop in a 128 or 256GB SD card and you can have a lot of music at your disposal without needing to use any bandwidth as you can sync it on WIFI.

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MBSki

I'm looking for a different option. Most new phones don't have extra storage because you can stream everything. Kind of in a catch 22 here aren't we?

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All my phones always have an SD slot. It's something I specifically look for because I like having movies and shows with me on the go.

But yes, if your phone doesn't have an SD slot that could pose a problem.  What phone do you have?

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  • 1 year later...
Ninko

I've been having this issue recently too.

Rather then storing a bigger buffer in ram (and upsetting Android), can't you have an option to set a temporary location on your phone where the whole song is downloaded when possible? This way when the signal is too weak it can play from this folder.

Also, if you give the option to set a data limit, older songs could be deleted on a rolling basis.

This is what Synology Music does, this method massively reduces music pausing!

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3 hours ago, Ninko said:

I've been having this issue recently too.

Rather then storing a bigger buffer in ram (and upsetting Android), can't you have an option to set a temporary location on your phone where the whole song is downloaded when possible? This way when the signal is too weak it can play from this folder.

Also, if you give the option to set a data limit, older songs could be deleted on a rolling basis.

This is what Synology Music does, this method massively reduces music pausing!

Hi, yes that's something that we're interested in being able to do for future updates. Thanks.

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