Boxee Box works perfectly for 15 mins and then can't play local video

[benrodian]

Boxee Box works perfectly for a while (less than 30 mins) and then gets tired and can't play local files well or at all. On some days it doesn't play any local files, even on fresh boot first thing in the morning.

I preordered my boxee box from Amazon. I've experienced some bugs along the way, but the newest firmware helped most of that. But for the last three weeks, my boxee has been completely unusable for local videos (which is 95% of the reason I bought this box).

Basically, boxee will work perfectly (ie. can stream 720p video over wireless from a drobo connected to my mac mini with no issues) for about 30 minutes each day. And then it will start choking on everything. Boxee will start having trouble browsing folders (little blue donut spins for minutes and then just quits), will freeze when trying to load a video, or will play a few seconds of the video and then buffer forever.

NOTHING changed on my network or home setup three weeks ago. Since then, in fact, I've upgraded my network and switched to wired connection because I thought that maybe I was getting wireless interference.

I didn't want to believe that the boxee was the problem, so I spent a lot of money and time troubleshooting. Please see below.

I'm willing to try any ideas you have. Thanks in advance, and sorry if I'm covering old ground. I've tried searching the forums and JIRA.


--------------
here is what I've done to troubleshoot (and how I've been able to isolate this issue to boxee):
- Factory reset boxee
- Wiped media database
- Using latest firmware
- Bought a high end dual band wireless N router
- Connected the boxee and mac mini directly to the router with brand new gigabit cable and turned off the wireless network
- Attempted to play files from and external and internal drives on the mac mini (neither worked well, proving that it's not a problem with the hard drive)
- Attempted to play files from a brand new, freshly formatted eternal drive on the mac mini
- Used kismac to make sure there aren't any competing wireless networks
- Turned off/on upnp, changed wireless channels, moved the router around my apartment, etc
- Moved the local files to an SD card and plugged it into boxee. played all my 720p .mkv files perfectly off the SD card

My network setup:
drobo (firewire 800)----mac mini (with SMB guest sharing)----(gigabit)-----Netgear wndr3700-----(gigabit)-----boxee

other devices (like a laptop) can stream 5gb 720p videos wirelessly from the mac mini without stuttering, so I know this isn't a network speed issue.

[darcilicious]

Can you connect a USB drive directly to the Box and play files from there?

It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities that the Box is dying...

[gregwa]

Does it sound like this? (Well, without the time of day)

"Last night we tried to watch a couple of tv files that I have previously check and are good on movie player. The first played without a hitch. The second, which we started around 19:50 or so. At first it ran fine then started to video freeze about every 7 seconds. Audio continued fine, but became unwatchable."

If so, please comment on bug #BOXEE-8623 in the JIRA bug base.

[benrodian]

Does it sound like this? (Well, without the time of day)

"Last night we tried to watch a couple of tv files that I have previously check and are good on movie player. The first played without a hitch. The second, which we started around 19:50 or so. At first it ran fine then started to video freeze about every 7 seconds. Audio continued fine, but became unwatchable."

If so, please comment on bug #BOXEE-8623 in the JIRA bug base.

Thank you!

[joe77]

Have there been any fixes to this issue? i have the same problem with my boxee box. local media streams perfect from my win7 64bit laptop from a USB drive, but when the boxee box tries to stream the same file it freezes and begins to fast forward after about 30- 45 minutes in- very frustrating...the only way to fix it is to unplug everything, let it sit for a while then start it all back up. i think my box is just a lemon.

[darcilicious]

Can you connect a USB drive directly to the Box and play files from there?

Is this with just one particular video file or all files? Are these a particular kind of video file (xvid, 720p mkv or ??)

[darcilicious]

P.S. it may also be related to a bug posted in this thread: http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=35759

[joe77]

they are all .VOB files, it happens every so often with (what seems like) no rhyme or reason. not just one file; i have about 100 movies ripped, of them 10 or so have been unwatchable on the box. the boxee interface on my win7 64bit laptop works perfect with the same file.
i have taken one of the files that continues to disrupt- the incredibles. i have connected directly to the boxee box with a powered HDD and a non powered hdd- both do the same. i have tried to stream the file over the GB network from a win7 pc and from a NAS drive with the same results.
When i play the same file on my WD live box or on my PC using the VLC player it works perfectly.

i have plenty of other ways to watch the same media, which i think helps troubleshoot the problems, but its frustrating to not know whats going on...

[darcilicious]

Did these VOBs ever work for you on Boxee Box? Or did this just start happening with the latest (may 18) release?

[joe77]

i had the same issues before the 5/18 update. I'll take a closer look into the details of the files that have issues vs the files that stream perfectly every time.