[henriquetadeu]

Hi, I need help... i'm having some problems and I believe it's only on kodi.

When watching any movies on kodi with the AVR, audio randomly freezes for like 1 or 2 seconds.

When using headphones (WASAPI), it seems to work just fine on Kodi. It seems that the problem happens only when I'm using the AVR with KODI.

The same videos works flawless on MPC, both with headphones and AVR.

I know it freezes for like one second, but it's really annoying, specially when watching horror movies cause the audio suddenly stops at random scenes.

I have no idea what else can I do to fix this... Thanks in advance!

RX 6600XT ----> DP ----> DELL Monitor 165hz
RX 6600XT ----> HDMI ---> Onkyo Receiver 7.1






Complete LOG

[CrystalP]

Thanks for all the provided information. I'm not very knowledgeable about audio issues, but there is a weird thing when starting.

Kodi tried to open a different device from the one in your screenshot with WASAPI first (SPDIF - Realtek Digital Output (Realtek® Audio)) and failed:
 

Code:

CAESinkWASAPI::Initialize: Retrieval of WASAPI endpoint failed. - HRESULT = -2147467259 ErrorMessage = Undefined
CAESinkWASAPI::Initialize: WASAPI initialization failed.

Then falls back to the first available DirectSound device, and succeeds in opening that (name: Speakers - Alto-falantes (USB Audio CODEC)


The passthrough device is opened successfully for playback, and sync problems seem to happen around the 1 minute and 2 minutes mark before playback is paused then stopped.

There may be something wrong in the file, looks like some timestamps go backwards, does the problem happen frequently in the same place for that file?
Sometimes remuxing helps straighten things out, it's possible Kodi is less tolerant than mpc.

If not repeatable but truly random, there is not much to go on... Hopefully another team member is more knowledgeable about audio.

[henriquetadeu]

I see, but even when I disable all the devices and leave only the Receiver (HDMI), the problem still persists.

And yes, the freeze occurs at random times, not repeating at the same scene.  It happens with all sort of movie files (remux, avi, etc). 

On MPC k-lite, it never freezes.

[CrystalP]

Hopefully someone else has an idea. Did you do the usual troubleshooting steps, like updating drivers, making a list of what changed recently that sort of coincides with this, ...

[henriquetadeu]

All the GPU and MOBO drivers are up to date...
This is my first setup and I'm new to kodi... So I always had this problem on Kodi... 
When I'm using the bluetooth headphones on kodi, it works fine... It seems to be a kodi + receiver problem, cause on MPC it works fine.

[CrystalP]

The difference is likely passthrough vs not-passthrough. You can try disabling passthrough and Kodi will decode the audio and send it to the AVR as multichannel PCM. Pretty much the same result in the end.

[henriquetadeu]

I'm using HDMI passthrough on MPC and it works fine without any freezes.

But I'll try PCM on KODI when I get home and I'll record it to better demonstrate the problem...

Thanks for the help!

[henriquetadeu]

Freeze/Stuttering happening with PCM:


Freeze/Stuttering happening with HDMI passthrough:


As you can notice, the video suddenly freezes for 0.5 seconds and the audio stops for 1-2 seconds. It happens on kodi with HDMI passthrough and even without the passthrough. 

Unfortunately, I've found two threads with the same problem and no solutions:

354334 (thread)

359250 (thread)

[CrystalP]

Looking for unusual things, I see refresh rate 165Hz. Could you try with 60 or exact video refresh rate.
Resolution shouldn't be a factor but who knows.
There could be some timing issues that don't happen in the common less straining situations.

[Verbel123]

Hi friend,
Did you find a solution for this issue?
Or maybe the root cause that causes this random problem

Thank you

[trihy]

Same problem here with avr. TV is not affected.

AMD gpu hdmi sound doesnt like avr`s. This should be reported to AMD too. Seems doesnt like some sampling rate or who knows.

ie spotify windows app doesnt skip a single beat, same for pot player. Kodi skip audio all the time, even playing only audio, both wasapi and directsound.

Maybe some audio sampling rates are more tolerated by amd gpu.

Or maybe kodi is trying to use higher sampling rate or output.

Changing hdmi cables changes the skip frequency or behavior, but its always there. Even tried 4k cables for 1080p, but no luck.

Read some users reported leaving some 3d app rnunning in background could fix this, but didnt work for me.

[PatK]

I don't want to compare apples with oranges, so what works & what doesn't on some set-up is of little concern. Kodi has the function of using external players via External players (wiki) if all you want is to use Kodi as a library media manager (for sure it's great for that).

Kodi audio with Wasapi & pass-through connected with an HDMI cable is greedy (will not share the audio) and just passes the audio along untouched leaving your hardware to do the effort. Some AVR's don't like whatever comes out of your equipment, the usual solution is to let your PC equipment (gfx engine) do the deed (directsound driver through HDMI) and in the settings video> flag refresh off; syc off; render software; super res off; hrdwr acceleration on and let's have a debug log (your one log is no longer visable) of that with your desktop at 1920x1080x60fps and Kodi set for that.

P.S. the log will show what gfx system is chosen as the render driver, restart the system after you make the above changes.

Windows audio (wiki)
Audio troubleshooting (wiki)
Settings/System/Audio (wiki)
Troubleshooting (wiki)

[trihy]

Not tested using passthrough. I was just using normal mode.

But I always found amd gpus being so picky about avr`s. In my case kodi skip with avr, not tv.

Will try to do those test and report.