[MPlayer-users] -cache problems ( 'Cache not filling' OR 'Cache not responding!' errors)

[Reimar Döffinger]

On Tue, Aug 09, 2011 at 11:38:33AM -0700, Lonni J Friedman wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 11:16 AM, Reimar Döffinger
> <Reimar.Doeffinger at gmx.de> wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 09, 2011 at 10:51:08AM -0700, Lonni J Friedman wrote:
> >> On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 10:38 AM, Reimar Döffinger
> >> <Reimar.Doeffinger at gmx.de> wrote:
> >> > On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 10:59:22AM -0700, Lonni J Friedman wrote:
> >> >> The playback seems to work fine even with the errors present,
> >> >> so I'm not yet sure whether the caching functionality is truly
> >> >> failing, or if something else (cosmetic?) is wrong.
> >> >
> >> > Those are no errors, just warnings.
> >> > And it's mostly a performance issue, meaning MPlayer sits there waiting
> >> > for data when it could already decode the next frame.
> >> > I changed the messages to indicate that it is a performance issue.
> >> > Better suggestions on how to formulate the messages welcome!
> >>
> >> Thanks for your reply.  If those aren't errors, then why isn't the
> >> cache filling?  Even if I didn't see the warnings, something is wrong,
> >> as the content stutters as mplayer waits for data.  This problem
> >> definitely wasn't present with the older version of mplayer, and if I
> >> switch to using the old mplayer binary, the stuttering goes away (as
> >> the cache successfully is kept full).
> >
> > That might depend on format etc., but try pausing a short while after
> > starting to allow the cache to fill.
> > Problem then is that -cache-min is not working in some case.
> 
> I wasn't aware that mplayer would continue to fill the cache even if I
> had paused the content.  Isn't one of the numbers in the mplayer
> output supposed to show the current cache fill percentage?  The dox
> state this, but its example output doesn't match up with the current
> mplayer version's output (the number of columns isn't the same).

It's the last number, and it will also be displayed in the "PAUSED"
status if it changes.

> OK, so are you saying that there was no change in behavior with
> respect to caching between the old(er) version of mplayer that I was
> using, and the new version, other than these messages?  Seems odd that
> I don't get the stuttering with the older version, but with the newer
> version.

There were a lot of changes. Generally they greatly increased
performance over (higher latency) network links.
To do anything about it I'd need more
information, e.g. which exact revision started it, or with what kind
of files it happens, a east way to reproduce, ...