i've never had a problem with xbmc playing movies or videos before, but just recently for about a week its been acting all screwy.
all my videos i've already had on there work fine, its just the ones that i try to copy to my xbox now are messing up. they'll only play for about 5 seconds and then they'll exit on me, and its also strange that using the directional pad to fast forward/rewind doesn't work with these videos, but it still shows the video in good quality and the total time of the video too.i've also tried recopying files that did worked before and they still worked again

i think the main reason they don't work is because converting/mergeing with certain programs. but they work on my compute fine, just not my xbox

heres some of the stuff that i've done, and all these files ended up with that 5 second exit thing
converted several quicktime movies to .avi
copy movie to dvd2xbox, sent it to my pc, then merged the movie using a .vob program
did the same thing but then converted it to an .avi
using that same movie, i converted straight to an .avi without merging
i ripped a movie using dvd2xbox, and it didn't even work on the spot
and i ripped that same movie using a dvd ripping program on my computer and it still did the same thing

like i said all these files work fine on my computer, it could be some of the new programs i've used but dvdx2xbox screwed up a movie too for some reason, and i've used that alot without any problems.
or could it be my codecs or something like that, i never updated anything so i don't know.

sorry if this is confusing, but i'm confused right now and need some help

well i have noticed that some "high bit rate" files do that

also depending on the container it may have problem playing it because it is running out of RAM and then just stops

one thing to try is to increase the cache then see if it still stops at the same part or does it go a little longer

maybe the cache is where it is playing since it is very fast memory but it is small so only a fiew seconds can play

not really sure but try this

i raised the cache on the harddrive from 256 to a meg and nothing changed

and the bit rate for the files aren't that high so i don't think that's the problem

bump

Do you use a switch before your xbox is connected? If so try unplugging the switch and plugging the xbox into the network directly. I had the same problem and it ended up being a Bad Switch so I removed it and my xbox worked fine.

Another way to know if you have problems with the network or its the xbox is using a laptop on the same wire the xbox is plugged in and trying to Stream media. If the media works on laptop something is wrong with xbox...if it does not work on laptop either...something is wrong with the network.

Hope this helps.

i had a similar issue..reduced the screen resolution down to 480p from 720p (both XBMC and video player) and all videos play fine

i don't know what you mean by switches and stuff, i don't use any of that

and i don't think theres anything wrong with my xbox, i still have hi res movies on there that work fine

so only over the network it does this

you can FTP it to the HD and it will play just fine?

if so it has to be the cache or your network is to bussy, I found out if I am downloading a lot of torrents at like over 2 mbps combined speed it has trouble playing stuff over the network, I guess the router is to bussy

so what exactly should i do about this? like i said earlier, i tired raising the cache, but who knows if there was something i wasn't doing right. and if the network is busy what should i do to fix that

I've been having the exact same problem. Lately, most of the TV shows and stuff I've been trying to watch will run for a couple minutes at best, and then quit. I can't fast-forward or use the directional buttons to skip through, but the current/total time is accurate.

I was starting to suspect that my files were being corrupted by "the man" But, the same files that fail to play on XBMC work just fine in WMP and VLC, as well as my Divx capable portable DVD player.

Tonight I was trying to look into this problem some more. Not sure if perhaps my drive is starting to become fragmented. It's a 500gb with about 400gb on it, and has never been filled all the way, so I don't know how fragmented it could be. I also was looking into getting newer codecs, but couldn't find anything yet. Then I saw this thread with the exact same problem, and the mention of changing the cache. I tried bumping the cache up to 512 when the problem first appeared, with no help. Then, to 1024, with no improvement. Just right now, I turned it off completely.

So far it's working. I've successfully played at least 4 videos that weren't working before, and I don't notice any drawbacks to having the cache disabled. It may be to early to tell for sure, but it seems to have fixed it.

first i want to say that i too have a 500gb, almost brand new. i just hope that that isn't a problem


anyway, i did a whole bunch of testing
ok so i changed the cache to as high as it can go on the harddrive section, i didn't realize that i had to recopy the files before but this time i did, all the movies seemed to play a little bit longer but they still exited.

i tried turning the cache off and recopying and i got strange results, movies seemed to be intertwined with each other like 2 different movies were the same movie for some reason, but still other movies would exit.

but now heres a solution that actually worked for me but it's still kind of strange
so heres what i did, i changed back to 4096kb cache, and while in the xbmc i transfered a movie over, then i have to play that movie, it still doesn't work so i delete it again, then i transfer it back over again and play it. sometimes it will work but if it still doesn't i have to delete it again and just transfer it again and it will work

so basically in order to play a movie or video i have to delete it twice, but i HAVE to play it after each time i recopy it in order to work
and even still i still get strange results with one of my movies, if i play it it has glitches, but it didn't do that before, and then a couple of my other movies won't work again, they won't even enter the movie, but if i recopy them once then they'll work again

this whole thing is fucking with my head, i basically got my movies working but i don't want to have to copy everything one at a time twice
can someone please explain why this is so screwy

Yeah... it would suck if the HDD is the source of all these problems. I have a Seagate Barracuda. XBMC's info screen shows it as an ST3500630A

Some of the videos started working after I turned off the cache, but a few didn't. I transfered those files back to the PC. I could watch more of the file, but after a few minutes the video would start smearing and acting wierd and then quit. I then put them on an SD card and stuck it in the DVD player, and they would act like they did on the xbox; I coudn't seek through the file and it would quit after a minute or so.

I'm really hoping the HDD isn't trashing the files. I'll have to start checking the videos before I transfer them to the XBOX. If they play before, but not on the xbox, and then don't work when I transfer them back, I guess that will mean it's the xbox hdd, or perhaps the FTP program (cute FTP).

shit, i think i have the exact same seagate as you, i wonder if anyone else is having the same problem with a 500gb seagate
but i can't really see how the hard drive is the problem, all of my game, emulators, and other programs work fine
plus my movies worked fine before, it just started acting up recently
this problem is really pissing me off

Yeah. It's bullshit. It practically renders my xbox useless. I only use it for XBMC, and now it's not even doing that right.....

well you should try the method i described above to get movies working, i'm curious to know if it works for you too.

-enter xbmc
-set cache to 4096kb (not sure if this matters or not)
-enter a movie thats screws up, then exit it
-using flashfxp, or whatever you use, delete the movie and recopy it over (while still in xbmc, and while keeping the movie highlighted)
-reenter the movie again, if it still doesn't work exit it again
-delete it and recopy it again
-play that same movie and it should work

basically you have to play and delete a movie 2-3 times, but you have to watch it every time you recopy it to work, if you don't it for some reason won't even enter the movie for me.

this actually got every single movie working for me except one, it'd be interesting to know if this works for you too because this is a strange thing for it to work like this

Think I found the problem.... I'm willing to bet my HDD was partitioned with 16kb clusters when I formated it with the slayer auto-installer. If that's the case the result is data corruption once you try to write past 256 gb. Just so happens, my videos stopped working once I hit about 260 gb... I'm working on backing up my G drive so I can repartition it with 32k clusters.

Here's the link that had some info on the problem.

http://www.XS Filter -/html/postp147919.ht...9ce4cfdab60ec90

I have the exact same problem as you guys .
I have 2 xboxes , 1 with a 320gb harddisk (maxtor) and another with a 500gb (western digital) .
I tried copying all the movies from 1 xbox to another (from within XBMC , with the easy autodetect function so they 'see' each other) . It started copying , but after some time it gave me an error . All the movies were taking up space , but i couldn't see them on the new xbox (500gb one) . I tried 3 times (CFR 3 days) , then gave up on it .

After that i tried with xtoolbox 0.41 , it worked . all movies and files from my 320 are on the 500 now .
The 320 one has around 50gb free , the 500gb one has 200gb free .

Then every time i copied files on the 500gb one , i could not play the file or skip/fast forward in it . it would quit before it finished (after a few seconds/1minute) etc . exactly as you guys have .

If you say this problem from 16 bit partitioning is something from 250gb+ disks , i guess i should see the problem on the 320gb xbox too , when i put just a little bit more movies on it ?

Did anyone try to partition with 32bit clusters and did that fix the it ? i tried everything from changing cache, recopying files,change rendermethod,upgrade XBMC and what else but it doesnt work .
(BTW RicoR , the link in your post isn't working)

thanks

Once I found out about the corruption when writing beyond 250GB I deleted a bunch of stuff, and lo and behold, everything worked great again... Movies that weren't working before would work, everything was just great.

I ended up reformating just the G: partition (it's my only one with more than 250GB) with 32kb clusters using xbpartitioner.

I haven't really been able to test it all out though, I could only backup about 100GB of stuff off the drive because I didn't have enough free space on my computer, so getting back to the point I was before is going slow as I re download all my stuff.

My link was edited by the forum. (Didn't know linking to other forums was a no-no, sorry forum gods.)

If you google "xb partitioner pezzar" you'll find a very well written guide on using the partitioner.

FWIW, I did run into a little snag when I went to re-partition... The partitioner wouldn't let me re-format to 32kb clusters because my bios didn't have the correct LBA48 version or something like that. No big deal, just needed to flash the bios to a newer one. When I was getting the bios I thought that the v1.6 bios would be a newer (ie, better) version, so I used it.... and bricked the damn xbox. Turns out, that v1.6 means you're supposed to put it on a v1.6 xbox, and it'll make a 1.0 xbox die. Fortunately, I was able to flash over the wrong bios by booting off the the cromwell bank, and all is well now. It just took a few hours and a lot of stressing out to sort out... just a heads up, in case you go down that same path.

i just came across this problem n was wanting 2 know Did anyone try to partition with 32bit clusters and did that fix the it ?