Choppy video streaming from samba on wireless network

Great news! I just streamed a 30 minutes video from my samba share and I haven't had any disconnection.

Just for the sake of testing, I completely removed samba (apt-get remove --purge and deleted /etc/samba) from my Ubuntu box and reinstalled it with a vanilla config. After that I reconfigured everything as it was before. Tested the connection and the share was up and running again.

After reinstalling and reconfiguring my samba share from scratch I did a couple things on my Linux box:

- Added "netbios name = <computer name>" on smb.conf
- Added "socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_KEEPALIVE IPTOS_LOWDELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192" on smb.conf
- Changed "wins support" to yes on smb.conf
- Installed winbind
- Restarted samba
- Configured my Ubuntu box as a WINS Server on my macbook (SYSTEM PREFERENCES -> NETWORK -> ADVANCED)

I'll keep testing with longer videos on the next couple of days and keep you guys posted. Hopefully it'll sove the problem once and for all!

You may want to look at this link, http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=938902
The suggestion is to use NFS for the OS X connection and Samba for the Windows machines. Quote "if you are running OS X and want to mount a share, use NFS, and not Samba. But obviously, you still need Samba if you have Windows computers. So both NFS and Samba servers are now running on my Ubuntu computer."

Not at lot I can add but best of luck.

regards
Frank

Thank God! I thought I was the only one having this problem.

I also have a Ubuntu box with all my movies and I stream videos wirelessly from it to my macbook using XBMC (ubuntu) and Plex (mac). At first I thought the problem was the wireless G speeds from my previous router so I bought an Airport Extreme Base Station and connected it via ethernet to my existing ADSL/Wireless router on a bridge configuration. Both ubuntu and macbook are now connected at 300Mbps but I'm still experiencing occasional choppy video. The wireless connection stays up at all times so it's not a wireless connectivity issue.

I tried NFS but the problem persisted. I also installed Windows 7 RC on my bootcamp partition and had the exact same problem. Which means it can be an issue with the Airport on the macbook. I don't have another computer with Windows so I cannot say if it would work better on a PC.

At first I suspected the problem was with ubuntu so I posted this on the ubuntu forums: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7324538

As you can see on the description I was getting those messages on the mac logs:

26/05/09 6:02:19 PM KernelEventAgent[198] tid 00000000 type 'smbfs', mounted on '/Volumes/MediaCenter', from '//ed@ed-linux/MediaCenter', not responding
26/05/09 6:02:19 PM KernelEventAgent[198] tid 00000000 found 1 filesystem(s) with problem(s)
26/05/09 6:02:19 PM loginwindow[197] 1 server now unresponsive


At first I thought it was a problem with the arp tables on the mac. I created a static entry for my ubuntu box. Now the connection is better and the samba volume doesn't disconnect as often and when it does, it reconnects after a while. Before the arp table static entry I had to reconnect manually:

26/05/09 6:02:32 PM kernel smb iodreconnect: Reconnected to ed-linux

One other thing to add. Before installing 10.5.7 (i.e running 10.5.6), I had this problem and the video used to get frozen (samba share disconnection) once or twice on a 1 hour video and reconnected 15 to 20 seconds right after it. Not a big deal. Now it happens several times (5 or 6 times on a 30 minute video) and it takes around 30 to 40 seconds to reconnect.

Message was edited by: edvar

I don't use wireless at home but I have seen suggestions that disabling IPV6 on the network interfaces both wireless and ethernet has cured these type of problems. Worth a try if you not already disabled it.

regards
Frank

Tried all of that but the problem still persists:

27/05/09 6:16:28 PM KernelEventAgent[198] tid 00000000 type 'smbfs', mounted on '/Volumes/MediaCenter', from '//ed@ed-linux/MediaCenter', not responding
27/05/09 6:16:28 PM KernelEventAgent[198] tid 00000000 found 1 filesystem(s) with problem(s)
27/05/09 6:16:28 PM loginwindow[197] 1 server now unresponsive
27/05/09 6:16:28 PM loginwindow[197] 1 server now unresponsive
27/05/09 6:16:58 PM loginwindow[197] 1 server now unresponsive
27/05/09 6:17:39 PM kernel smb iodreconnect: Retrying connection to ed-linux
27/05/09 6:17:39 PM kernel smb iodreconnect: Retrying connection to ed-linux
27/05/09 6:18:13 PM kernel smb iodreconnect: Reconnected to ed-linux
27/05/09 6:18:13 PM KernelEventAgent[198] tid 00000000 received VQ_NOTRESP event (1)
27/05/09 6:18:13 PM loginwindow[197] No servers unresponsive
27/05/09 6:18:13 PM loginwindow[197] No servers unresponsive

Found these links that might help:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=938902
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20051107090652912

Will test and keep you guys posted.

I'll change the cache settings on Plex and test. However if caching on the application is the problem why do I get this on my system logs:


26/05/09 6:02:19 PM KernelEventAgent198 tid 00000000 type 'smbfs', mounted on '/Volumes/MediaCenter', from '//ed@ed-linux/MediaCenter', not responding
26/05/09 6:02:19 PM KernelEventAgent198 tid 00000000 found 1 filesystem(s) with problem(s)
26/05/09 6:02:19 PM loginwindow197 1 server now unresponsive

Found this you may find it useful.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/992466.html

regards