Freeze at start of play lasts a few seconds

[Dean L. Surkin]

I've posted about this problem before, but I've got some new data about it: I played a file directly on my HTPC (which I rarely do), and noticed the issue. This means it's not an issue with the Echo (or at least, not always). Has anyone run into this issue? My HTPC is plain vanilla, the anti-virus/firewall software is the one built into Windows 7 (64-bit). I have no extra codecs installed. My HTPC has 16 GB RAM. The program disc is an SSD and the file disc is a Samsung 2 TB drive.

Thanks to any who can help.

[Dean L. Surkin]

I should further mention that I never noticed the problem on the Echo in my den, which is what made me think it's an Echo-related problem, not a server-related problem. I have to admit I'm greatly puzzled, because now I'm not sure where the problem stems from.

I guess my next step is, anytime I see the temporary freeze on the Echo, I should take a look at how the file plays back directly on the HTPC.

[Beefcake550]

I have this problem as well. It occurs on both my HTPC and Echo device. I don't know what causes the issue. It seems like it may be some kind of buffering problem. I was going to play with my network settings to see if that solved it at all. My HTPC records directly to an SSD and then offloads to a server over the network.

[exigence7]

Can you hear your hard drive spinning up? If you have an SSD and a regular hard drive, the hard drive will eventually power down. It then has to spin up when a file is accessed.

[Dean L. Surkin]

It's a very quiet system, and I don't hear the hard drive spinning up. I've considered this issue, but I don't know if there's a way to tell (other than by sound). If that's the issue, perhaps adding padding to the beginning of each recording would help. Otherwise, start some other activity needing hard disk access before I hit play...but there should be some other kind of fix for this?

Yeah, I got it: replace my 2TB Samsung drive with a pair of 1 TB SSDs (about $1,200)...

[Beefcake550]

It's definitely not the HD spinning up....I turned off spindown for all of my hard drives (or at least I think I did...now I have to double check!)

[Dean L. Surkin]

It's definitely not the HD spinning up....I turned off spindown for all of my hard drives (or at least I think I did...now I have to double check!)

Thanks for your input. I wish someone could give a definitive diagnosis on this. Every time it happens, my wife gets to say "so this is the system that solves all our problems?"

The only answer I've had for her so far is that I see some people reporting issues with the TiVO Roamio.

I'm considering connecting an over-the-air tuner to my HTPC, in addition to the HDHomeRun Prime, and seeing if the recordings made from the over-the-air tuner exhibit fewer glitches. Beefcake550, what tuner do you use?

[christoph86]

It's probably the echo. I've had multiple problems with mine that should just work. It's an inferior product with no support unfortunately

[barnabas1969]

Every time it happens, my wife gets to say "so this is the system that solves all our problems?"

Dean, try to grab one of those $99 Black Friday deals on a new XBox360. Then you can answer your wife's question with, "Yes."

[erkotz]

Is your hard drive spinning down? The PC could be spinning up the storage disk and hanging while it waits

[Dean L. Surkin]

Is your hard drive spinning down? The PC could be spinning up the storage disk and hanging while it waits

It's possible. I'm trying to find the power setting that controls hard disk spin-down in Windows 7, but the only control I see sets the time before spinning down. Should I just set that to 12 hours, or something like that, or can I disable the spin-down?

[erkotz]

I believe the same drop-down has a disabled option at the top.

[holidayboy]

I think that setting 0 mins will disable spin down.

[Dean L. Surkin]

I believe the same drop-down has a disabled option at the top.

Thanks, I'll take another look.

Last night, we had a momentary freeze on live TV, which is something I haven't seen before. My wife sometimes reminds me that we never had this with the Scientific Atlanta Cablevision DVR, but I remind her that we also don't lose recordings and scheduled recordings with WMC.

[Dean L. Surkin]

I think that setting 0 mins will disable spin down.

Thanks. I'll take another look.