Delving deeper into the Roku "Loading..Please Wait" issue

General Discussion
21

Wolfpack,

Based on my results last night I think we can explain what you’re seeing.

Basically, as detailed in the other thread I padded down the signal from my amplified antenna by 5dB and things got very much better, in fact almost all of the “Loading please wait” issues went away - except when operating a microwave oven in an adjacent room.

With RetiredEngineer’s help we came to the following conclusions:

1.) The video decoder in the Roku is very temperamental and really wants to see a pretty pristine stream to perform well.

2.) In my setup, the excess signal at the OTA interface was causing the transcoder to either drop packets or to operated with weird timing. In either case it was creating a video stream that was anomalous enough that the Roku decoder was having problems. Apparently the behavior of that decoder is to back up and try again when it encounters difficulties.

3.) Once the really bad OTA issues were resolved, it exposed the fact that I was getting packet drops over the Wifi interface that were creating similar difficulties. A microwave oven, being in the same 2.4GHz band is a pretty decent interference source, and if your SNR is low on that interface it is liable to cause dropped packets.

Clearly the excess signal on the OTA interface is somewhat unique to my system, however if you are running a distribution amp you might see that as well. Of course, anyone running the Roku over Wifi is liable to see dropped packets there.

I would suggest that you go into the secret WiFi menu in the Roku and look at your SNR. The key sequence to get to that menu is >Home< (5 times), >FF<, >PLAY<, >REWIND<, >PLAY<, >FF< (that’s from memory, google it if that doesn’t work).

In my setup my WiFi SNR was in the 10~12 dB range, which is apparently too low. By repositioning my WiFi router and antennas I got that up to about 18dB and I’m not seeing any issues. More SNR would probably be better and wired ethernet the best.

My guess is that the Tablo developers were testing with some fairly good OTA and WiFi signals and they just never saw these issues. If I were them I’d buy myself a click attenuator and put it between my antenna and the Tablo and see what happens as I step the signal up and down. Also, making sure that the WiFi network I’m testing against was something like real world would probably be a good idea. In a lot of test labs you see people testing against a wifi network where the router and nodes are all on one bench, which isn’t worst case to say the least.

The Roku video decoder seems fragile beyond what is good for a robust product. I don’t know if Tablo wrote a decoder that is part of their app or if the decoder is a service (API) provided by Roku, but it seems it could be improved.

22

@Dan_Cooper except I am not using any wifi and in my case these are previously recorded programs and the delay is on every item i try to playback on the roku. (including programs from last year that played without issue)

23

Then I would look at the signal quality on your OTA TV interface. Issues there will also cause this problem. What is your antenna like? Is it amplified?

Unfortunately, the signal quality indicator on the channel scan provided by Tablo can be deceptive. My impression is that what I’m looking at there is received signal power. The problem is, if you have a lot of multipath or your amplified antenna is over driving the Tablo receiver your receive signal strength can look fantastic and you’re still going to be making lots of errors that aren’t correctable that the transcoder is going to have trouble with. A strong corrupted signal is just as bad as a weak signal.

ETA: Skipped over the fact that you have recordings that you believe to be good. This should take the OTA interface out of the picture. I would think you are looking a networking problem on your LAN. Something dropping packets?

And of course, there could well be multiple problems in play here.

24

@Dan_Cooper the problem exists on older recordings that previously played fine. I’m 100% certain that the issue I’m seeing has little to do with the OTA signal at this point since all the equipment is identical to previous times when it played ok and the only change was the recent updates.

25

Yeah, I agree, see my amended response above.

My guess is a networking issue. Would be really nice if the Tablo app could give you some insight into packet loss rate. They certainly have that info in the logs they are looking at.

26

OK, Three chears for the Amazon Fire Stick!

I just performed a very good “A:B” comparison with the Roku Rokucast wireless stick. Both on the same 5ghz local home network. Both plugged in side-by-side on my SONY A/V receiver.

The Amazon Fire Stick played my “test” recording with no problems; same as the recording played on my IPhone 5. In addition the program icons loaded much faster than they did using the Rokucast device.

I quickly double-checked the Rokucast again and the LPWs were still there at the same locations.

So there you have it. Perhaps the non- complaintants that have never shown up in this tech support community have been using Amazon Fire Sticks or Fire TV all along and have been happy campers from day one.

I look forward to progress being made on the Roku Tablo app performance.

27

I’m looking at buying another streaming device for another TV. Was planning on buying a Roku 2 or 3. Makes me wonder if I should be buying a Firestick instead.

28

I for one use 3 roku devices in a wired environment and have not had any of these Loading or buffering issues. So it is not as simple as Fire stick and Fire tv people are noncomplainants and all roku people are complainants.

29

I think the deal is that Roku works just fine on a really clean network. If you’re seeing dropped packets or other issues, the codecs in the other streaming devices tend to handle those issues more gracefully whereas the Roku codec seems to stumble and fail pretty quickly.

You’ve probably got a really clean network and the wired connections are probably working in your favor.

30

You may well be right - just didn’t want to leave the unintended impression that all roku connections lead to problems and Fire problems do not. Your posts have been among the most interesting. Would love to hear Tablo react.

31

Yeah, would really be interesting to get Tablo’s take on things.

Do they agree that the codec in the Roku isn’t as robust as the other streaming devices?

Is that codec their work or is it a service provided by the Roku device?

If the former do they have any idea of what the problem is and how long to fix it, if the latter does Roku acknowledge that there is an issue?

You really kinda hope the problem is in their application as getting a fix out of Roku could well take awhile.

These would be useful questions to have answered. I need to buy some additional streaming devices. If Tablo understands the issue and believes it can be fixed readily, I’d like to know since I’d probably go ahead and buy some more Roku boxes. If not, I probably need to cut my losses and transition over to another platform like Fire Stick or Android TV. I’d certainly like to stay with the Roku platform if possible.

32

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33

That’s what I assume, but if so, why don’t we see these issues on Netflix or the other apps? I never saw anything like these issues on Netflix and presumably they are seeing the same dropped packets that Tablo is.

Maybe it is a compatibility issue between the coder in the Tablo and the decoder on Roku’s end?

34

@Dan_Cooper -

Tablo uses the standard Roku player. What we do is basically say, “Roku, here’s a URL, play this.” We have very little to no control after that happens.

Regarding us vs. Netflix, this is really an apples to oranges comparison for a few reasons:

  • Netflix has perfectly engineered streams in multiple bit rates that adjust dynamically based on network and hardware conditions whereas we have a single stream that may have errors depending on the quality of the inbound or recorded broadcast and many other factors
  • Netflix is a 45 billion dollar company with millions of users around the world which gives them not only an advantage in terms of development dollars but sway with technology companies like Roku
  • And speaking of sway, having your button ON the Roku remote has got to get you an ‘in’ to the braintrust at Roku. While we have a few contacts we can and do use to work on issues, our user pool is still small in comparison so we don’t get the face time or attention that we would like at this point

As we find issues that are 100% within the Tablo app and fixable, we tackle them quickly. There were two issues last week with Roku that we found, fixed and pushed.

There are also issues that are on the Roku side that we can find workarounds for which we will code around.

Then there are issues that are more nebulous and difficult to diagnose, either because they rest with Roku firmware or devices which we don’t have a lot of insight into or because they may be happening because of other external problems like customer networks.

These take longer to fix because we need to rely on our contacts at Roku to assist or we need to gather tons of data in order to find the right workaround or configuration.

Long story short it’s a complex situation with a lot of moving parts and we’re doing our best to find the right solutions.

1 Like
35

It might help to know what the “IF - THEN - ELSE” tests are that send the Roku player to the “Loading…Please Wait” screen and if there are multiple such test statements.

I know a hot engine turns on a warning light and low fuel turns on a warning light in my car. I would like to know the conditions that turn on the LPW light on my Roku running the Tablo app.

36

I really appreciate the detail explanation of the situation being faced by the Tablo development team!

With that said, would you say that the Tablo development team has better control on the Android platform (Fire TV, Nexus player…)? I might stick with the Android platform device if it has better chance of getting new features and bug fixes down the road.

BTW, what about the Apple TV? Do you also face similar challenges there as Roku?

37

AND THIS is why I love these guys @TabloTV

38

@TabloTV - Is the tablo engineering team able to replicate this “Loading … please wait” issue internally with the Roku? There is mention that the tablo team thinks it is a communication problem between the Roku and Tablo; would it help if I can provide a packet capture of that communication when I reproduce the LPW problem? Would be happy to assist in that way if it provides some value. If it’s already been done internally, then I guess it wouldn’t be too helpful…

39

Another clue. While using a “slow” fast forward using the Roku app on my “test” recording I see a totally black thumbnail at the point where the Roku app freezes (I saw two such black thumbnails earlier in the recording but the Roku app eventually made it past them).

Continuing on I did not see any more totally black thumbnails in the recording, even though many more LPW events were observed when playing the program with the Roku app.

When I played the recording using the Amazon Fire Stick it continued on past the black thumbnail where the Roku had frozen with no problems. I expected to see a 10-second black screen at that point during normal playback but the Fire Stick did not show the black screen at all. The Fire Stick app only showed 30- second jumps but I still saw a black thumbnail in the series at the expected point.

I wish there was some way I could upload at least the problem portion of my recording to a Tablo FTP site for their use to analyze.

40

On second thought, I guess a black thumbnail could be legit since it would only represent one frame in the 10-second segment. I need coffee…

Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every now and then. I may have goofed on this one. Sorry.