Brief pause when playing back AVIs

[scotster]

Ok I've got a REALLY annoying issue that's been bugging me for a while now. In fact I've actually gone as far as to build a good spec PC just for media streaming, to help cure the issue and future proof my setup.

So here is what I have......

i7 3770k OC'd to 4.5ghz
8GB DDR3 1600 Ballistix RAM
Asus P8z77-V Pro MB
750GB SSD/Hybrid Primary
Samsung Spinpoint drives for storage
Win7 X64
Firewall port open
PMS 1.70 running as a service

Everything is wired via my Virgin Media Superhub, no Wireless is being used for media streaming.

The only other thing I can think of note is that I have a second router wired into the primary to extend the network upstairs, not using the WAN port.


The issue is that during playback of AVI files, randomly, the audio will pause while the video continues. The video will then pause, error 80710092 will come up and the audio will then play. Once the audio catches up the video again plays fine for a while. As I say this happens randomly, and the files that are being streamed are by no means large. For example, I'm currently watching an episode of Stargate Atlantis and it just paused and did as above. The video stream is showing between 800kbps and 2Mbps while the audio is showing a fairly constant 130kbps. Surely this shouldn't be making any part of my setup even breath hard? There isn't even any transcoding that could explain the issue.

On the flip side I have a 18GB MKV file, a backup of my Wifes Pearl Harbour, and it seems to play flawlessly. Granted I haven't actually sat and watched to see if it pauses throughout the entire movie but surely if it gets even a few minutes in without a glitch it shows that the network isn't exactly in short supply of bandwidth.

Anyone got any ideas before I tear my hair out?

[scotster]

As a side note to this I've noticed something a little strange.

I've manually set the PS3 to Gigabit LAN. My PC is running a Gigabit LAN and the superhub has 4 Gigabit LAN ports.

In PMS the expected speed of PS3 is 512mb. Is this an error or have I set something up wrong?

Also, I've forced transcoding of AVI files for now. I'm just testing to see if this has resolved the issue. I'm now beginning to wonder if the PS3 itself just can't handle playing the AVI files direct.

[meskibob]

It sounds like you do have an AVI that the PS3 doesn't like. If you don't want to force transcoding of all AVIs, you can select individual files through the #Transcode# folder while browsing on the PS3.
Posting points 6 and 7 from here can help confirm that it is the case.

[scotster]

Ok this is getting unbelievably annoying now. This happens with virtually every AVI file I have, randomly. It just happens periodically, sometimes with hours between jumps, sometimes with minutes. Anyway, I'll start from scratch so here goes....

Computer spec:

i7 3770k Processor Overclocked to 4.5Ghz and running solid as a rock
8GB DDR3 1600MHz Ram 8-8-8-24 timing
P8Z77-Pro Board
2TB Samsung Spinpoint, Easily hitting 100MB/s transfers
Windows 7 X64 Ultimate
Streaming to PS3 slim on most up to date firmware.
Recently ditched the Virgin Superhub in favour of a Netgear DGND3700v2. The PS3 is hardwired as is the PC, all ports are gigabit and gigabit is forced on the PS3.
PMS Version 1.72.0 Build d9fd0a44c (has been happening for AGES though. I would guess since 1.50. It didn't always happen and my spec was far less previously, and wireless).

I've followed this guide to the letter, but I've not forced transcoding on AVI files so it's still streaming them direct. Forced encoding DOES work, I just don't like it due to the crappy searching etc. I would rather find a proper solution rather than just plaster over the cracks if possible.

Right now I'm watching an episode of Scrubs. Played fine for around 10 minutes then the audio paused for around 2 seconds, meanwhile the video continued. After those 2 seconds the video paused and the audio started up again, after a further 2 seconds (ie once the audio has caught up to the video) the audio/video continues in sync. This can happen at anytime and doesn't repeat in the same area of the video.

No error is being shown, there is nothing in the tracelog and nothing is indicated as failing.


File info...

General
Complete name : E:\Shared\Scrubs\Scrubs Season 5\Scrubs - S05E06 - My Missed Perception.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 175 MiB
Duration : 21mn 8s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 1 156 Kbps
Writing application : VirtualDub

Video
ID : 0
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Simple@L3
Format settings, BVOP : 2
Format settings, QPel : No
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263)
Muxing mode : Packed bitstream
Codec ID : XVID
Codec ID/Hint : XviD
Duration : 21mn 8s
Bit rate : 1 010 Kbps
Width : 512 pixels
Height : 384 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.214
Stream size : 153 MiB (87%)
Writing library : XviD 1.1.0 Beta1 (UTC 2005-01-16)

Audio
ID : 1
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Mode extension : MS Stereo
Codec ID : 55
Codec ID/Hint : MP3
Duration : 21mn 8s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 20.2 MiB (12%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 24 ms (0.58 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 296 ms
Writing library : LAME3.95
Encoding settings : -m j -V 4 -q 3 -lowpass 17.5 --abr 128

Codecs in PS3 are MP3 2CH: 48kHz MPEG-4 (no transcoding)


Is this a PMS error or something in the build that's causing this issue? I'm wondering if going back to a VERY early version would be worthwhile? I've just gotten into thumbnailing my own pics too

[scotster]

Scratch that, the debug log does catch the error. I just cleared my debug, stuck on an AVI file, waited for the error and this is in the log...

Code: Select all

DEBUG 2012-12-12 13:38:11.936 [UPNP-AliveMessageSender] Sending ALIVE...
DEBUG 2012-12-12 13:38:38.160 [New I/O server worker #1-11] Caught exception
java.lang.NullPointerException: null
   at net.pms.network.RequestV2.answer(RequestV2.java:707) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at net.pms.network.RequestHandlerV2.writeResponse(RequestHandlerV2.java:301) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at net.pms.network.RequestHandlerV2.messageReceived(RequestHandlerV2.java:256) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.stream.ChunkedWriteHandler.handleUpstream(ChunkedWriteHandler.java:149) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpChunkAggregator.messageReceived(HttpChunkAggregator.java:116) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.Channels.fireMessageReceived(Channels.java:302) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.replay.ReplayingDecoder.unfoldAndFireMessageReceived(ReplayingDecoder.java:527) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.replay.ReplayingDecoder.callDecode(ReplayingDecoder.java:506) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.replay.ReplayingDecoder.messageReceived(ReplayingDecoder.java:443) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.Channels.fireMessageReceived(Channels.java:274) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.Channels.fireMessageReceived(Channels.java:261) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.read(NioWorker.java:351) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.processSelectedKeys(NioWorker.java:282) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.run(NioWorker.java:202) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source) [na:1.7.0_09]
   at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source) [na:1.7.0_09]
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source) [na:1.7.0_09]
DEBUG 2012-12-12 13:38:38.441 [New I/O server worker #1-12] Caught exception
java.lang.NullPointerException: null
   at net.pms.network.RequestV2.answer(RequestV2.java:707) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at net.pms.network.RequestHandlerV2.writeResponse(RequestHandlerV2.java:301) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at net.pms.network.RequestHandlerV2.messageReceived(RequestHandlerV2.java:256) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.stream.ChunkedWriteHandler.handleUpstream(ChunkedWriteHandler.java:149) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpChunkAggregator.messageReceived(HttpChunkAggregator.java:116) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.Channels.fireMessageReceived(Channels.java:302) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.replay.ReplayingDecoder.unfoldAndFireMessageReceived(ReplayingDecoder.java:527) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.replay.ReplayingDecoder.callDecode(ReplayingDecoder.java:506) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.replay.ReplayingDecoder.messageReceived(ReplayingDecoder.java:443) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.Channels.fireMessageReceived(Channels.java:274) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.Channels.fireMessageReceived(Channels.java:261) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.read(NioWorker.java:351) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.processSelectedKeys(NioWorker.java:282) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.run(NioWorker.java:202) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source) [na:1.7.0_09]
   at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source) [na:1.7.0_09]
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source) [na:1.7.0_09]
DEBUG 2012-12-12 13:38:38.607 [New I/O server worker #1-14] Caught exception
java.lang.NullPointerException: null
   at net.pms.network.RequestV2.answer(RequestV2.java:707) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at net.pms.network.RequestHandlerV2.writeResponse(RequestHandlerV2.java:301) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at net.pms.network.RequestHandlerV2.messageReceived(RequestHandlerV2.java:256) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.stream.ChunkedWriteHandler.handleUpstream(ChunkedWriteHandler.java:149) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpChunkAggregator.messageReceived(HttpChunkAggregator.java:116) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.Channels.fireMessageReceived(Channels.java:302) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.replay.ReplayingDecoder.unfoldAndFireMessageReceived(ReplayingDecoder.java:527) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.replay.ReplayingDecoder.callDecode(ReplayingDecoder.java:506) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.replay.ReplayingDecoder.messageReceived(ReplayingDecoder.java:443) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.Channels.fireMessageReceived(Channels.java:274) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.Channels.fireMessageReceived(Channels.java:261) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.read(NioWorker.java:351) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.processSelectedKeys(NioWorker.java:282) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.run(NioWorker.java:202) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source) [na:1.7.0_09]
   at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source) [na:1.7.0_09]
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source) [na:1.7.0_09]
DEBUG 2012-12-12 13:38:38.769 [New I/O server worker #1-15] Caught exception
java.lang.NullPointerException: null
   at net.pms.network.RequestV2.answer(RequestV2.java:707) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at net.pms.network.RequestHandlerV2.writeResponse(RequestHandlerV2.java:301) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at net.pms.network.RequestHandlerV2.messageReceived(RequestHandlerV2.java:256) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.stream.ChunkedWriteHandler.handleUpstream(ChunkedWriteHandler.java:149) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpChunkAggregator.messageReceived(HttpChunkAggregator.java:116) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.Channels.fireMessageReceived(Channels.java:302) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.replay.ReplayingDecoder.unfoldAndFireMessageReceived(ReplayingDecoder.java:527) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.replay.ReplayingDecoder.callDecode(ReplayingDecoder.java:506) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.replay.ReplayingDecoder.messageReceived(ReplayingDecoder.java:443) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.Channels.fireMessageReceived(Channels.java:274) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.Channels.fireMessageReceived(Channels.java:261) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.read(NioWorker.java:351) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.processSelectedKeys(NioWorker.java:282) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.run(NioWorker.java:202) ~[pms.jar:na]
   at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source) [na:1.7.0_09]
   at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source) [na:1.7.0_09]
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source) [na:1.7.0_09]

Means nothing to me, any ideas guys?

[Raptor399]

Means nothing to me, any ideas guys?

I think this particular bug will be solved in the next release of PMS.

[scotster]

Sounds great, thanks

[scotster]

watching an avi flick tonight and it's happening periodically. Checked the debug log immediately after it happening and this is what it shows happened in that instant.

INFO 2013-01-12 22:43:11.373 [StopPlaying Event] renderer: 192.168.0.3, file: (the movie I'm watching)
INFO 2013-01-12 22:43:22.383 [StartPlaying Event] renderer: 192.168.0.3, file: (the movie I'm watching)

Strange that it's actively stopping then starting again. I was expecting it to be a file issue, but it seems it IS actually an issue with the program.

Back to 1.20 for now I think