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Severe buffering with V6 box iPlayer app

SpooRancher
Tuning in

From yesterday I have been getting severe buffering using the V6 box iPlayer app. A program will run for maybe 5 minutes, then start buffering, getting worse until I get only a second or so of garbled video at a time. Up till then, performance has been perfect.

Whatever it is seems also to cause other apps issues - if I then switch to Prime Video it won't connect for maybe 10 minutes.

Only iPlayer seems affected. If I switch to apps from TV, and go directly to Prime Video, it all works with no buffering - whatever is affecting iPlayer seems to poison other apps (memory leak?)

Broadband is fine (steady 380Mbits down, 38Mbits up with no issues). TV is fine. The iPlayer app on a tablet is fine, no buffering at all, so it's not the BBC side.

Restarting the V6 box doesn't help.

Is VM having an issue with its connection to the BBC here, or have the BBC changed something that is breaking the iPlayer app?

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

japitts
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

A few possible here. In no particular order...

Do OnDemand programmes play ok? Try if you're not sure - find a programme in the backwards EPG, and press "OK" to "Watch from CatchUp"

Your V6 gets its internet connection from your home-hub, which can be wired or wireless - how is yours connected?

If it's wireless, what's the signal strength? Home > Help & Settings > Settings > Network, and check the top-right.

In a similar vein, try a TV speed test- Home > Help & Settings > Help > (top of screen) > TV Speed test.

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See where this Helpful Answer was posted

3 REPLIES 3

japitts
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

A few possible here. In no particular order...

Do OnDemand programmes play ok? Try if you're not sure - find a programme in the backwards EPG, and press "OK" to "Watch from CatchUp"

Your V6 gets its internet connection from your home-hub, which can be wired or wireless - how is yours connected?

If it's wireless, what's the signal strength? Home > Help & Settings > Settings > Network, and check the top-right.

In a similar vein, try a TV speed test- Home > Help & Settings > Help > (top of screen) > TV Speed test.

I'm a Very Insightful Person, I'm here to share knowledge, I don't work for Virgin Media. Learn more

Have I helped? Click Mark as Helpful Answer or use Kudos to say thanks

Ah, thank for you very much for that answer. I knew where to get network status from, but I had missed the TV Speed test (it's hidden off the to right so you need to go and look 😀)

Anyway, I think I had several things going on here to confuse the issue.

First off - I have a 350/35 profile on fibre. The V6 box connects with wifi, but my VM Hub is in modem mode, and I use an Asus AC68U router. Signal strength was 72%, link speed 144Mbit/s, so should have been good. But the TV speedtest reported "too slow".

Now, I had earlier moved the V6 box from near the left of the TV to near the right. Which is where the TV power supply is, and I surmise the TV's wifi antenna. Turning the TV wifi off got the speedtest up to "slow but usable". Moving the V6 box away from the TV got it to "All OK". And indeed, streaming was OK.

Didn't last, though. Next day back to some buffering, but not as bad. TV speedtest: "Too slow".

And then, I happened to be using a PC with only 2.4GHz wifi (all my daily-use devices connect on 5GHz or use cable). Throughput was dire.

I tested the 2.4GHz wifi properly from a laptop. Signal strength good, link at 144Mbit/s, but a pathetic and variable 10-20 Mbit/s down (the 5GHz wifi was giving a steady 360 Mbit/s). 

So my Asus router's 2.4GHz side had gone bad. A quick restart (first time for many months), and the laptop gave me a steady 110Mbit/s down. The TV speedtest said "All OK" and streaming didn't buffer.

I should have twigged that, but not using the 2.4GHz wifi for anything myself I hadn't noticed.

Some interesting facets, though: iPlayer could not cope with the poor throughput, but Prime Video was fine. Does the iPlayer stream use a larger packet size, I wonder? And the progressive degradation, where I saw an exponentially-decreasing time between buffering pauses, and a subsequent inability to start other streaming services, makes me wonder if the iPlayer app was unable to handle a poor connection, possibly leaking memory or other resources. And the V6 box is a bit prone to electrical and wifi interference that can make a poor wifi connection worse.

So thank you for the pointer to the diagnostics, and all seems to be well now 😁

Hi @SpooRancher,

 

Welcome back to our community forums.

 

Sorry to hear you are having issues with buffering on BBC iPlayer on your V6 box. We can understand the frustration caused by this. 

 

We are however glad to hear @japitts was able to help with this. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need any further help.

 

Thanks,

Akua_A
Forum Team

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