Issues with streaming from NAS

gam3r · 19 Dec 2010 at 22:55

I am really tearing my hair out with this issue! I wasn't 100% sure where to post this exactly because I'm not sure if this is a network issue or an OS issue.

First of all, I have a Linksys NAS200 coupled with a Samsung 2TB drive which is connected to my O2 Wireless Box router. I use a set of homeplugs to stream video files from the NAS to my bedroom on my MacBook Pro.

Up till now, I have never had any issues with streaming to my MBP through the homeplugs, but recently if I try to stream a video, it starts off fine, then 10 minutes in my macbook will present me with a pop-up "Server Connections Interrupted" along with the IP address of my NAS. At this point all video will freeze/stop playing, then a few minutes later it resumes. This occurs every 5 minutes.

Initially I thought this was a buffering issue, but now I am 100% sure it is not because I have never had any problems like this. I usually stream with Plex(a Media Centre frontend) but have the same issues with VLC.

When playing a video file with VLC over the network, it will do the same and present me with "VLC couldn't open/find the file xxxxx".

I checked to see if the NAS was going to sleep, but this was not the case.

So, if anyone has any ideas on what may be going wrong, please drop a line here.

If a mod thinks this post would be more appropriate/get a better response in another section of the forum, please don't hesitate to move it.

wolvers · 19 Dec 2010 at 23:44

I know this seems a bit stupid, and you've probably already tried it, but have you tried rebooting the NAS and/or router? I had an odd issue playing back a video from my NAS the other week and in the end a reboot of the NAS sorted it out. It was odd because apart from that it seemed to be functioning normally.

gam3r · 21 Dec 2010 at 22:36

Usually in the past this would fix any issues I had (restarting) - but in this case it doesn't make any difference/seem to be the issue.

Alfie · 22 Dec 2010 at 09:44

The first thing to try is connecting the NAS directly to your MBP. If the problem goes away it's your home-plugs or cabling. Try 100 pings to your NAS IP from the MBP and see if you get any latency or packet loss.

Report back

gam3r · 22 Dec 2010 at 11:52

Alfie said:
The first thing to try is connecting the NAS directly to your MBP. If the problem goes away it's your home-plugs or cabling. Try 100 pings to your NAS IP from the MBP and see if you get any latency or packet loss.

Report back

Believe it or not lol, the NS200 is a retarded piece of kit. You can't connect it directly to a PC, it has to be connected to a router.

The funny thing is though, I have a Windows HTPC downstairs connected in the same way to the NAS(homeplugs) and it doesn't suffer from the above problems, which only leads me to believe it has something to do with the way the shares are mounted on the MBP/OSX.

Alfie · 22 Dec 2010 at 12:39

did you do the ping to check for packet loss and latency?

GeezerButler · 22 Dec 2010 at 13:07

Tried swapping the homeplugs around to see if you have a duff one? I had problems with a homeplug a while ago - was OK for intermittent traffic but streaming caused problems. I think one of the homeplugs was having some trouble maintaining traffic flow. They were also running very hot under load so maybe that had an impact.

There's nothing on the electrical ring between you and the NAS that might be interfering?

alx · 22 Dec 2010 at 13:21

gam3r said:
Believe it or not lol, the NS200 is a retarded piece of kit. You can't connect it directly to a PC, it has to be connected to a router.

The funny thing is though, I have a Windows HTPC downstairs connected in the same way to the NAS(homeplugs) and it doesn't suffer from the above problems, which only leads me to believe it has something to do with the way the shares are mounted on the MBP/OSX.

Try connecting you MBP directly to the router via a cable (or wireless) and that way you should be able to rule out if it's the homeplugs or not (which is a start).

gam3r · 22 Dec 2010 at 18:00

Alfie said:
did you do the ping to check for packet loss and latency?

Yup - Can ping it fine without packet loss and a latency of around ~2ms.

GeezerButler said:
Tried swapping the homeplugs around to see if you have a duff one? I had problems with a homeplug a while ago - was OK for intermittent traffic but streaming caused problems. I think one of the homeplugs was having some trouble maintaining traffic flow. They were also running very hot under load so maybe that had an impact.

There's nothing on the electrical ring between you and the NAS that might be interfering?

As far as I know I don't think so - will try swapping homeplugs around and report back.

alx said:
Try connecting you MBP directly to the router via a cable (or wireless) and that way you should be able to rule out if it's the homeplugs or not (which is a start).

I will try this also and report back. Edit - Just tried this. Same problem. about 5 mins into streaming a video on the MBP with direct connection the router I got the "Server Connections Interrupted" message. I tried to stream the same file on my windows PC directly connected to the router and it streamed flawlessly.

The VLC log shows this:

main debug: Buffering 99%
main debug: Buffering 99%
main debug: Buffering 99%
main debug: Buffering 99%
main debug: Buffering 99%
main debug: Buffering 99%
main debug: Stream buffering done (19075 ms in 3201 ms)
main debug: Decoder buffering done in 0 ms
main warning: PTS is out of range (-36910), dropping buffer
main debug: audio output is starving (49494), playing silence
main warning: late picture skipped (-9678 > -22920)
access_file error: failed to read (Operation timed out)
avi warning: failed reading data
avi warning: failed reading data
avi warning: all tracks have failed, exiting...
main debug: EOF reached
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty

gam3r · 23 Dec 2010 at 12:21

I think I may have fixed this, needs more testing but I found after playing around with my router settings that the NAS was obtaining a conflicting IP address with another device, so I assigned the NAS another free static IP address.

Could this have been the issue? Seems like it so far.

Skidilliplop · 24 Dec 2010 at 12:09

Yes an IP conflict can cause all manor of strange symptoms. 10 minutes is a reasonable timespan for ARP aging too so it is possible that the IP ->MAC translation on the NAS was correct until it aged and an ARP broadcast went out to renew it and it recieved a reply from the other device, hence updating it's ARP table and sending the stream packets addressed to the other device's NIC.
Though this problem should never have happend! Devices such as servers and NAS should always have a static IP address outside of the DHCP range. Or at the very least, if you must use DHCP use a static reservation for the NAS MAC address.