Z9X - SMB playback issues while streaming from NAS

Discussion in 'HDD Media player(RTD 1619DR)' started by matty2k, Dec 30, 2020.

  1. ulna68

    ulna68 Active Member

    I had very old profigold cables (probably still produced in the hdmi 1.3 era) connected to my set, one of them went from the Sony ubp x700 to the receiver, and the other from the receiver to the tv. They worked without problems at 4K 24-30 Hz, they also worked at 60 Hz, but there were tiny white dots, so I changed the cables to new ones. It seems that it is enough for the cables to be solid and it can handle many novelties
     
  2. sandyj

    sandyj Member

    Just a final word on HDMI cables hopefully just because a cable works fine on one device does not mean it works on another as per my explanation earlier from Lumagen and Markswift2003 there is something else going on with the HDMI chips hardware and the interaction between the display device and other components in the chain as well which is not easily explained and can happen with any source device.

    Cable bandwidth is also only part of the problem here.

    The whole point being if you have issues with Stuttering, freezing, snowy picture lockups it might just be your HDMI cable and given most people have more than one cable lying around it might be worth checking out you never know sometimes these things appear to defy logic and needs to be ruled out.

    It would be good for testing purposes if I had another 4K display here but only have the projector and several older 1080p TVs which works fine for my needs.

    Will order some 2m Slim cables shortly and do some tests will see if they pass thanks to Markswift2003 for the suggestion.
     
  3. sandyj

    sandyj Member

    What length was the Antiference cable that you used with the Dune vs the length of the Slims out of interest ?
     
    Last edited: Jan 18, 2021
  4. sandyj

    sandyj Member

    The last question is to do with the network path that Zidoo uses to connect to the shares on the windows pc.
    eg 192.168.1.201/movies vs UNC naming server1/movies
    Generally I find using the servers IP is better for NAS boxes and non windows devices (Zidoo) and gives a more consinant data stream.

    Lets start here

    Check network cables

    1. check to see if the network switch shows the appropriate lights indicating it has a Gig connections for both the PC and Zidoo.

    2. Don't have either device connected via Wifi - suggest turning Wifi off in the Zidoo settings and the PC to make sure they don't randomly connect.

    3. is very possible to get a 100Mbps connection with a miss wire in the network cables or terminations and still send data across that. Swap out all the network cables to check you won't be able to do this if they are in wall this would require a network cable test device.

    4. If using network wall jacks switch to a different jack its not uncommon to find its damaged in the wall etc and causes packet losses resulting in intermittent slowness or complete drop outs. This can happen when the cable is hit at the wall jack looks normal from the outside.

    5. You can also check the PC for the speed connected go to
    windows search
    type network connections
    click view network connections
    right click the active Lan connection - there should only be one there active and may be Bluetooth.
    select status
    Speed should be 1.0 Gbps

    6. This one is more advanced Grab a separate cat 6 network cable and run it direct into the PC from the Zidoo you will need to set static IP's at both ends for this to work, a cross over cable should not be needed as most Nics can do this for you this will eliminate switches and network paths use a different cable to what ever you have in the current chain if possible. Test and see if that helps.

    PC SMB
    I don't recommend SMB 1 its bad practice now and its generally slower here is some of the reasons why other than security.
    One of the benefits of SMB2 is that it can combine several requests in one data packet, meaning that more requests can be sent using fewer packets. Effectively, this reduces the overhead and consequently improves data throughput. Also more connections can be kept alive simultaneously, which in turn means more files can be open at the same time, improving the quality of the connection.
     
  5. SolarGlider

    SolarGlider Member

    @sandyj: everything you've said I've tried already with the previous player I had since I wanted to eliminate as many causes as possible. I dedicated my whole vacation week a couple of weeks ago to try to find a solution. Nothing worked to let the Zidoo play high bitrate stable.

    1) access point is on gigabit
    2) Wifi is always off until I've tested the WiFi connection, but I turned it off afterwards
    3) Swapped out every network cable, only have high quality CAT 7 cables
    4) No network wall jacks used in my network
    5) PC is definitely on a gigabit connection
    6) Tried that too, even with two different CAT 7's, no improvement
    7) I know SMB V1 is less agile as SMB V2 and 3 but tried to only share files with SMB V2 and 3 and no improvement whatsoever.
     
  6. sandyj

    sandyj Member

    1. What was the previous player ?
    2. Did you try using IP connection instead of server name for the connection ?
    3. Did you try any intel network driver fixes ?
    4. Set windows power management to High performance then turn off "Put the computer to sleep " and go into advanced power settings and set "turn off hard disk after" to 0 (which disables it)
     
  7. sandyj

    sandyj Member

    SMB and synology NAS people having stuttering issue might want to try this - (Beware this does remove security like using SMB 1 but with advanced SMB2 packet transfers remain turned on which improves file transfer speeds)
    Disabling Transport encryption mode also removes network overhead.

    Goto to
    Control panel
    file services
    SMB/AFP/NFS - tab
    Advanced setting - button
    Maximum SMB protocol - SMB3
    Min SMB Protocol - SMB2
    Transport encryption mode - disable
    Enable opportunistic locking - should be ticked

    If there is a issue when opening the high bit rate file turn off Frame rate pause in the Zidoo playback settings as this locks the file on some set ups fast forward also resolves it.
     
    Last edited: Jan 18, 2021
  8. Markswift2003

    Markswift2003 Well-Known Member SUPER Administrator Beta test group Contributor

    The antiference is 1M and the Slim is 75cm
     
  9. SolarGlider

    SolarGlider Member

    the previous player also was a Z9X, I returned it to the store since every option I've tried didn't work out, they sent me a 'new b-stock' and I have the same problem. Do note that two other mediaplayers on the same network (and location) don't have any issues playing the same files where the Z9X struggles, I recently aquired a Shield Pro and with Kodi every file plays without any hick-ups.

    1)I'm definitely connecting with an IP connection
    2)reinstalled the Intel drivers a couple of weeks ago, my network maxes out on 970 mbps.
    3)Power management is configured on AMD High performance, 'put the computer to sleep' and 'turn off hard disk after option' are disabled since the beginning I built this pc. The latest chipset drivers are installed as well.
     
  10. mirror

    mirror Well-Known Member SUPER Administrator Zidoo TECH Supporter

    I need a few MAC addresses, model, and current version numbers. For test the SMB or NFS playback. We will try to do some optimization. But I'm not sure it will solve your problems. Because we can't reproduce the issue. We tried a lot of network environment.
    So. please PM me.
     
    Last edited: Jan 18, 2021
    boxerfan and SolarGlider like this.
  11. sandyj

    sandyj Member

    Ok try this in the advanced tab of your network card properties
    1. turn off large send off load v2 for both IPV4 and 6 - the trouble with this one the whole network chain has to be compatible with it if its not your network will slow or vary in transfer widely between the two devices this happens with high end servers as well and even with Microsoft server 2019 this has a very slight increase in CPU when off not noticeable on modern pcs.
    2. make sure DMA coalesing is not turned on should be off by default can cause major network issues at times.
    3. increase receive and send buffers to max
    4. turn off energy efficient Ethernet - this one optional

    If you have two nics also try switching to the other one sometimes these are different manufactures or models.
     
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  12. Armin Moesslacher

    Armin Moesslacher Active Member

    For me all the connections are the SAME when I test with z9X or X9S, so network wise only the device with its MAC and network card driver is different......and Z9X lags and stutter, X9S no problems
     
  13. Fatih Durmus

    Fatih Durmus Member

    I tired an raspberry pi 4 on samba but same. Z9x has freezes and shutters :(
     
  14. SolarGlider

    SolarGlider Member

    Thanks @sandyj for the help. I've disabled option 1, increased option 3 to max (receive and send) and turned of energy efficient ethernet (option 4).
    Can't seem to find the DMA coalescing option though, is it this option? -> interrupt moderation or interrupt moderation rate?

    I'll give it a spin already to see if there are improvements.

    Well, that didn't take long. No improvements for the moment. Still choppy playback with very high bitrate files with the Z9X.

    Edit 2: just disabled SMB V1 again. Again, no improvements. The Shield Pro not a single issue after the adaptations in the network.
     
    Last edited: Jan 20, 2021
  15. boxerfan

    boxerfan Active Member

    You might be on to something here...

    On my setup, the high bitrate clip almost always stutter right after frame rate change, and FF does help it re-cache and sync back up. The 400Mbps jellyfish clip plays well from then to the end, occasionally stuttering again at the end. The 30s clip is too short for sustained test. I still believe something funky going on inside the Z9X processing...

    ...while we continue speculating about potential issues outside (network, SMB protocol, Windows server, HDMI cables,...)

    ...and a few people reported no issues with older Zidoo products, but when the Z9X is swapped into the setup, the Z9X occasionally stutters. This is one very important observation...
     
    Last edited: Jan 21, 2021
  16. sandyj

    sandyj Member

    I think this stutter right after frame rate change is a HDMI handshake issue and in some cases can be solved with changing the HDMI cable when I tried with my projector 2 cables out of 8 completely resolved it with the 300Mbps jellyfish files and only very slight occasional stutter sometimes with the 400Mbps file but a very large improvement from before. I have ordered some new cables to try which are meant to be HDMI 2.1 spec 2m lengths should be here by Monday will report back on that its a long shot but the cables that I have working are no named brands so can't really help others with telling which cable works for me.
    I think this testing with the extreme 300 and 400Mbps jellyfish files is good to stress the system I would never use this in normal viewing but it does seem to bring out issues which in turn once dialed out should enable a more stable media system.
     
  17. sandyj

    sandyj Member

    I wonder if some users who reported issues while playing a movie that the hard drives are powering down in their NAS/PC's as I always turn off anything that powers down drives due to how long it takes to re-spin drives backup from sleep which then results in stutter. Typically I set a scheduled task that puts the NAS to sleep after Midnight because I never use it after that time and turn on manually when I go to use it which is not every day.
    It might be a good idea for someone to create a check list with common types of errors that lead to issues with playback I just think that some of the errors might be outside the media box.
     
  18. sandyj

    sandyj Member

    Can you check the network connection on the back of the Zidoo and see what the colored Led light is should be orange only when the unit is turned on.
    The DMA coalescing option is only found on some Intel Nics looks like yours does not have it and can also appear with some Intel driver revisions.
    Can you also confirm what files you are testing with it might be helpful if you use the Jellyfish ones to start with as I have these on hand to see if I can replicate your issue.
     
  19. mirror

    mirror Well-Known Member SUPER Administrator Zidoo TECH Supporter

    Well, I just went to the R & D department. And they said would give me a good news soon. About this issue.
     
    DIKKE, boxerfan, Derek Watson and 2 others like this.
  20. sandyj

    sandyj Member

    Thanks Mirror will wait to see what they come up with.
     

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