I’m launching a movie/episode of a TV series via an http stream. When you set a video to a file and continue playback after a while, the application freezes with a multi-colored round download.
Judging by the forum, the problem is well-known and occurs in many.
The problem is reproduced exclusively on macos, there is no such thing on the iphone and apple TV, so the fault of the network connection is completely excluded and beyond doubt.
Specifications:
Mac mini M4 2024 16/256 - macOS Sequoia 15.7.5
Infuse 8.4.3 (8.4.5628)
Infuse 8.4.5 on macOS freezes for 7–10 seconds after pause/resume.
Important: the same file and same source work instantly in Infuse on iPhone, and also instantly in VLC on macOS. The issue also happens with a local file stored on the Mac SSD, so it is not SMB/network related.
I’m reporting a reproducible playback hang in the macOS app, with simultaneous
client- and server-side packet captures that pin it to Infuse’s player rather than the
server, network, or storage. This appears to be the long-standing Mac resume-hang from #45089 and #38446, now reproducible and capturable on the 8.4 playback core.
Environment
Infuse 8.4.6 (macOS), reported in server logs as Infuse-Direct/8.4.6, Device “Mac”
Mac: MacBook Air M4 · macOS 26.5.1
Source: Emby, Direct Play (no transcode) — original multi-GB .mkv
The file is fully buffered locally before the issue occurs
Onset: ~May 2026 (never saw this before); plausibly tied to the 8.4 “Supercharged
playback core” rewrite, though I can’t prove the exact build that introduced it
Symptom
After pausing (more likely after ~30s+) and then resuming, the video freezes with a
spinner/beachball for ~20 seconds before it starts. Initially resumes are instant, but after some time and several pause/resume cycles every resume has this delay.
Steps to reproduce
Direct Play a large file (no transcode) so it’s fully buffered.
Pause ~30+ seconds.
Resume → intermittently, a ~10–20s spinner before playback continues.
▎ Same issue on 8.4.8 (8.4.5690), and Infuse’s own log narrows it down a bit. Setup: MacBook Pro (Mac16,1, 24 GB), macOS 27.0 beta, Emby share over https, Direct Play, single server address. The file was already fully cached locally by Infuse when the stalls happened (the FileCache temp file had stopped growing minutes earlier), so server, network and storage are out.
▎
▎ Two things show up in the log:
▎
▎ 1. Every pause immediately fires a seek the user never asked for, and the player then sits in ‘Seeking’ for exactly 20 seconds before resuming. Two consecutive pause/resume cycles, both 20.00s:
▎
▎ 21:18:07.760 Media player state changed to ‘Paused’
▎ 21:18:07.769 Did seek to position 0.0
▎ 21:18:07.769 Media player state changed to ‘Seeking’
▎ 21:18:27.773 Will play, current player state ‘Seeking’ ← +20.004s
▎ 21:18:27.797 paused again → Did seek to position 0.0 → ‘Seeking’
▎ 21:18:47.806 Will play, current player state ‘Seeking’ ← +20.009s
▎
▎ That repeatability looks like an internal timeout rather than I/O. During the gap the log is mostly idle: a new HTTP 206 stream opens about 1s after the pause, nothing for 15s, both streams close, playback resumes at the 20s mark. “Scrobble pause sent” is also logged 20s after the actual pause, so the whole pipeline seems blocked behind whatever it’s waiting on.
▎
▎ 2. Scrubbing the timeline tears the whole player down (Will stop shared stream → ‘Closing’ → ‘Closed’ → new FCFFMPEGDemuxer), and for one seek the log reports “Seconds to start playing = 34.53”.
▎
▎ A side effect: the audio player gets reopened constantly (109 “Will open audio player” lines in ~24 min of playback). It happens with both the E-AC3 and AAC tracks of the same file, so it’s not codec specific.
it’s not the network, local files have the same issue. It’s not transcoding, all files have the same issue. Rebooting clears it for a short time and it comes back.
this bug is effectively forcing me to switch to another player. This should be an emergency fix. essentially a P0-level usability issue that has been sitting here for months.
I just happened to stumble on a fix for this today. I usually have Apple Music open during the day using it on and off, and at night I watch something with Infuse with it open. Whenever it would beachball during unpausing i would just curse and logout and back in again and it’d fix it.
I had tried a lot of things during the process of elimination, and this time I tried closing Apple Music. Closed Infuse. Opened Infuse again and BAM, no more beachballing! I repeated the experiment by opening Apple Music and waited maybe an hour or two and it did it again. Once again I closed Infuse, closed Apple Music, reopened Infuse, and no beachballing.
I think this has fixed it for me. Give it a try, let me know how that goes.
Update: You don’t even have to close and re-open Infuse. As soon as you close Apple Music, Infuse stops beachballing immediately.
