Vero 4K+: 4K films not playing / Potential SMB issue

[darwindesign]

@RickM

What do these options do?

Google is your friend here but basically the one tells it not to use Linux specific stuff and the other forces an older security protocol. I don’t know if you actually need both but a bit of googling turned up those two needing to be used connecting certain Mac OS versions with certain Linux builds. Now that you got it working I would suggest to switch your credentials over to a file so if needed you can output logs without that password showing up.

@RickM

If fstab works, then I may still go back and try autofs

Just a FYI, there is not a performance difference between the two.

You might be interested in this to force your existing library to use the system mount without having to dump and rescrape.

[HowTo] Repairing File Paths with Path Substitution

This guide is intended only as a more in depth instruction for manipulating file paths either for broken links or performance modification. For other applications of path substitution you can consult Kodi’s wiki on the subject. At its core, path substitution is a simple concept. You are simply adding <from> and <to> tags to an advancedsettings.xml file that specify a part of a file path that will get replaced, and the new path that will be replacing it. Kodi will use this whenever it is trying …

[RickM]

I did a bit more trouble-shooting and confirmed the following:
The ‘sec=ntlmssp’ option is not required. The magic (missing) option required for connecting to a Mac server was the ‘nounix’ option.

Both the short & long command lines do work with the added arguments.
I was mistaken when I previously stated the short argument didn’t work…In both cases, after mounting the server, the first directory listing (ls -a) generates:
ls: cannot access ‘’: No such file or directory
But performing another directory listing (ls -a) immediately following works just fine, and shows all the mounted folders. (Not sure what’s causing this, but probably not a big deal. I thought there might be a delay for the server to mount, but no matter how long you wait, the first directory listing doesn’t work, and second listing works fine.)

autofs is now working, here is the (Mac-friendly) command line for the auto.smb.shares file:

/mnt/HTHD -fstype=cifs,rw,credentials=/home/osmc/.credentials,iocharset=utf8,uid=osmc,gid=osmc,nounix ://RM-MacMini/HTHD

Next step is to see if the 4K high bitrate films work using this mount (outside of Kodi) approach.

[fzinken]

@RickM

connecting to a Mac server was the ‘nounix’ option.

That’s funny considering that MAC OS is unix based

[RickM]

Connecting to the server/drive outside of kodi using autofs improved things significantly.
With these high bitrate 4K films, I am still getting occasional stuttering and an eventual pause in the film while the system buffers…but no longer in the first 5min, and the kodi player no longer permanently freezes (as it did when I was connecting using smb within kodi). I must assume that the only remaining solution is to improve network speed (above 800Mbps), or improve the buffering/cache settings within the Vero 4K+. Any suggestions on new settings to try for the Vero cache (I’m currently running with default settings)?

Also, a separate question on autofs: Why is the recommended timeout set to 15sec (when default appears to be either 5 or 10min, depending on the research source). Is there an advantage of the 15sec timeout, and/or consequences of running a longer timeout period?

[sam_nazarko]

@RickM

I must assume that the only remaining solution is to improve network speed (above 800Mbps),

I’m not sure this would be beneficial.

What would be beneficial is ensuring that your network speed is consistent. It seems to me from your tests that you get lower speeds because of periods of poor network throughput. This will cause problems more so than say, having a constant 200Mbps network connection.

Although – fixing the network dropouts will almost certainly improve and give you full speeds in the order of ~900Mbps

[darwindesign]

@RickM

improve the buffering/cache settings within the Vero 4K+. Any suggestions on new settings to try for the Vero cache (I’m currently running with default settings)?

I would try this…

<advancedsettings>
	<cache>
		<buffermode>4</buffermode>
	</cache>
</advancedsettings>

[dillthedog]

Setting the autofs timeout to 5 or 10 minutes should have no downsides unless your server is unreliable.

[RickM]

UPDATE:

Remaining buffering issues (with 4K high bitrate films) resolved with an upgrade from FireWire800 to Thunderbolt3 connections between the RAID-drive and Mac Server. (USB3 might have been sufficient, but I went straight to TB3 eliminate any questionable doubt.)

In regards to autofs (and fstab) drive mounting, I did encounter a problem with both approaches when playing back DVDs stored in a file folder (VIDEO_TS) format. Starting movie playback from the DVD menu would take 30sec-1min for movie playback to start, and similar delays were observed switching between special features, etc. (It was painfully slow, and I’m not sure why, but the problem started after using autofs.) No delays were observed when playing back mkv files. SOLUTION: I moved all DVD files (in a separate folder) back to a smb mount, but left speed-sensitive HD & UHD/4K mkv files in folders mounted via autofs.