testing results

[Sparkss]

After much testing and stress I have to conclude that I miss my Dune 1.0 and have even moved our TviX 6500a back into place putting the Prime 3.0 back on the bench, so to speak.

I have tested file based and BD Rip playback. Believe it or not I have had better success with streaming BDs than files, especially any high bitrate mkvs (but even some lower bitrate files, and also issues with browsing the directories on our NAS.. very painful experience). To put it into context my wife commented that the movie we (tried) to watch this morning was the worst she had ever seen, mainly because of the awful playback issues we had while trying to watch it. I noted 59+ buffer underruns (on the Dune 3.0), where even the TviX did a better job playing it back (but we already know of limitations on that HW playing back 1080P mkvs, so it wasn't perfect, but still better than the prime 3.0... which is sad).

I have a QNAP TS-509
HP Procurve GB switch (unmanaged)
all cat6 cables, even down to the player

for what all this cost the last thing I should be experiencing is speed issues or dropouts/freezes.

I have expermiental GBit adaptor disabled (wish that HDI hadn't gone the cheap route with this and had stuck to how they setup the Prime 1.0). I have disabled fast disc access (that seemed to improve the stability.. a little). I use fixed IP (not DHCP) and have tested both NFS (unfsd on the QNAP) and Samba. Both suck (sorry for being so blunt), with the Samba being the equivalent of scatching my eyes out when trying to navigate the directories shared on our NAS. Whenever it hangs up (the player freezes for up to 3 mins.. at least that it the longest I have waited) a reboot of the player returns network playback and browsing speeds back to normal, which tells me that it is the player, not the NAS. I am using the FW that came w/ the unit. I tried the beta, and it just is no where near mature enough (I know, it is "beat" after all). It had less performance streaming and the files that did play would error/restart the player when they stopped (if you hit stop, or they reached the end and stopped on their own).

I sincerely hope that they get these stability and playback issues resolved to at least bring it up to publish (promised) specs. And I do sincerely miss my Prime 1.0 (it is in for warranty service). Even though it had issues due to what we suspect was bad flash memory (for the FW), it was more stable and usable than the 3.0s are currently.

I did actual speed tests and came up with pretty much the same results that Rudku did here : http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/showpost.php?p=168030&postcount=105

But they just are not stable. Anywhere from 5 to 45 minutes into a movie it all starts to break down. I wonder if we could get a USB GBit Eth adaptor and use that instead ? Since it is only file playback that has the issue, is it possibly the player not being optimized and leaking memory ? I did see some minor issues w/ BD playback on a single BD Rip (in several spots), but 4 others played just fine, so I don't want to point fingers at the Prime 3.0 for that one.

I am going to perform some more testing, but right not just wish my 1.0 would get back from being serviced. Any hints, tips or suggestions (about network performance) are welcomed.

[HDI_fw_dev]

Very strange and unexpected results.

Do I understand right that you tried to use, in particular, the factory firmware with ALL settings in Misc / System set to their default values (experimental gigabit support DISABLED, everything else ENABLED), and even in this case you got problems with file playback with both NFS and SMB access to your NAS?

Please note:
- Setting experimental gigabit support to ENABLED could cause the described problems (hangups, crashes, stuttering).
- Setting other settings in Misc / System to DISABLED could cause some of the described problems (stuttering) (especially, disabling "Fast Disk Access").
- Using the latest beta firmware could cause some of the described problems (when SMB used: as it just turned out, the additional SMB opimizations introduced in the latest beta do not work properly for some users).
- Gigabit network speeds are not needed for Dune 3.0 models to ensure fast playback, and the network playback code is already optimized in a very big degree (enough to ensure smooth playback of any content). Everything SHOULD work fine (works fine for us, and also works fine for many/most/all users, see their reports), and it is unclear why it does not work fine for you (if you used the factory firmware and the default settings).

It is extremely important to confirm that some problems took place exactly with the factory firmware and exactly with the default settings in Misc / System (as described above). Are you fully sure in this? What exactly problems you got in exactly this case (default fw with default settings)?

[Codeq]

@HDI

I work as a sofware developer and while reading I'm wondering what kind of useability politics your company is pursuing. Why it is possible to setup the player in such a way that the playback is not working? You described some known problems which are only avoidable if the customer knows about those issues. For example enabling Gbit doesnt sound like sth that can cause stuttering for me at all.
My suggestion is to disable every beta, alpha or whatever funtionallity that can cause a malfuction. Keep it as simple as possible. Average users will honor.

For all those freaks who like to play around and are proud to be a beta user make a cheatcode public which enables advanced functionallities. And if your development is at a solid state make this piece of bit factory standard.

AND ;-) you dont need to answer such questions again and again...
;)

[Kat-CeDe]

Hi codeq,
a beta is a beta to test things. If a "normal" user tries a beta he should keep his fingers away from options he does not know. I am quite sure that the release version will have stable settings and perhaps a warning beside dangerous settings.

Ralf

[Mart1001]

Even better it's stated in the latest beta release note already:


- Added a warning when the user attempts to choose non-recommended
settings in the "System" setup section.


I also believe that HDI is very professional doing it in this way.
I also like it when they give much background information so in the open instead of a closed beta-team.

[Sparkss]

Very strange and unexpected results.

Do I understand right that you tried to use, in particular, the factory firmware with ALL settings in Misc / System set to their default values (experimental gigabit support DISABLED, everything else ENABLED), and even in this case you got problems with file playback with both NFS and SMB access to your NAS?

Please note:
- Setting experimental gigabit support to ENABLED could cause the described problems (hangups, crashes, stuttering).
- Setting other settings in Misc / System to DISABLED could cause some of the described problems (stuttering) (especially, disabling "Fast Disk Access").
- Using the latest beta firmware could cause some of the described problems (when SMB used: as it just turned out, the additional SMB opimizations introduced in the latest beta do not work properly for some users).
- Gigabit network speeds are not needed for Dune 3.0 models to ensure fast playback, and the network playback code is already optimized in a very big degree (enough to ensure smooth playback of any content). Everything SHOULD work fine (works fine for us, and also works fine for many/most/all users, see their reports), and it is unclear why it does not work fine for you (if you used the factory firmware and the default settings).

It is extremely important to confirm that some problems took place exactly with the factory firmware and exactly with the default settings in Misc / System (as described above). Are you fully sure in this? What exactly problems you got in exactly this case (default fw with default settings)?

The experimental GBit is disabled. I also switched from DHCP to manually assigning an IP.

I will re-enable the "fast disk access" but disabling it seemed to improve playback stability a little (but I also had changed to manual IP assignment at the same time). Right now I can play most everything except high bitrate mkvs (1080p high action/bitrate) and I did notice some audio dropouts on one BD rip. But since it was only one out of 5 or so tested (end to end) I am willing to chalk that up to possibly a bad rip.

I know that when it stutters/freezes I show "XX buffer underruns" in the Info display and once that happens when/if I finally get control back I need to reboot (power switch) before I can even browse again. One time when it put me back to the directory of icons after I hit stop it was literaly pasting one icon every 5 - 10 seconds across the screen. Naturally I got up and rebooted (there should really be a "cancel network action" button of some sort available.. if there already is one I couldn't find it :(). My wife also reported instances where browsing was sluggish and unresponsive.

I have a test movie that gives me "stutters" that I can test with. Will creating a dump file help you any with this ?

That is actually another point I was going to start a thread for. We really need a sticky for the procedures to create a dump and where/how to correctly send it to HDI (like zip and Email, or use Mediafire, or something). I know the steps are out there buried in a couple of threads, but a sticky would be much better imo :)

[Sparkss]

Very strange and unexpected results.

Do I understand right that you tried to use, in particular, the factory firmware with ALL settings in Misc / System set to their default values (experimental gigabit support DISABLED, everything else ENABLED), and even in this case you got problems with file playback with both NFS and SMB access to your NAS?


I apologize. I realize that I never actually directly answered your question in my previous reply.

You are correct. With the factory FW and all settings in Misc / System at their default settings I had major issues with playback of any medium to high bitrate files (that played fine on our Prime 1.0), and even browsing, of our NAS using NFS and SMB. SMB performance was so bad that we don't even try that any more. It almost always requires a reboot when it inevitably hangs up. I was using DHCP but have switched to used a fixed IP (I also turned off the time synch to elimiante any unnecessary network traffic). These changes seemed to help. Now it is just the high bitrate files that have problems.

When I do a "read test" it clocks in @ 11 MB/s, as others have reported in their speed tests. But it is the instability that is the issue. It just doesn't seem to maintain that speed during playback :(.

Do I have a bad unit ? (I truly hope not).

[HDI_fw_dev]

Here are instructions for debug dump file generation:

http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22260
http://dune-hd.com/support/feedback

[HDI_fw_dev]

> With the factory FW and all settings in Misc / System at their default settings I had major issues with playback of any medium to high bitrate files (that played fine on our Prime 1.0), and even browsing, of our NAS using NFS and SMB. SMB performance was so bad that we don't even try that any more. It almost always requires a reboot when it inevitably hangs up. I was using DHCP but have switched to used a fixed IP (I also turned off the time synch to elimiante any unnecessary network traffic). These changes seemed to help. Now it is just the high bitrate files that have problems.

So do I understand right:

1. Factory firmware + default settings + SMB: major issues with playback of any medium to high bitrate files (that played fine on our Prime 1.0), and even browsing; hangups.
2. Factory firmware + default settings + NFS: major issues with playback of any medium to high bitrate files (that played fine on our Prime 1.0), and even browsing.

What exactly "major issues with playback" did you get (1) on SMB and (2) on NFS? Could you please describe this in more details? Do I understand right that for NFS you have never encounter hangups, only stuttering? If you could generate/send debug dumps after reproducing the problems (on factory firmware with default settings), it could be helpful.

Besides. Have you tried to run the read speed test on a huge file (10GB+)? Was the speed constantly good or decreased over time?

[Mart1001]

I do not have the problems so far as described here with NFS from W7 and my Thecus Nas, but I had to change for each of 3 my Dune's 3.0 on my network the setting tcp or udp with nfs, maybe this could help you Sparkss if you haven't tried it already.

I play mainly large bd .m2ts streams, bdmv's, .iso's but also some 1080p mkv's on a 1gb cat 6 network. I did made readtest's and let them run for minutes.

Tcp is giving me low speeds on 2 Dune's (2MB/s-5MB/s) on 2 different networkplaces, udp is giving me 11MB/s constantly on them.

On the other networkplace with the third Dune Prime 3.0 happens exactly the opposite, 2MB/s-5MB/s with udp and 11MB/s constantly with tcp.
The strange thing is that on this networkplace I had first one of the other 2 Dune's and had to use udp for a constantly speed of 11MB/s?

So for me it looks like it has something to do with my Dunes and not the network.

I had before this 3 Dune Primes 1.0 and I always got very high speeds constantly with NFS on from my PC's and Thecus Nas so more prove for me that my network, which is exactly the same now, isn't a problem.

Why are my tcp/udp setting so different, it should gave the same speeds but from what I know udp is better for constantly throughput?

[Sparkss]

@HDI_fw_dev
"major issues" were such things as browsing taking 2 - 3 minutes to enter a directory/display the icons (albeit it one w/ close to 100 icons to display), and audio dropouts, video artifacts/tearing, freezing during playback. the most common being freezing w/ video issues being a close second and audio dropouts being much more rare. Usually a reboot of the Dune woudl resolve the browsing problems, but some videos simply won't play (higher bitrate mkvs). Once I changed from DHCP to Fixed IP it seemed to stabilize, but I still have troubles w/ higher BR files. The speed tests stayed contant, but what I did notice is that a typicl read test would finish in 10 - 15 minutes and sometimes it would take up to 45 mins into a movie before playback problems would present themselves.

I plan to do some heavy testing of our NAS (iostat the HDs, nfsstat the connection, etc) to make sure that there isn't something else at play here. I may even move some of the problematic files to a different drive within our NAS for testing (I prefer separate voluvme to a single RAID volume, for my own reasons).

@Mart1001
I have see where others had similar experiences w/ TCP vs UDP for their NFS connection. Therotically TCP is better for a "dirty" or "noisy" network connection (or one of extraordinary length, although I forget the cable lengths off hand now) and UDP is preferred for everything else. UDP is a stateless or connectionless connection, which may sound odd, but basically there is no ack w/ UDP, the sender just sends it and the receiver catches it. TCP has overhead for syn/ack and is better for troublesome connections.

At least that is how I understand it. But my TCP/IP Fundamentals is way rusty :).

Makes me wonder if the "dirty" part of those connections isn't the Dune LAN connector itself ? Since, like you, I have other media players (Dune 1.0, TviX 6500a) that use the exact same cables and connection and don't (or didn't) exhibit those problems (w/ UDP).

[Sparkss]

I apologize for no updates. We are dealing with a sick family. Everyone in our family has been beaten down this week, even our 2 yr old, but we are all finally on the uptick (I think). I will try to get to some testing over the weekend, but don't want to "endanger" the ability to play our daughters shows since that is all that is keeping her "up" through all of this.

[Mart1001]

Sorry to hear you all are sick, but family first! Get well all.

[MrPark]

Hello,

I just got my prime yesterday.
i am very pleased with it..everything works from bluray driver(no noise),to HD adio with m2ts files.
i am very pleased with it.

My only problem is..i bought it at divxplayer with the internal 500 gig drive.
but it doesnt see it in the menu..so i cant acces it.
does this sound familair to anyone..or has divxplayer just sent me one without the internal hd?
If any one can help..please let me know.

thx

[Sparkss]

Thanks for the well wishes Mart1001. I think we are all on the mend now, which is a good thing. Not 100%, but a whole lot better than last week.

@MrPark,
Can't help you there, sorry. I don't use internal HDs in any of our Dunes


A bit of an update. I tested that problematic file earelier today and it played fine, even topped out at 30 mbit (according to the Info display). The only change from before was from DHCP to Fixed (and now I do have fast disc access enabled). I went digging through the system logs on our TS-509 and found an innocuous entry early that day (of the first test). That entry was one line, with no details, just stating that it was recovering the journal on one of the drives. It just so happens to be the same drive that held the previously problematic files. Other than that one system log entry I could not find any other way to tell that an e2fsck was occurring. It is formatted ext4 which doesn't required it to be unmounted for such file operations, and since it was system/auto-initiated I didn't know it had been kicked off. So all I can guess is that the file system recovery was in progress at the same time I was trying to play those files, which would most definitely cause the issues I was seeing earlier. I had checked SMART status and everything was green, but that just monitors the hardware, not the file system itself. dumpe2fs showed all clean also, so I hadn't thought to dig back through the logs for that journal recovery entry... at least not until everything played just fine today, that is. So aside from feeling stupid I wanted to post these results so that HDI wouldn't waste any more time trying to help troubleshoot my problem (and focus on the issues that really need them :)).

[Malignant]

Sorry, but i got to laugh about this.

I made this mistake as well myself one time.
I was trying to stream while uploading to my NAS.
Normally that works flawless ( especially since i've got UNFS installed ) and all that happend was I/O errors etc.

Pretty much dragged all cables acros the room, replugged everything.
Started cursing and was at the point of throwing everything out, then i noticed my NAS was rebuilding it's Raid 5 array :P

Shit happens ( at least once you will overlook this ) :)