The suggestion to disconnect everything but essentially two devices from my network has, at this point, narrowed things down GREATLY. It took a while because I wanted thorough tests and because I don’t just have 3 or 4 items on my network. *grin*
I do have a set of Netgear Powerline networking devices that sits on my network to connect the Seagate BlackArmor NAS and the attached HP 1215 Color Laser printer because they happen to be in an ‘inconvenient’ place in terms of networking (although I may drop a line to them since the speed of the powerline network combined with the issue it may be causing here pretty much closes that case) and when that ‘circuit’ of my network is disconnected - the problem no longer exists. One cable going from the router to the powerline network and everything goes south. I don’t think it is the Seagate NAS nor the printer - but honestly - have not tested that yet.
Everything else can seemingly be connected and the Western Digital box works with PlayOn and the Synology NAS as it should - smooth and happy.
Bizarre how the other two devices do not have this problem, but as I said, I will probably eliminate the ‘weird’ circuit by just dropping a network line in place.
I really appreciate the discussion and attention my small problem got. Thank you for all your suggestions and listening to me gripe.
Hopefully someone else might come across this and have some of the same devices (Netgear XE104 85Mbps Wall-Plugged Ethernet Switch) on their network and avoid having to disconnect 10+ items and testing the connection while they add back one at a time, rebooting and trying again… And doing it all over time to make sure they play the video(s) long enough, etc.
