Audio skips randomly

Help and Support Vero 2
1

Hey,

I’ve been having this problem for a few months now. The audio randomly gets “muted”/skips for ~1-2 seconds (it is still in sync after that) while playing video files. Going back like 10 seconds and watching the same scene again, it is back to normal. This can happen once every 6 or every 30 minutes, with FLAC, AC3, DTS, different file types/containers/codecs, so I don’t see a pattern there, though here are 3 examples that were pretty bad iirc.

example no.1

General
Unique ID : 243367550972695565641615137216630221339 (0xB716E2A8FCE4810EB5954AC104E1EA1B)
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 8.03 GiB
Duration : 1 h 35 min
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 12.1 Mb/s
Movie name : The House of the Devil (2009)
Encoded date : UTC 2013-08-29 22:20:00
Writing application : mkvmerge v6.3.0 (‘You can’t stop me!’) built on Jun 27 2013 22:06:07
Writing library : libebml v1.3.0 + libmatroska v1.4.0

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 9 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1 h 35 min
Bit rate : 10.2 Mb/s
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.460
Stream size : 6.76 GiB (84%)
Title : The House of the Devil (2009)
Writing library : x264 core 135 r2345 f0c1c53
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=9 / deblock=1:-3:-3 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=tesa / subme=11 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.19:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=32 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=9 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=16 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc=crf / mbtree=0 / crf=17.9 / qcomp=0.80 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:0.66
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio #1
ID : 2
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Mode : 16
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 1 h 35 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 509 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 93.750 FPS (512 spf)
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 1.00 GiB (12%)
Title : Main
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio #2
ID : 3
Format : Vorbis
Format settings, Floor : 1
Codec ID : A_VORBIS
Duration : 1 h 35 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 80.0 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 54.5 MiB (1%)
Title : Commentary
Writing library : Lancer 20110424 (UTC 2011-04-24)
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No

Audio #3
ID : 4
Format : Vorbis
Format settings, Floor : 1
Codec ID : A_VORBIS
Duration : 1 h 35 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 80.0 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 54.5 MiB (1%)
Title : Commentary
Writing library : Lancer 20110424 (UTC 2011-04-24)
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No

Text
ID : 5
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Title : English
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No

[details=example no.2]General
Unique ID : 214843367382517569383045904791354333449 (0xA1A153D462BA0C8FBA69B4A57365D909)
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4 / Version 2
File size : 4.41 GiB
Duration : 1h 31mn
Overall bit rate : 6 897 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2016-10-21 19:07:08
Writing application : mkvmerge v9.0.1 (‘Obstacles’) 64bit
Writing library : libebml v1.3.3 + libmatroska v1.4.4
DURATION : 01:31:30.422000000
NUMBER_OF_FRAMES : 514727
NUMBER_OF_BYTES : 1035630724
_STATISTICS_WRITING_APP : mkvmerge v9.0.1 (‘Obstacles’) 64bit
_STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC : 2016-10-21 19:07:08
_STATISTICS_TAGS : BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 5 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1h 31mn
Bit rate : 5 251 Kbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 808 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.40:1
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.141
Stream size : 3.36 GiB (76%)
Writing library : x264 core 148 r2705 3f5ed56
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:-1:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=20.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio
ID : 2
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Mode : 16
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 1h 31mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 509 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 988 MiB (22%)
Language : German
Default : Yes
Forced : No[/details]

[details=example no.3]Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 5 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1h 41mn
Bit rate : 4 455 Kbps
Width : 1 916 pixels
Height : 796 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.40:1
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.122
Stream size : 3.16 GiB (90%)
Title : T
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 1h 41mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Frame rate : 31.250 fps (1536 spf)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 279 MiB (8%)
Title :
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Text
ID : 3
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Menu
00:00:00.000 : en:1
00:02:57.000 : en:2
00:07:11.000 : en:3
00:12:10.000 : en:4
00:17:20.000 : en:5
00:21:41.000 : en:6
00:25:57.000 : en:7
00:32:10.000 : en:8
00:36:58.000 : en:9
00:42:34.000 : en:10
00:47:49.000 : en:11
00:50:48.000 : en:12
00:56:49.000 : en:13
01:02:55.000 : en:14
01:08:29.000 : en:15
01:12:41.000 : en:16
01:20:01.000 : en:17
01:24:23.000 : en:18
01:28:45.000 : en:19
01:32:47.000 : en:20
[/details]

Files are sitting on different external HDDs hooked up to different USB ports. Some have an external power source some are powered by the Vero 2 device.
Issue happens whether the sound goes to my AV receiver or is directly put out via HDMI --> TV speakers.

This happens randomly like I said so I am not able to… idk turn on debug logging and reproduce the error.

Plus my Vero2 got pretty buggy too in the last few months. When doing tasks like quickly skipping through the library or removing something from the library because the files aren’t there anymore it’ll often freeze and then do the “big sad face crash and reboot”. I played around with different kodi skins, most of them not running smoothly, and am now back to the original osmc design. Don’t know if that could have caused problems.

I realize I have not uploaded a log. I want to ask a developer/team member something before I do, so if you are reading this and are online to help comment and I’ll PM you. Thanks.

If this makes more sense please feel free to move this post to the “Vero2” forum.

2

Hi

Without a debug log, it may be hard to speculate as to what the problem is. Have you tried disabling passthrough temporarily to see if this resolves the issue? All three examples you have uploaded have bitstreamable audio tracks.

You should also ensure that Adjust Refresh Rate is enabled.

Regarding the sad faces. It’s possible a bad add-on or skin is causing this problem. You could try moving your Kodi userdata directory (~/.kodi) away to a backup directory and starting Kodi again. If this resolves your problem, then it’s likely a problematic add-on or skin. You can then install add-ons one-by-one until you find the culprit.

Cheers

Sam

3

Hey Sam,

thanks for replying.

I’m a pretty big noob so I gotta ask:

How? Where?

Again how? Where do I set this.

I cannot find any of the above settings in Settings>System or Settings>Video…?

So basically backing the userdata folder up somewhere safe, deleting it on my Vero device and restart it?

regarding the debug log, should I go into settings enable it, restart and then play a video file? then upload it to paste.osmc.io?
Plus does anybody know how to keep the transmission daemon out of the log? I saw you can specify to only upload specific logs. Which ones do I have to untick for transmission not to be in the log?
I installed via the appstore and never specified that logs and timings should be uploaded with the log.

Thanks!

4

Did you enable advanced/expert in the lower left corner of the Settings menu?

5

Wow I just enabled that advanced mode for the first time and feel like a dumbass.:sweat_smile: But tbh I always assumed that it was a big “reset everything to default” kind of button.

So… passthrough was disabled the whole time. Will play around with those settings and give it a shot and update

Still unable to find an “Adjust Refresh Rate” option though…

6

If you are using an AVR, passthrough should be enabled. This offloads the decode of DTS/AC3 audio (assuming the AVR supports decode of these formats) to be done by the AVR and not the Vero. This may resolve your issue.

7

yes, now my AVR is also displaying the specific formats and “changing” the playback.

Thanks very much. I’ll now try those settings out for a few days and see what’s up.

Now if I may give a little “advice”(and hopefully not sound mean or cheeky in any way):
How about making little up/down arrows next to the “Standard” button in the next release to indicate that there are other options? Even after setting it to “Advanced” it took me a few minutes and reading your post again to try and press it again, only to reveal that there was in fact another option, the “Expert” mode.
Just my 2 cents because I bet that there are other users out there that are clueless like myself :grin:

8

I’m just going to enable Expert mode by default in the next version of Kodi.

Then if someone wants to make things simpler for friends or family, they can choose to do so.