Hey Everyone, new here so thanks for the help in advance.
I work away from home a lot and a RPI Media Server seemed the best way to go as there is very little internet where I will based. I have a RPI 3 Model B+ with OSMC & Kodi setup. Plugged into that is my 4TB External Drive. Official RPI Power source.
My problem is whenever I play a certain HD Episode, it displays a 
face. It might not be right away but if something is playing before and I want to swap it usually happens or if I rewind or fast forward. It’s usually when playing a HD .mkv file. Maybe its not supported? But I just want to make sure.
SD stuff seems to work fine.
I Cant really seem to make sense of my log, but i’m hoping someone with a spare few minutes could point me in the right direction.
Log File
Thanks for your time
That’s not a full debug log. How to submit a useful support request - General - OSMC
Is your external drive self powered, or powered by the Pi? If it’s powered by the Pi, that could be the problem. Try a powered hub, or if possible, power the drive directly.
Thanks for your reply!
Ah sorry, the media info log is below.
MediaInfo Log
The log I uploaded i followed the guide above for so i’m guessing its just the mediainfo?
The External Drive is been powered by the Pi at the moment, I did think that maybe the cause but its fine for other types of files?
The files do play, and can play all the way through, it just seems erroneous. I’ll test powering the External Drive separately but I can’t do it till I go home at the weekend. If there are any other possible causes that I could eliminate before then?
You still haven’t included full logs. The first one was only a Kodi log, and the second Mediainfo. We need full logs. If you have SSH access, use grab-logs -A. Otherwise use My OSMC to upload the logs.
A 1080p HVEC file will not play on a Pi1, it might be playable on a Pi3 but even that might not be smooth.
You would need a Vero4k to play it smoothly.
Ah jesus I feel like a noob, I didn’t realise there was different options for uploading logs in OSMC compared to Confluence.
Full Logs Here
Its a Pi 3 Model B+. It’s not a issue of it playing, or even stuttering while playing. Sometimes it will play a full episode. Sometimes 3 seconds, it seems to be if I fast forward or try to change to another episode while one is playing. It can happen straight away or not at all, it did take me a little while to reproduce the error in what will be shown in those logs above.
If that was the problem I wouldn’t expect it to play at all? Although I will admit I know very little about this. Networking and systems management yes, but this no 
Exactly what model Pi do you have? There is no Pi3 B+, just a Pi3 B.
What power supply do you have? A Pi 3 B will struggle to play the HVEC file and you power supply may not be up to the task.
Sorry a Pi 3 Model B and a Official Black Raspberry Pi 5.1V 2.5A Power Supply.
Aw I hope it’s not, Do you think powering the drive externally would solve it still Or am I going to have to convert the files? Be a pain if so there’s a fair few of them
Well to exclude the external drive as a source of problem you could copy the file to the SD Card and disconnect the drive and then play it.
Well 1080p in HVEC will allways be borderline on a Pi3. 720p HEVC should be fine.
Just looked at the Vero4K, looks a great piece of kit.
Copied a couple of the programs to the SD card and I couldn’t reproduce the problem so I guess there we go. I’ll have to wait till the weekend till I can bring a powered HUB up to work but fingers crossed!
Thanks for your help guys, much appreciated 
Hi you need the mpeg-2 codec on the raspberry pi to decode mkv
MKV is a container format and doesn’t tell the codec.
So yes you need mpeg-2 codec to decode mpeg-2 encoded movies but that is in no way related to MKV
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