Audio occasionally cutting out on movies

Every so often when my kids are watching movies, the audio will just cut out but playback continues with no audio. If I stop the movie and then skip back to where the audio cuts out, it will work again, but on occasion, drop out again after a handful of minutes. I had the debug log going tonight after the sound cut out on them a few times and it happened again with the logger running. Here’s a snippet of that log which shows some “ActiveAE::SyncStream average errors”. https://paste.osmc.tv/qujoxucufe

Let me know what additional information would be helpful for trying to diagnose while this keeps happening, which isn’t all the time, so tricky to know when to have the logger on. I’m running the Vero 4k with the movie file running through a Synology NAS.

This issue has been going on for quite some time but seems to have gotten worse lately which is why I’m posting for help.

Thanks in advance!

Does the same file have the same issue if played back from locally attached storage?

Haven’t tried it with locally attached storage but can give that a shot and report back if that’s the best place to start. Was hoping there was some sort of a glaring issue in the logs but perhaps not.

There would have been a little bit better hope of that if you had posted a full log set. Trying local playback would be the easiest way to figure out if your dealing with a networking issue or something to do with your playback settings.

Sure thing. Here’s the entire log if that helps: https://paste.osmc.tv/xowoyucusa

Will attempt local playback as well and see where that goes. Unfortunately since the issue appears to be fairly intermittent, it may be several weeks before I see the problem arise again.

====================== ifconfig =================== pi3lDrO1
enx8cae4ce1b3fb: flags=-28605<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,DYNAMIC>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.1.150  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.1.255
        ether 8c:ae:4c:e1:b3:fb  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 47805502  bytes 69632316102 (64.8 GiB)
        RX errors 141213  dropped 242042  overruns 0  frame 141213
        TX packets 12188103  bytes 1430971496 (1.3 GiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

You have a bunch of receive errors on your network connection. I would check your cabling.

On an unrelated note, you have some SMB paths that are being path substituted to a system mount that doesn’t exist. I assume these are all vestigial but you might want to clean them up.

Thanks, I’ll dig into this a bit and report back. Appreciate the help!

Also, you had recommended I check the cabling 3 years ago in this thread (Freezing on high bandwidth 4k content - #110 by darwindesign) so I’ll be sure to go back through that and see if there are any other recommendations that you proposed since it may not be unrelated to my current issues.

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Ran a few iperf3 tests today and it feels like there is still a bit of jumping around on my connections:

osmc@osmc:~$ iperf3 -R -c 192.168.1.250
Connecting to host 192.168.1.250, port 5201
Reverse mode, remote host 192.168.1.250 is sending
[ 5] local 192.168.1.150 port 39820 connected to 192.168.1.250 port 5201
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 5] 0.00-1.00 sec 14.1 MBytes 119 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 1.00-2.00 sec 17.1 MBytes 143 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 2.00-3.00 sec 16.9 MBytes 142 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 3.00-4.00 sec 16.6 MBytes 139 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 4.00-5.00 sec 17.3 MBytes 145 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 5.00-6.00 sec 17.2 MBytes 144 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 6.00-7.00 sec 17.2 MBytes 144 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 7.00-8.00 sec 17.0 MBytes 143 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 8.00-9.00 sec 16.8 MBytes 141 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 9.00-10.00 sec 10.5 MBytes 88.1 Mbits/sec


[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr
[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 161 MBytes 135 Mbits/sec 2802 sender
[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 161 MBytes 135 Mbits/sec receiver

iperf Done.
osmc@osmc:~$ iperf3 -c 192.168.1.250
Connecting to host 192.168.1.250, port 5201
[ 5] local 192.168.1.150 port 39824 connected to 192.168.1.250 port 5201
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr Cwnd
[ 5] 0.00-1.00 sec 32.6 MBytes 274 Mbits/sec 0 52.3 KBytes
[ 5] 1.00-2.00 sec 31.2 MBytes 262 Mbits/sec 0 65.0 KBytes
[ 5] 2.00-3.00 sec 32.6 MBytes 273 Mbits/sec 0 67.9 KBytes
[ 5] 3.00-4.00 sec 32.6 MBytes 274 Mbits/sec 0 67.9 KBytes
[ 5] 4.00-5.00 sec 32.5 MBytes 273 Mbits/sec 0 82.0 KBytes
[ 5] 5.00-6.00 sec 32.6 MBytes 274 Mbits/sec 0 82.0 KBytes
[ 5] 6.00-7.03 sec 33.0 MBytes 270 Mbits/sec 0 82.0 KBytes
[ 5] 7.03-8.00 sec 31.2 MBytes 270 Mbits/sec 0 82.0 KBytes
[ 5] 8.00-9.00 sec 32.6 MBytes 273 Mbits/sec 0 126 KBytes
[ 5] 9.00-10.00 sec 32.5 MBytes 273 Mbits/sec 0 126 KBytes


[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr
[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 324 MBytes 271 Mbits/sec 0 sender
[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 323 MBytes 271 Mbits/sec receiver

iperf Done.

Did you figure out why you were getting traffic errors? After pushing a decent amount of traffic have you tried running “ifconfig” to check? My experience has been that if something isn’t quite right on your network then it is also highly likely to be variable. I’ve seen switches that work in a degraded state such that they slowed things down but traffic still got through. I’ve seen this where only a single port on a switch was problematic. I’ve seen cables with defects where they worked in a reduced capacity so they seemed to work most of the time but they caused occasional failures. None of this behavior is desirable.

Here is an ifconfig log:

osmc@osmc:~$ ifconfig
enx8cae4ce1b3fb: flags=-28605<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,DYNAMIC> mtu 1500
inet 192.168.1.150 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255
ether 8c:ae:4c:e1:b3:fb txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 4629427 bytes 6637953372 (6.1 GiB)
RX errors 13784 dropped 21477 overruns 0 frame 13784
TX packets 1393995 bytes 463007519 (441.5 MiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0

eth0: flags=-28669<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,DYNAMIC> mtu 1500
ether c4:4e:ac:11:e4:62 txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 0 bytes 0 (0.0 B)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 0 bytes 0 (0.0 B)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
device interrupt 30

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING> mtu 65536
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 scopeid 0x10
loop txqueuelen 1 (Local Loopback)
RX packets 460 bytes 67176 (65.6 KiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 460 bytes 67176 (65.6 KiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0

Things I’ve tried so far:

Running the Vero 4k via WiFi to see what sort of speeds I got (was so slow I couldn’t even stream any content)

Bypassing the USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (speeds were slower)

Bypassing the switch and running a direct ethernet cable from the router to the Vero 4k (didn’t see any change in speeds either).

At this point, I’m not really sure what my “goal” speeds should be when running the iperf3 tests.

Was this where you were running a different cable and as well as a different connection to the network? Had you tried swapping the connection from your file source to the network in case the issue is on that end of the transfer?

Around that 270 mb/s your seeing in one direction is what I would expect from an external gigabit adapter connected to a USB 2.0 port.

You want that RX errors number to be zero.

Running an entirely new network cable gives me these results on the iperf3 tests. This is going straight from the router to the Vero 4k.

osmc@osmc:~$ iperf3 -R -c 192.168.1.250
Connecting to host 192.168.1.250, port 5201
Reverse mode, remote host 192.168.1.250 is sending
[ 5] local 192.168.1.21 port 48416 connected to 192.168.1.250 port 5201
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 5] 0.00-1.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 94.2 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 1.00-2.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 94.2 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 2.00-3.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 94.2 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 3.00-4.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 94.1 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 4.00-5.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 94.1 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 5.00-6.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 94.2 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 6.00-7.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 94.1 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 7.00-8.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 94.1 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 8.00-9.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 94.1 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 9.00-10.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 94.2 Mbits/sec


[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr
[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 113 MBytes 94.7 Mbits/sec 0 sender
[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 112 MBytes 94.1 Mbits/sec receiver

iperf Done.
osmc@osmc:~$ iperf3 -c 192.168.1.250
Connecting to host 192.168.1.250, port 5201
[ 5] local 192.168.1.21 port 48420 connected to 192.168.1.250 port 5201
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr Cwnd
[ 5] 0.00-1.00 sec 11.7 MBytes 97.9 Mbits/sec 0 122 KBytes
[ 5] 1.00-2.00 sec 11.3 MBytes 94.9 Mbits/sec 0 122 KBytes
[ 5] 2.00-3.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 93.8 Mbits/sec 0 122 KBytes
[ 5] 3.00-4.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 93.8 Mbits/sec 0 122 KBytes
[ 5] 4.00-5.00 sec 11.4 MBytes 95.9 Mbits/sec 0 133 KBytes
[ 5] 5.00-6.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 93.8 Mbits/sec 0 133 KBytes
[ 5] 6.00-7.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 93.8 Mbits/sec 0 133 KBytes
[ 5] 7.00-8.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 93.8 Mbits/sec 0 133 KBytes
[ 5] 8.00-9.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 93.8 Mbits/sec 0 133 KBytes
[ 5] 9.00-10.00 sec 11.2 MBytes 93.8 Mbits/sec 0 133 KBytes


[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr
[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 113 MBytes 94.6 Mbits/sec 0 sender
[ 5] 0.00-10.01 sec 112 MBytes 94.1 Mbits/sec receiver

iperf Done.

My normal setup is hardwired router to switch to gigabit adapter to Vero 4k. I could certainly change the router port that I plug into for these tests as well as change the router port for the NAS.

I get nearly identical results when using the switch and bypassing the gigabit adapter. So it’s entirely possible that the gigabit adapter gives me higher overall speeds but bounces around significantly more.

100 based ethernet only uses one or two pairs of the four and isn’t particularly sensitive to suboptimal cabling. I’m not sure how much bypassing the gigabit adapter really tells us. You can use the internal adapter if your okay with the speed hit.

I guess I was expecting/hoping for speeds closer to the 270 Mbit/sec in both directions with the gigabit adapter but perhaps that’s not realistic?

Is there a decent chance that upgrading to the newest Vero V to get true gigabit ethernet would result in a substantial jump in speeds?

The Vero 4K only has a fast ethernet adapter which will top out around 10-11 MB/s. The Vero 4K+ and Vero V have gigabit adapters which would max out at somewhere around 110-113 MB/s. The Vero 4K and 4K+ have USB 2.0 ports only and those are what is going to limit an external gigabit adapter to around 27 MB/s transfer speed in isolation. Any other USB devices connected and in use at the same time is going to drive that number lower because of shared bandwidth. The Vero V has USB 3.0 which removes this bottleneck.

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Thanks, that’s helpful to know. A friend let me borrow his Vero 4k+ so I could also run some tests on that to see if that improves speeds at all for me.

Wow, that made a world of difference:

osmc@osmc:~$ iperf3 -R -c 192.168.1.250
Connecting to host 192.168.1.250, port 5201
Reverse mode, remote host 192.168.1.250 is sending
[ 5] local 192.168.1.251 port 59344 connected to 192.168.1.250 port 5201
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 5] 0.00-1.00 sec 111 MBytes 933 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 1.00-2.00 sec 112 MBytes 936 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 2.00-3.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 3.00-4.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 4.00-5.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 5.00-6.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 6.00-7.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 7.00-8.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 8.00-9.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 9.00-10.00 sec 112 MBytes 940 Mbits/sec


[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr
[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 1.10 GBytes 942 Mbits/sec 0 sender
[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 1.09 GBytes 940 Mbits/sec receiver

iperf Done.
osmc@osmc:~$ iperf3 -c 192.168.1.250
Connecting to host 192.168.1.250, port 5201
[ 5] local 192.168.1.251 port 59348 connected to 192.168.1.250 port 5201
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr Cwnd
[ 5] 0.00-1.00 sec 114 MBytes 953 Mbits/sec 0 380 KBytes
[ 5] 1.00-2.00 sec 112 MBytes 936 Mbits/sec 0 402 KBytes
[ 5] 2.00-3.00 sec 112 MBytes 937 Mbits/sec 0 423 KBytes
[ 5] 3.00-4.00 sec 112 MBytes 934 Mbits/sec 0 537 KBytes
[ 5] 4.00-5.00 sec 112 MBytes 942 Mbits/sec 0 537 KBytes
[ 5] 5.00-6.00 sec 112 MBytes 939 Mbits/sec 0 537 KBytes
[ 5] 6.00-7.00 sec 111 MBytes 935 Mbits/sec 0 564 KBytes
[ 5] 7.00-8.00 sec 111 MBytes 933 Mbits/sec 0 564 KBytes
[ 5] 8.00-9.00 sec 112 MBytes 942 Mbits/sec 0 564 KBytes
[ 5] 9.00-10.00 sec 111 MBytes 934 Mbits/sec 0 564 KBytes


[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr
[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 1.09 GBytes 939 Mbits/sec 0 sender
[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 1.09 GBytes 936 Mbits/sec receiver

iperf Done.