Streaming HD Video from NAS to WDTV Live Streaming

Setup:

Lacie 5-big NAS – 10TB
D-Link DIR 655 Router
WDTV Live Streaming Media Player
All on Cat6 wired connections
All on latest firmware

I have had the above setup for over 3 years, streaming MKV and AVI files, from SD to high bitrate 1080p with no issues.

In the last week, freezing and stuttering issues have started.  There have been no changes made to firmware or any new devices or AP’s added to the network.

While streaming, the video and sound will suddenly freeze for 1 or 2 seconds, the video will then continue in fast forward, as if catching up to the point it should have been at had it not frozen, and then the sound will kick back in as soon as the video is back to normal speed and the streaming will continue with no issues, until it happens again later.

This happens intermittently, but the frequency has slowly increased.

I’ve done factory resets to the DLink Router and WDTV and have replaced all ethernet cables with brand new CAT6 cables. The issue persists.

My question is, what is the likely culprit, it seems unlikely that the router performance would degrade suddenly, while the Lacie Raid Management is not reporting any issues, yet the WDTV is playing the files through USB with no issues.  I placed some of my files onto a Seagate 4TB HDD, plugged via USB to the WDTV and the files played through fine.

As mentioned, the above setup has had basically no issues for the last few years, with the issue only starting recently.

Unfortunately I don’t have another router to test if it’s the D-Link.

Any thoughts on which device might have the issue?  Do these symptoms sound like network throughput issues?  I’m beginning to doubt it’s the WDTV.  Could it be the Lacie stuttering in it’s streaming out of data, or the router stuttering?

I’m totally at a loss and can’t seem to think of any other ways to possibly narrow it down.

Streaming HD Video from NAS to WDTV

normally, I’d say bandwidth issue

which is what it stounds like, except that you’re on a wired connection

when’s the last time to rebooted all those devices

NAS

D-Link

WD

??

additionally, you could try switching protocols

if your on smb

switch to nfs

or vice versa

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Do you have any network switches in the chain of devices?

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Do you have a computer on that router that you could try streaming to from the Lacie NAS? Might tell you if the router or the NAS is having any issues. If router is choking the throughput from the NAS, you might see the same issue playing the files in an app like VLC etc.

Woth a shot.

-P

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Sounds like something failing.  Would not be surprised if it was the DLink. and if so probably its power supply (wall wart).  Have had exactly this same sort of intermittent problems with DLink units when their power supplies began to fail (I have several spares now).  Heck, last weekend I suddenly lost access to my office machine.  Went in Monday and machine was up but no Internet connection…switch power light on but no connection lights, swap switch for identical new one…same status…hah, did not change power supply…yup, that was it!  Older switch was fine; wall wart not fine but switch still had power light on.  My advice:  buy a cheap switch and see if it is the DLink, if it is, it is probably just the power supply.  Or try to find a different power supply to try.  Just be aware that wifi routers take more current than many devices.

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Thanks so much for your replies everyone!

Ok so here are my answers:

  • I did a factory reset and multiple reboots on the DLink and WDTV multiple times in the last few days.  No change unfortunately.  As for the Lacie, I did a full format and rebuild about 12 months ago after one of the disks failed and I added a new disk to the Raid.

  • I currently have both SMB and NFS enabled on the Lacie.  But considered I’ve never had issues until recently, I"m thinking it must be a mechanical fault rather than a settings issue.

  • No network switches, nothing in between the Lacie and Dlink and nothing in between the Dlink and WDTV.  I do howvever have a DLink DAP 1360 Wireless AP on the network.  The DAP loses connectivity every now and then, probably once a week or once every 2 weeks and I have to do a reboot to reset the connection.  I always assumed it was the DAP that was the issue, but maybe it’s been the Dlink all along and now it’s being weird with wired connections as well?  If it’s the DLink that’s the issue that would totally make my day because if it’s the Lacie and the Raid is saying no issues, that means I have no wway of knowing which disk has the problem and I have to wait until it fails.

  • I’ve considered streaming from the Lacie to my PC but again I only have the 1 router currently available to me so if the issue happened I wouldn’t know if it’s the Lacie or DLink.

Ok so I’m thinking I’m going to buy a new router because ever since I bought the DLink people were like, “bad choice”.  So I think I might go for the Netgear R6300 and then come back and report if the issue persists.  Pray for me that it’s not the Lacie…

Well, good luck.  It does sound like something failing to me, too, and could well be the router.  Reason I asked if there was a switch, becuse over the years I have two failed; different brands, too.  Last one was last month; intermittent.  Troubleshoot  indicated it was the switch, so I swapped it out with a new one/same model I had on hand and all is well. (BTW, new network switch; same PS, so it was not the PS but the switch.)

Well it’s bad news.  I bought a new router but the issue persists.  So we know it must be the Lacie.  I even found my old Gen 2 WDTV Live and same issue.

It’s just really frustrating because if it was an issue with one of the disks on the Lacie, surely the Raid management should tell me there was an issue with a disk.

Could it be a processor or RAM failure on the Lacie?  How would I even get that checked out?

Feliner wrote:

Well it’s bad news.  I bought a new router but the issue persists.  So we know it must be the Lacie.  I even found my old Gen 2 WDTV Live and same issue.

 

It’s just really frustrating because if it was an issue with one of the disks on the Lacie, surely the Raid management should tell me there was an issue with a disk.

 

Could it be a processor or RAM failure on the Lacie?  How would I even get that checked out?

not sure, usually a NAS will have some way to check the usage information

available free space, etc … I would think available ram, used ram, etc … would be there as well

you mentioned you have both smb and nfs enabled

but which one are you using on the wd

windows shares or linux shares

try switching between them, see if one is better

Sorry to know the new router did not fix things.  Well, there isn’t much equipment left to check, so it might be the Lacie as you suspect.

Do you have a drive with some of same videos on it you can share on your PC, and not the Lacie unit? If things work that way, the Lacie becomes even more of a suspected culprit.

Unfortunately my PC is stuttery as it is lol.  Time to get a new one.

But, what I can do is plug a HDD via USB to the new router and stream video via the network to see if it’s the network adapter on the WDTV.  Is that possible?

If it is the network adapter, what are my options?  I bought the WDTV over 12 months ago from Officeworks and who knows where my receipt is now.  Is there an RMA proces with WD?  Can I replace the network adapter myself?  Or should I just buy a new WDTV?

Failing that I might also try getting a new  power unit for the Lacie as I’m reading power unit failures are fairly common?

By the way, when I say “Network Adapter” I mean like the network card or whatever component is within the WDTV - sorry I’m not very hardware proficient.

Feliner wrote:

Unfortunately my PC is stuttery as it is lol.  Time to get a new one.

 

But, what I can do is plug a HDD via USB to the new router and stream video via the network to see if it’s the network adapter on the WDTV.  Is that possible?

 

If it is the network adapter, what are my options?  I bought the WDTV over 12 months ago from Officeworks and who knows where my receipt is now.  Is there an RMA proces with WD?  Can I replace the network adapter myself?  Or should I just buy a new WDTV?

 

Failing that I might also try getting a new  power unit for the Lacie as I’m reading power unit failures are fairly common?

yeah, you can plug in the hdd to the router,

as for replacing the adaptor in the WD, it’s not possible/feasible

I’d recommend doing as much troublshooting as you can before buying another unit

it could be something like mismatched MTU sizes, etc …

in the router set MTU to 1500 (some routers might say jumbo frames, jumbo frames are larger than 1500 and should be off)

and also look for flow control, turn it off

these settings should also be available on the lacie and on a PC

Yep, don’t be in a rush to replace the WDTV or anything else right now.  (You lost the last bet by buying the new router.)  You seem to be doing a good job at troubleshooting, and sometimes these things take time.  I worked on a problem off and on for almost  a year, and finally confirmed that it WAS the WDTV causing it.  I installed a new same unit I had been holding as a spare, and that fixed things up forever.  But, now I am out of spares!

Thanks so much for everyone’s help.  I truly do appreciate it.

So streaming from the Router’s media server with a HDD attached via USB worked perfectly.  Watched one of my highest bitrate movies with no dramas.

Next step I"ll try a new power supply for the Lacie.  If that fails I"ll back up everything I need off the Lacie and try a reformat.

Might take me a few days to get a new PSU as most places I"ve called are out of stock.  I"ll update again after I test with the new PSU.

Hmmm, instead of a reformat, (try a non-destructive activity first); do a defragmentation.  If you have been adding and deleting lots of videos over an extended period of time, a severely fragmented disk(s) could be causing issues.

Thanks Mike, but I can’t seem to find a defrag option on the Lacie.  I’ve even googled it and not found one article.  I think I remember reading somewhere that because of the file system it doesn’t need to be defragmented?

Anyway, it’s the Lacie 5 big Network 2 if you know any differently?

Assuming it has a standard Linux filesystem on its disks, it is generally true that defragmentation is not required (and defrag utilities may not even be available).  Though there will be some fragmentation, it is typically limited, and I have never seen it affect performance (as I have many times with NTFS!).  ext4 is particularly good at avoiding fragmentation (but does have a defrag utility).

ncarver:   thanks for chiming in here. Just so the OP knows, you are one of our resident experts on Linux, so I appreciate your insight.  BTW, what do you think our friend’s problem is with his issue?

since we’ve narrowed it down to the lacie

I’d still recommend trying various protocols

while it wouldn’t necessarily solve the issue,

maybe one protocol performs better, and would be an effective work around

other idea’s, just a guess maybe the NAS is overloaded,

maybe torrent client is downloading, while smb, nfs and DNLA and other stuff is going on

and possible, scheduled cron jobs, or other maintenance scripts are running, etc …

usually these NAS devices are relatively speaking low power and low resource systems

I wonder what cpu and ram usage looks like when he tries to stream from the lacie