SMB issue after August upgrade

Help and Support Vero 4K / Vero 4K +
1

Hi guys,
I just upgraded to new August 2021 Kodi 19.1 update on my Vero 4k. First of all compliments! The upgrade ran flawlessly and right after I skipped through some movies and music - all running without any issue - I was amazed that even UHD now runs without stutter / buffering and skipping to next chapter takes no time - even with 100 MBit Ethernet - wow!

However, after flipping through some stuff playback immediately stopped. Any attempt to play another movie or music failed. It showed buffering circle - that’s it. I restarted Vero, however, the issue remains - well sometimes it starts a video, after some seconds starts to stutter heavily, then hangs completely. I see high CPU load in this moment (Kodi 300%). I enabled debug logs, then tried to play another movie to record the issue. Within the logs it shows that it tries to connect to a reserved IP address: 255.2.0.0

2021-08-15 00:36:04.042 T:2581 INFO : Loading skin file: DialogVideoInfo.xml, load type: KEEP_IN_MEMORY
2021-08-15 00:36:05.168 T:2581 INFO : Loading skin file: DialogContextMenu.xml, load type: KEEP_IN_MEMORY
2021-08-15 00:36:07.044 T:2581 INFO : VideoPlayer::OpenFile: smb://synds/video/Movies/Lorem Ipsum.mkv
2021-08-15 00:36:07.050 T:2782 INFO : Creating InputStream
2021-08-15 00:36:07.395 T:2689 ERROR : DoWork - Direct texture file loading failed for special://masterprofile/Thumbnails/d/d120becc.jpg
2021-08-15 00:36:12.057 T:2782 ERROR : SMBDirectory->GetDirectory: Unable to open directory : ‘smb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@255.2.0.0/video/Movies’
unix_err:‘6e’ error : ‘Connection timed out’
2021-08-15 00:36:12.057 T:2782 ERROR : GetDirectory - Error getting smb://synds/video/Movies/
2021-08-15 00:36:17.072 T:2782 ERROR : SMBDirectory->GetDirectory: Unable to open directory : ‘smb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@255.2.0.0/video/Movies’
unix_err:‘6e’ error : ‘Connection timed out’
2021-08-15 00:36:17.073 T:2782 ERROR : GetDirectory - Error getting smb://synds/video/Movies/
2021-08-15 00:36:22.082 T:2782 INFO : SMBFile->Open: Unable to open file : ‘smb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@255.2.0.0/video/Movies/Lorem Ipsum.mkv’
unix_err:‘6e’ error : ‘Connection timed out’
2021-08-15 00:36:22.083 T:2782 ERROR : CFileCache::Open - <smb://synds/video/Movies/Lorem Ipsum.mkv> failed to open
2021-08-15 00:36:22.083 T:2782 ERROR : CVideoPlayer::OpenInputStream - error opening [smb://synds/video/Movies/Lorem Ipsum.mkv]
2021-08-15 00:36:22.083 T:2782 INFO : CVideoPlayer::OnExit()
2021-08-15 00:36:22.124 T:2581 INFO : Loading skin file: DialogConfirm.xml, load type: KEEP_IN_MEMORY
2021-08-15 00:36:22.133 T:2581 INFO : CVideoPlayer::CloseFile()
2021-08-15 00:36:22.220 T:2581 INFO : VideoPlayer: waiting for threads to exit
2021-08-15 00:36:22.220 T:2581 INFO : VideoPlayer: finished waiting

I logged in to vero 4k via ssh and pinged “synds” - it’s working, DNS is resolving to the correct IP address.

Any ideas why in the log above synds is resolved to a reserved IP address?

Thanks for your help!

2

Kodi is notorious for having name resolution issues. Best bet is to just convert that source to IP rather than the name.

3

ok, but never ever had an issue with it before the August upgrade. Using the vero 4k for some years now.

4

ok, seems I resolved the issue by myself somehow. Only thing I’ve changed is to set the minimum SMB protocol to v2 in the Kodi services menu (no minimum was set before) . As my NAS has minimum set to v2, too, I am wondering how this could make a difference whatsoever.

However, I did some tests, all works well so far so let’s consider this issue as resolved for now!

5

Reopening this as the issue is back - it shows after letting the vero 4k run for some days. Out of a sudden, when selecting a movie it hangs for some seconds before showing the movie’s info page. In the logs I see this again:

ERROR : SMBDirectory->GetDirectory: Unable to open directory : ‘smb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@255.2.0.0/video/Movie%20Concerts/Hunky%20Dory%20-%20The%20Start’
unix_err:‘6e’ error : ‘Connection timed out’
2021-08-24 20:52:45.779 T:3829 ERROR : GetDirectory - Error getting smb://synds/video/Movie Concerts/Hunky Dory - The Start/

Once I restart the vero 4k, the issue is gone for a while but comes back of some days of running idle.

I have to say: My NAS shuts down at night for a couple of hours while the Vero 4k is running 24/7. However, I did not have this issue before upgrading to the August release.

255.2.0.0 - what kind of an odd IP address is this by the way? Any clue where this comes from?

6

It’s the IP that synds is resolving to. I’m guessing that’s not the correct IP, so as a test, you could create an /etc/hosts entry to override DNS. From a command line:

sudo nano /etc/hosts

and add this line (replacing 192.168.1.x with the correct IP for synds)

192.168.1.x synds

and save the file. See if that helps you problem.

7

Well, as I mentioned in my original post - when I login to vero4k via Putty while the issue exists, I can ping synds - it is correctly resolved to the 192.x.y.z address. I am also wondering which DNS would ever resolve a hostname to a reserved IP address. The DNS in my case is my DSL router by the way (AVM Fritzbox).

Anyhow, I can surely give it a try to add synd to /etc/hosts. But as mentioned, I never ever had this issue before until upgrading to the August version - using vero4k for years.

8

Lookup can be a DNS lookup or NMB lookup. So maybe before it was using nmblookup. You can try to install sudo apt-get install samba-common-bin to see if that solves your issue.

9

ok, will try, thanks!

By the way, this is what I found in my /etc/hosts:

::1 osmc localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6
127.0.1.1 osmc

127.0.0.1 localhost
::1 localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
~
While these are Ipv6 addresses, ff02::0 seems related to the odd 255.2.0.0 IPv4 address somehow?
Are the entries in my /etc/hosts correct? I am not using IPv6 in my LAN by the way.

10

Seems installing samba-common-bin as recommended by @fzinken did the trick. Closing this. Thanks!