Hi,
I use an Orbsmarkt S86 Pro (S922X with 4Gb RAM) together with CoreElec 20.5. The box works very well for my purposes (video streaming in LAN & media libraries (ARD & ZDF)).
Since I also have the box with me when travelling, I have set up a Wireguard connection to my home LAN (via Connman with the known problems that don’t bother me, see here: WireGuard | LibreELEC.wiki). This way I don’t have to take my video collection with me on a hard disc.
The WG connection works without any problems. I switch it on/off manually via GUI.
My only problem is that the connection speed is not sufficient to stream 1080p smoothly. 720p works.
I can also stream the same films via SMB at the same location with the same router using other devices and the same WG connection without any problems.
Test field
LTE router, currently approx. 50/25Mbit/s
Orbsmart S86 (connected via LAN to router)
MacBookPro
iPhone
WireGuard connection to the home LAN in each case (at home: 500/500Mbit connection)
Now I was wondering whether the hardware of the S86 (S922X) is not sufficient to keep the WG connection stable or to process the required data? Depending on the film, this could be 6-12Mbit/s.
Has anyone here already had experience of this or been able to take a measurement? Has CoreElec iPerf3 been installed? If so, I could use it to take a measurement.
Thanks for your reply.
That was also my first thought, which is why I then tested with the MacBook and the iPhone. I have WiFi here (whereby the S86 is connected via Ethernet). With these devices, I can play the films that don’t run on the S86 smoothly via SMB using the same router and WG. An iPerf3 test via Wireguard with MBP or iPhone required almost the full performance of the router on both devices (45/23Mbit/s). Therefore, my assumption was that it could not be due to the bandwidth but rather to something specific to the S86.
Hi,
I have installed “Speedtest” to test the Internet connection from the S86’s point of view, but unfortunately the add-on won’t work for me. The ping is displayed and then nothing happens. Download and upload rates are not displayed. (both in the LAN and with two WLANs, each without Wireguard).
I then installed the network tools and tested iPerf3 via Wireguard to my home LAN. I ran this almost synchronously via the S86 and a Macbook. The values are almost identical and within the measurement tolerance, as this is an LTE router. With the S86, it makes no difference whether I use LAN or Wifi.
So I can at least rule out the network as such. The only thing left to do is to process the data via Wireguard, which obviously makes too much work for the S86. I therefore thought that newer hardware might be able to improve performance here. Is there anything I can do to visualise the CPU load during playback?
The film I’m testing has an average bitrate of 8Mbit/s (h.265 in mkv-container) while there is a wireguard bandwith of approx. 20-40Mbit/s.
Hi,
I found the “top” command in ssh, but the maximum cpu-load was about 45%. This did not change when I tried to play a movie from the local LAN via Wireguard. On the contrary - while the movie stalled and data was reloaded, the cpu load was only 5%.
So right now I do not have an idea where I can find the solution for the problem.
In case someone comes across this thread later: I also tried the Wireguard installation via Entware and encountered the same problems. The connection works fine (ping and iperf work fine with approx. 45Mbit/s), but when I try to play movies via SMB, the movies stutter and I get a message that the source is too slow to play the movie smoothly.
Since, as described above, the Internet connection is sufficient (on both sides) and playback on other devices in the same location works without any problems, there must be another reason. I will do more research… .
With the help of a router that establishes a VPN connection to my router at home, I outsourced the VPN, so to speak. This is very practical because you can then access the home LAN with all devices while on the go (GliNet Slate AX (GL-AXT1800)).
However, I then had the same dropouts with this combination as before when I started the VPN via CE. Accordingly, the problem is not with the box or CE.
I then read that in CE 21.x the cache is accessible in the GUI. So I updated from 20.5 to 21.x and have been testing the settings for a while. According to my tests so far, the solution lies not only in the cache, but also in the “chunk size” settings on same page. Some days I can leave the default cache setting and need a higher “chunk size”, other days with other videos I need to set the cache higher. I have not yet found a clear solution here and continue to test.
I think you are running into well known performance issue with using Samba over any kind of high latency connection. You could jump down the rabbit hole of tuning Samba, tuning Wireguard MTU values, and using iptable rules for MSS clamping. Alternatively you could use something other than Samba.
