Hey All,
Could use a hand trying to effectively troubleshoot a ghost in my machine…
Been struggling with an issue for maybe two years or so now that is seemingly starting to get worse… Client is an Nvidia Shield Pro (multiple versions android tv versions over the year) playing local network content against multiple PMS server editions, and PMS server platforms (Windows, Linux, UnRaid on Docker), etc, with the same issue:
Initiate playback of a TV show or Movie, and it just hangs with spinning bar. Seemingly no bearing on content type. Use back, Try again, (up to 10 times of back and play trials sometimes, usually 3ish), eventually it always works. Doesn’t always happen tho. Maybe 30-50% of the first time trying to play something. Don’t know if it’s more often from the home screen or from the individual espisode screen. I sometimes think it happens more when not in the deepest episode menu but that a super subjective hunch.
When it plays without issue, playback is instantaneous up through 4k @ dolby atmos & hdr etc. There’s no lag in my system setup. Nothing ever stutters or crashes during playback. When it hangs on startup, it takes many minutes to timeout if left on the orange spinning screen with generic, unable to playback error.
No issues with any other devices. iPad, phones, laptops, at home or remote. No issues with Kodi using plex connect on the Nvidia Shield.
Nothing in my pihole logs that I can find blocking. Nothing in the PMS Debug or Verbose logs that seem to make any sense on why this hangs up.
The networking currently looks like this:
Shield Client (192.168.0.198) → Ethernet (or WiFi) → Archer in WAP/hub mode → Ethernet → PFSense - > PFsense Connected via local Ethernet to Server Running UnRaid w/Docker Container.
Media is stored on Synology NAS and UnRaid local shares. Synology Exports shares via NFS (Currently, but have done local media, Synology to SMB on Windows PMS, etc) . Server and NAS are both ethernet directly connected to PFSense running on something like a NUC.
I’m not exactly looking for anyone to solve this (though I’d take a “smoking gun” in a minute) but I’m just coming up blanks for effective troubleshooting. The more I sift through logs of noise the less I ever tend to get anywhere…
Are there ways to enable DEBUG & Verbose Logging but focus more on just playback event-structure comparing to exactly what it should be doing in this kind of a setup?
The only interesting factoid is that often when a stream is stuck spinning, if I go into playback setting on the spinning screen and convert automatically, there’s a 80+% chance it starts working fine but not always.
The only constant in this design is the Nvidia Shield Pro Client hardware and the server hardware (i3-3225) but router, access points, cabling or wifi, server versions, platforms, TV, etc have all changed over the years…
Appreciate any tips to dig in deeper that anyone can think of.
Thanks
