Something seems wrong with MrMC's smb-speed on FireTV

[pepto!]

I have an Apple Time-Capsule router with a Drobo Raid-Array attached, that is shared via SMB on the LAN. I have been using this for more than a year with a Vero running OSMC (Kodi) connected via Ethernet without any problems.

Recently I got interested in the FireTV, as I noticed MrMC getting released for it. I decided to buy MrMC for my iPad Pro first, in order to check if I get things running smoothly. As it does work great, I decided to buy the FireTV.


I connected the FireTV with the same Ethernet cable that my Vero used, but unfortunately my movies play for about
4 seconds only and then stall forever. So I tried via WLAN, but it's the same result. I also tried another cable, same result.

I connected my MacBookPro via smb to the share and set up a Plex server on it. MrMC on the FireTV plays the movies flawlessly via Plex (no transcoding).

But I would love to run it without a Plex server on the Fire TV, as beautifully as it runs on my iPad Pro.


This looks to me, as data is able to flow into the FireTV fast enough (Plex), but MrMC fails to achieve that via SMB, which its iOS port gets done without any problems.

I set up both MrMC instances with libdsm (it also failed with regular smb client), buffer all filesystems, buffer size 200 MB, max read factor 10


Here's a log playing Ip Man 2 via SMB on the FireTV

Here's a log playing Ip Man 2 via Plex on the FireTV

Here's a log playing Ip Man 2 via SMB on the iPad Pro


Am I correct in assuming that something seems wrong with MrMC's smb-speed on FireTV?

[davilla]

Do you have the same issue if adjust refresh rate is off on firetv ?

SMB (either normal or libdsm) code is identical between darwin and fireOS. I have no issues using fireOS and SMB.

[pepto!]

Yes, I just tested... same issue when turning off adjust refresh rate on the firetv...

I'm surprised aswell. After seeing MrMC perform so great on the iPad, I didn't expect the FireTV to not be able to play any of my videos for longer than a few secs...

It looks to me like data comes in ridiculously slow via smb on the FireTV but I don't have any idea why... as it works fast with Plex, it's not the cable or Ethernet-speed or something like that...

Is there anything else I can try?

[pepto!]

One more reason to rule out Ethernet is, that MrMC on the FireTV shows the same behaviour via WLAN, while MrMC on the iPad via WLAN plays things fluidly.

[vlaves]

I have to say I have observed a similar problem and there is definitively something wrong with smb read speed in MrMC on the FireTV.
I have installed on one PC Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials (which is Server 2008 R2 with SP1, basically Windows 7) and I get always buffering when playing back from a Windows File Share from that PC.

I then one day desided to switch the server software and installed XPEnology on the same PC, shared the same files. And the difference is like day and night.

Then I wanted to know if it has to do with using samba vs. using native Windows File Sharing.
So I again setup the Windows Server. Installed VMWare Workstation on it. Installed a XPEnology inside a VM and monted the Windows share within the VM just to reshare it over Samba.

And when connected to the reshared Files over Samba, MrMC mis really fast in reading the files.

As you can imagine I don't want to run a whole VM to just share files to MrMC with good speed.
Any hint what setting I should change on the Windows Server or on MrMC side to get same speed as when reading from a samba share?

Your help is really appreciated.

[pepto!]

I just recently returned to testing on the FireTV. The only thing changed in my setup, is the latest version of MrMC.

To my surprise, SMB speed now seems as fast as it should be, for "normal SMB"... but still incredibly slow, if I switch to libdsm...

On my iPad, both perform fast as ever. I would love to switch to libdsm on the FireTV, as I found it to be more stable in general. Any chance to improve libdsm-speed on FireTV, as it happened for "normal SMB"?

[davilla]

we would have to see debuglog 's