Loading time of smb shares

Platforms Apple TV
#1

I still have the problem that the loading time of the shares are taking pretty long. (James, i have sent you a video of that issue). I have this issue the most with smb shares, no problems with sftp shares for example. Im streaming from a mac mini. No big differnece if iam connected with wifi or ethernet.

I havent heard of that issue that much, so i wonder if i might be the only one. Any others with that kind of problems? Or could you give me a feeback if your smb shares load immediately?
Thx guys.

#2

Define 'immediately". My SMB shares on 1.8 mhz Acer 3600 takes a second or two to load up if the drive is awake. A couple of seconds longer if it is asleep. My movies are in the 800-1.4 gig size. Everything is wired with gigabit routers and switches.

#3

Ok, thx for your info. It takes about 7-12 seconds (all devices are not in standby/sleep mode).
Its not killing me, but im wondering why it does take so long compared to others.

#4

Same 7-12 sec to load SMB shares. On wifi ac or hard wired :frowning:

#5

Just to be a little more specific I did a time test with the movie “The Intern” that I have in my library.

950MB
x264
AAC
MP4 container

It took only 3 seconds to start playing on my wired network. The drive was fully awake.

I would be interested to know what type of files you are playing to get a 12 second start time.

#6

This is time to load the share.

On WiFi AC with “no other traffic” it is more like 5-6sec. Then it is 2-3 sec to load file. Since file loading times were so long (10-12 sec) on my MoCA wired network, James suggesting using WiFi AC. Other players load the share and start playing file almost immediately. Infuse is being improved, but still has a ways to go on load time.

#7

You have got me wrong. My movie files start very fast too. What i mean is the time that it takes to load my favorite (folder shares) where my movies are stored in. When i open the folder it takes about 7-12 seconds to see the content.

@debbiefl Exactly, thats what i meant.

#8

I have 4 favorite folders. Each one has about 60 movies in each folder. When I open a folder to display the thumbnail content it takes about 1.5 seconds to show everything.

#9

Thats a lot faster. Are you streaming from a windows computer?

#10

Yes. An Acer 3600. 1.8mhz. 4gig. Win7x64.

#11

In experimenting (with no other traffic), I found that after I loaded a share (5-6sec), the next share (on same NAS) I loaded only took 1-2 sec. My usual use case is load share, watch file(s) in same share. Also, I always load Infuse after ATV has been disconnected from power (not sleep). And finally, one share has 25 sub folders, which always takes 6-7sec.

To confirm, could you disconnect your ATV from power, then load Infuse, then load share. And report the elapsed time to load that first share?

Thanks for helping us.

#12

What kind of NAS are you using?

#13

Here are my times:

All apps cleared from background and atv4 unplugged for 5 minutes.

4.0.2
7 seconds to wake HD and see content in folders
1 second to see content in folders

Updated to 4.0.3. Did not turn off atv4. Cleared background of all apps. HD awake.

4.0.3
6 seconds to see contents in folder initially.
1 second to see contents in folder all other times.

I always have my atv4 on. I don’t put it to sleep.

#14

Thank you so much for taking the time :slight_smile: to help identify these load variances. Now, I just have to find another always on plug. Not an easy task in my house. HaHa

Smett: Any discoveries on your setup?

Hopefully, Firecore can still knock down that initial load time & share with subfolders load time, as we’ve seen some other players perform with an almost instant load time.

#15

The initially load takes about 7-12 seconds. I agree with “mrfatboy” that after that it loads faster. I never put my atv4 to sleep either. But every time i go back to the atv dashboard and reopen infuse it takes again those 7-12 seconds. James said in 4.03 the loading time was reduced, unfortunately not for me. As mentioned, (s)ftp shares load immediately.

#16

WDMyCloud (single disk)

#17

Smett, I did have all the same problems as you, at one time. Changes I made:

  1. Changed ATV4 from MoCA network to WiFi AC on Airport Extreme. Was getting 13-16sec initial load time, reduced to 6-7sec. (No new version of Infuse at that time, however I tested on WiFi without any other traffic). Reload 5-6sec.
  2. Cleaned up one share, deleted a couple of file/remnants, deleted one stray sub folder. Was taking 6-7sec (initial or reload), reduced to 1-2sec (on reloads), the inital load of the first share is still always 6-7sec. Another share with 20 sub folders continues at 6-7sec (initial & reload)
  3. Just updated to 4.0.3, no change.

I have heard others have had problems with SMB on Macs. Also, using UPnP on the same shares, initial and reloads are almost instanteous, like your (s)ftp.

#18

Smett:

Just added a 4 small file share on my Mac. It took 16-17sec for initial load. Was able to reproduce 3x.

Definitely, a fix needed here

#19

NAS itself will sleep if it is idle, it may take time to wake up NAS too.

#20

smb is horrible for speed and streams. implement NFS and allow us to adjust threads. Do a frametest from SGI with 2k resolution 4 threads 5000 frames on an smb share and an nfs. You’ll see why this is a joke.