ReadyNAS Pro HD Video Playback Issues

claykin wrote:
What are you using as a Router/Gateway for DHCP, DNS, etc..?

I have actually been working on this for the past couple of days. I have a Motorola Netopia modem /router. I disabled the DHCP on it and let the Airport Extreme handle that. Everything is pointing to the Netopia for the DNS and the gateway.

claykin wrote:
As mentioned earlier, please check and post any Interface transmission errors on the Network Interface screen on the NAS.

I am not really sure where to go for this information on the NAS but i will be doing this next.

claykin wrote:
What version of RAIDIATOR is on your Pro? "Latest" is not a version #.

Sorry, the reason why i said latest is because I have it set up to run automatic updates when new firmware is available. The NAS turns on daily so it is updated to the latest always. It actually updated today. I will be running some tests in the next couple of days to see if things get worked out under Version 4.2.19.

claykin wrote:
Have you checked the NAS Health screen to see if any of your disks have SMART errors?

I had some SMART errors that were showing up every couple of weeks a while back but they have not increased in some time (more than 2 months). I have one disk with around 30 and another with about 140. BTW, this is out of 6 total disks in the NAS - I just looked back at the post and noticed that I missed 2 x 2TB drives in the array.

claykin wrote:
Try swapping Ethernet cables. Disconnect other devices on the LAN.

I actually tried just having the NAS and the Mini on the Airport Extreme alone and not connected to the internet and I still had the same problems. I think this would be the best way to run tests and look at the logs to check for errors.

I think i covered all of your questions.

Thanks again.
Cesar

@Bob K - Thanks!

I will definitely look into those. Wireshark seems to be the one for me to use because I am most worried about my Mac Mini and the video drops there because it is the one serving as my HTPC. I was trying to use Little Snitch ( http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html ) to look at what was going on but I wasn't sure of where to look. But this was at about 1AM after numerous hours pounding my head into the wall unit so i wasn't at my best.

P.S. - Through this process I think I uncovered some network "issues" that can be better addressed using a slightly different set up / settings. I am going to first work out those kinks and get back with you all on my findings on the HTPC - NAS issue.

Alright, here is some info that maybe someone can make heads or tails of ...

I monitored the system log while plex was playing a large movie and waiting for the the movie to error out. I copied a section:

9/7/11 8:57:41.666 PM Little Snitch UIAgent: 2.3.3 (1583): m65968c1c
9/7/11 8:57:41.666 PM Little Snitch UIAgent: 2.3.3 (1583): m579328b9
9/7/11 8:57:41.667 PM Little Snitch UIAgent: 2.3.3 (1583): m41531ded
9/7/11 8:57:41.668 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.502: (at.obdev.LittleSnitchUIAgent) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
9/7/11 8:57:46.879 PM com.apple.launchd: (at.obdev.littlesnitchd[1571]) Exited with code: 1
9/7/11 8:57:46.879 PM com.apple.launchd: (at.obdev.littlesnitchd) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
9/7/11 8:57:50.464 PM [0x0-0x255255].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x3894810] Read error
9/7/11 8:57:50.465 PM [0x0-0x255255].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x3894810] Unknown entry 0xF5
9/7/11 8:57:50.465 PM [0x0-0x255255].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x3894810] Unknown entry 0xC6
9/7/11 8:57:50.510 PM [0x0-0x255255].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x3894810] Unknown entry 0x62A5
9/7/11 8:57:50.511 PM [0x0-0x255255].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x3894810] Unknown entry 0x93
9/7/11 8:57:50.511 PM [0x0-0x255255].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x3894810] Unknown entry 0x6E37
9/7/11 8:57:50.527 PM [0x0-0x255255].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x3894810] Unknown entry 0x6FA2
9/7/11 8:57:50.527 PM [0x0-0x255255].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x3894810] Unknown entry 0x4136
9/7/11 8:57:50.527 PM [0x0-0x255255].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x3894810] Unknown entry 0x12D1E948

Here are the system logs when VLS was playing the same movie and started to stutter (this was before the plex play hence the time difference):

9/7/11 8:44:55.761 PM Little Snitch UIAgent: 2.3.3 (1583): m65968c1c
9/7/11 8:44:55.762 PM Little Snitch UIAgent: 2.3.3 (1583): m579328b9
9/7/11 8:44:55.762 PM Little Snitch UIAgent: 2.3.3 (1583): m41531ded
9/7/11 8:44:55.763 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.502: (at.obdev.LittleSnitchUIAgent) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
9/7/11 8:45:04.275 PM [0x0-0x218218].org.videolan.vlc: [0x111044728] main input error: ES_OUT_SET_(GROUP_)PCR is called too late (pts_delay increased to 1200 ms)
9/7/11 8:45:04.276 PM [0x0-0x218218].org.videolan.vlc: Missing reference picture
9/7/11 8:45:04.276 PM [0x0-0x218218].org.videolan.vlc: Missing reference picture
9/7/11 8:45:04.322 PM [0x0-0x218218].org.videolan.vlc: reference picture missing during reorder
9/7/11 8:45:04.322 PM [0x0-0x218218].org.videolan.vlc: reference picture missing during reorder
9/7/11 8:45:04.322 PM [0x0-0x218218].org.videolan.vlc: Missing reference picture
9/7/11 8:45:04.322 PM [0x0-0x218218].org.videolan.vlc: Missing reference picture
9/7/11 8:45:04.371 PM [0x0-0x218218].org.videolan.vlc: mmco: unref short failure

Any ideas?

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20014735-263.html

and

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20068791-263.html

talk about respawn. The first one seems to say that it can be caused by a web server being unavailable. Perhaps all it means in your case is that the "server" (either Plex or VLC) is not able to serve up the media properly.

How does your HTPC do on smaller video files (in the 780MB to 2GB range)? How about HD files that are not .mkv (matroska) files (e.g. m4v, mp4, or whatever else the Mac can eat...VLC should be able to play next to everything)?

Maybe you could put an HD video on your HP and stream it to your HTPC through CIFS. That would help determine if the NAS is at fault. If we can get to a point where something does work, maybe through a process of elimination we can figure out where it first starts to hiccup.

Here's another one you can use for some iOS and buffering troubleshooting: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=96958.

Another troubleshooting step: With VLC on your HP, can you effectively play HD video on it from your NAS?

Here is another set of errors that i found.


9/7/11 10:06:52.947 PM [0x0-0x1a01a].com.plexsquared.Plex: [h264 @ 0x3620610] Cannot parallelize deblocking type 1, decoding such frames in sequential order
9/7/11 10:08:46.771 PM [0x0-0x1a01a].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x3632810] Invalid stream 25 or size 3
9/7/11 10:12:47.214 PM [0x0-0x1a01a].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x3632810] Read error
9/7/11 10:12:47.214 PM [0x0-0x1a01a].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x3632810] Unknown entry 0x1A8EE0C6
9/7/11 10:12:47.214 PM [0x0-0x1a01a].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x3632810] Invalid EBML number size tag 0x02 at pos 519935657 (0x1efd96a9)

Same movie.

Sorry Bob, I didn't see your post when i was posting a reply. I started looking at the links you provided. I will try to eliminate those errors also.

I haven't sat through a whole movie yet but it doesn't look like files even as small as 4.5 GB work (I just tried this one out and let it play for about 15 minutes and found plex errored out).

9/7/11 10:34:29.460 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Read error
9/7/11 10:34:29.460 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xD3
9/7/11 10:34:29.460 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x92
9/7/11 10:34:29.460 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x6F54
9/7/11 10:34:29.460 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xA5
9/7/11 10:34:29.460 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xF3
9/7/11 10:34:29.460 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xC8
9/7/11 10:34:29.460 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xB9
9/7/11 10:34:29.460 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x33B516
9/7/11 10:34:29.460 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x358579
9/7/11 10:34:29.460 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xBD
9/7/11 10:34:29.482 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x1B6761ED
9/7/11 10:34:29.547 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xA8
9/7/11 10:34:29.547 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xE2
9/7/11 10:34:29.547 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xE3
9/7/11 10:34:29.547 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xAB
9/7/11 10:34:29.547 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x99
9/7/11 10:34:29.547 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xA8
9/7/11 10:34:29.554 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xE0
9/7/11 10:34:29.561 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xA7
9/7/11 10:34:29.561 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x1C7A71F8
9/7/11 10:34:29.561 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x6BA0
9/7/11 10:34:29.561 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x9C
9/7/11 10:34:29.562 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x6254
9/7/11 10:34:29.580 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xEF
9/7/11 10:34:29.580 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xE0
9/7/11 10:34:29.580 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xF0
9/7/11 10:34:29.589 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x9D
9/7/11 10:34:29.589 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x557F
9/7/11 10:34:29.589 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x1F356F1B
9/7/11 10:34:29.589 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xB7
9/7/11 10:34:29.597 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xFF
9/7/11 10:34:29.597 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0xE4
9/7/11 10:34:29.600 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x9A
9/7/11 10:34:29.612 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x250E2B
9/7/11 10:34:29.612 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x96
9/7/11 10:34:29.612 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x5869
9/7/11 10:34:29.612 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Unknown entry 0x86
9/7/11 10:34:29.612 PM [0x0-0x21021].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x11b6b410] Invalid EBML number size tag 0x07 at pos 502830678 (0x1df89656)

And the serving through the HP sounds like a great plan. I will try that tonight or sometime tomorrow.

Thanks for taking the time to help!

mrwizard93 wrote:

Alright, here is some info that maybe someone can make heads or tails of ... I monitored the system log while plex was playing a large movie and waiting for the the movie to error out. I copied a section: 9/7/11 8:57:50.527 PM [0x0-0x255255].com.plexsquared.Plex: [matroska @ 0x3894810] Unknown entry 0x12D1E948 Here are the system logs when VLS was playing the same movie and started to stutter (this was before the plex play hence the time difference): 9/7/11 8:45:04.276 PM [0x0-0x218218].org.videolan.vlc: Missing reference picture Any ideas?

To me, these errors look like both Plex and VLC being unhappy with the content of the MKV file and not to be a network related problem.

Earlier versions of MakeMKV - prior to 1.6.9 did have problems producing good files and a new engine was added in 1.6.9 which to me at least was a big improvement. While these old files played reasonably well in VLC they caused Apple's QuickTime Player big problems. Newer files with the newer engine now play well in QuickTime Player as well.

So, my initial suggestion would be to re-rip using the latest MakeMKV if you can. If you don't have the original source media, then maybe an option would be to demux the media using something like MKVExtract and then remux perhaps using MKVMerge.

Or try to fix the files using Meteorite as a last resort for this to me too looks like errors in the mkv file rather than transmission errors on the network.

-Stefan

jelockwood wrote:
So, my initial suggestion would be to re-rip using the latest MakeMKV if you can. If you don't have the original source media, then maybe an option would be to demux the media using something like MKVExtract and then remux perhaps using MKVMerge.

You can skip the initial MKVextract step (MKVMerge can directly remux an MKV). However, this is a long shot - if the elementary media streams are corrupted it will not help at all; even if the only damage is to the container layer it seems unlikely.

If the damage is limited to a small timeslot, you could try transcoding the MKV. If it works, you'd still see/hear some glitches at the point of damage, but it would recover. I author a freeware toolkit which transcodes MKVs, PM me if you are interested.