Shield TV Pro App Unnecessary Buffering

[AdamSulli 5]

I'm having trouble with the Emby app on my Shield TV 9 pro. It displays a spinning wheel, takes forever to begin playback, and even studders during playback. The app does this whether it is set to direct play or not. I do not have any trouble with other devices (PC or phone), and even on the same shield TV I have perfect playback on Kodi through embyforkodi 9.X.X. This problem started recently. I'm assuming it started happening at the last app update. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the app and the problem persists. 

[ebr 14913]

 

Hi there, let's look at an example. Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue. Thanks!

 

[AdamSulli 5]

Reproduced issue and submitted logs. User is AdamSull on server SOUNDWAVE.

Trying to play episode of Curb your enthusiasm. 

Time is 12:11 eastern

 

[pdclark 4]

Same. Appears to have started with the .8 beta update. 

[ebr 14913]

45 minutes ago, pdclark said:

Same. Appears to have started with the .8 beta update. 

Exactly what beta update?

I notice it attempting to play with a direct path.  You must have blocked your Shield from updating its firmware to achieve this?

I'm also seeing timeouts in other areas though suggesting a network problem of some sort.

[AdamSulli 5]

I have not blocked any updates on the shield. I'm having issues when I select direct path playback or not, and on the same shield tv with kodi and embyforkodi everything plays instantly.

[ebr 14913]

15 minutes ago, AdamSulli said:

I have not blocked any updates on the shield

What firmware is your Shield running?  It isn't possible to use the direct path option on current Shield firmware.

Regardless of other apps, I can see timeouts in your log and the player sitting in a buffering state for a long time which indicate a network throughput issue of some sort.

[AdamSulli 5]

Shield is on version 9

Kernel version

4.9.140-tegra-g19e7acaac93b #2 Mon May 24 12:14:52 PDT 2021

Build PPR1.180610.011.4079208_2740.7538 More

SHIELD Android TV SW Version 8.2.3(32.6.518.0

[AdamSulli 5]

I turned direct path off. Playback is better, but not solved. 

I noticed that I would hit the play button but nothing would happen, so I assumed the key press was not registered. I was then pressing play multiple times until playback began.

It then occurred to me to press play once and wait. When doing so the screen did not change for 30 seconds and then playback started.

It's possible that the multiple play key presses was compounding my issue, but I'm still experiencing a huge delay to begin playback.

Uploaded new logs at 11:28 eastern

User AdamSulli

Server SOUNDWAVE

playing episodes of Curb, SNL, and Rick and Morty.

[ebr 14913]

In that log it looks like you pressed play and then backed out of the playback 9 seconds later.  5 of those seconds are due to the frame rate switching option you have turned on.  Displays simply don't do this quickly.  So then there was only 4 seconds before you terminated the playback attempt.

[AdamSulli 5]

I'm sure that you are right about one of the instances, however, in a different instance, I also hit play and watched my watch for 30 seconds and nothing changed on the screen. The screen did not even go black with the spinning wheel. After 30 seconds the screen went black, I saw the spinning wheel for a second, and playback began.

[ebr 14913]

23 minutes ago, AdamSulli said:

I'm sure that you are right about one of the instances, however, in a different instance, I also hit play and watched my watch for 30 seconds and nothing changed on the screen. The screen did not even go black with the spinning wheel. After 30 seconds the screen went black, I saw the spinning wheel for a second, and playback began.

Android logs are condensed so the only thing I see is the last playback attempt and it only lasted a few seconds.

What happens if you turn off the frame rate and resolution matching?

[AdamSulli 5]

Turned off frame rate and resolution matching.

 

Posted a new log. Tried ro play curb and once again, 30 seconds of no change on the screen, then black screen with spinning wheel. After more than 2 minutes I hit the back button and sent the logs.

Around 10:45 eastern

[ebr 14913]

It is timing out and retrying over and over.  Either your server is responding really slowly for some reason or there is a network issue.

[AdamSulli 5]

I'm really not sure what's is happening, because I have immediate response from a phone on the same network, and immediate response from kodi from the same shield tv. Why would the tv app have trouble when other apps and devices do not?

[ebr 14913]

1 minute ago, AdamSulli said:

I'm really not sure what's is happening, because I have immediate response from a phone on the same network, and immediate response from kodi from the same shield tv. Why would the tv app have trouble when other apps and devices do not?

I don't know either.   Can you try sideloading our standard android app on the same device and see how that compares?

https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html

Thanks.

 

[AdamSulli 5]

Sure. I'll give it a try and report back tonight. 

[AdamSulli 5]

The issue is solved. It was a network problem. My DHCP table was getting full as devices moved in and out of my network. I expanded the table and everything resolved itself. Embyforkodi was set up to direct play and never experienced issues. Still not sure why the phone always worked, but I have now given my Shield TV a static IP and made sure that there are plenty of available IP addresses for the device to grab instead of fighting over. Thank you for all your help.