Are you experiencing loss of video quality? PLEASE READ

[Mark12547]

To get the Box information,
Go to Settings (hit Up from the display of your queue, then Right to get to settings), and then Down so the various settings are in focus ("Network", "Display type", etc.). Right-arrow over to player info, and press Select.

Player info that may be relevant to this issue is the Software (e.g., "version 1.01 build 00229"), Hardware version (e.g., "model N1000"), and Serial number (e.g., "20F84F017582"). (These examples are the actual numbers for my box.)

To get to "that secret screen", the magic incantation on the Roku remote is Home Home Home Home Home Rewind Rewind Rewind FastForward FastForward, with about half a second between key presses. (The Home button is the top button on the remote. Rewind and FastForward are the <<< and >>> keys on the bottom row.) It may take several tries to get the timing right. "That secret screen" allows you to turn on debugging information (displays the measured throughput of the network at the start of playing a feature) and to lock the box into playing at a specific quality (4 dots/highest quality through 1 dot/poorest quality) or to automatically detect the throughput and choose accordingly. With the 1.01 version, to see what throughput the box detected the network operates at, you have to let the box choose the rate as well as have debugging messages turned on. (In version 1.00, you could lock the rate and the debugging information would still display the sampled rate.)

The default of the box is to not show debugging information and to automatically detect rate that your connection can support. Resetting the box (or a power-on recycle) would likely change the box back to these defaults.

[zemon]

James,

I have been fiddling around for most of the last hour, trying to find a pattern to what is happening and failing. Our 10M/1M Charter connection is running full speed tonight (as usual) but the Netflix player consistently underestimates the network speed, sometimes giving me 2 dots or 3 dots of playback because it thinks the available bandwidth is only 1.5M or 1.6M instead of the available 10M.

Even when the player thinks the connection is very slow, I can run a speedtest (www.speakeasy.net/speedtest) and see 10M.

I uploaded a screen snapshot of bandwidth utilization to http://cheerfulcurmudgeon.com/wp-conten ... shot-1.png
The tall peak is me running a speedtest while playing video. You can see that much of the time, the player was consuming about 7M of bandwidth but then it dropped down to less than 2.7M, even when I kept fast forwarding and rewinding.

As I type this (watching episode 7 of Jazz), the player stopped, displayed the "loading, please wait" and 2 dots. Nothing has happened for a couple of minutes. The router shows zero download data -- flatline. The show won't play at all. I tried pressing Home and then select to resume playing. I get a pop-up which vanishes too quickly for me to read and then the player returns to the menu screen (resume/play/choose/rating/remove). See http://cheerfulcurmudgeon.com/wp-conten ... shot-2.png

I hope that this helps some.

-- Art Z.

[SkOrPn]

I too will be happy to supply what info I can about this issue.

1. Albuquerque, New Mexico (87110)
2. Comcast
3. Cable
4. 8800 Kbps up, 2200 dn w/ Powerboost up to 24 Mbps
5. Roku Serial # 20F87R009948
6. Problem started 11/08/2008 or should I say this is the date I first noticed it.
7. Forcing 2.2 Mbps did allow the movie to start at 4 dots but the stream downloaded MUCH slower than usual and after several minutes the movie re-buffered back down to 2 dots stating my connection was not fast enough.
8. On the 8th and the 9th of November I experienced frequent re-buffering say every 5 to 10 minutes, but this is a sheer guess on my part. Tonight I am watching the same movie at 4 dot quality without so much as a hickup, buts its still early in the movie. I did not use the Roku from the 10th until just now.
9. I had 4 dot service 100% of the time from day one, maybe 6 months or so straight, but then on the 8th of November noticed that the movie had dropped down to 2 dots for no apparent reason stating my connection was only a 1 Mbps speed. I immediately did a speed check and got a 24 Mbps result from a server 480 miles north of me http://denver.speedtest.comcast.net/spe ... index.html My connection has been inconsistently re-buffering from 1 dot to 3 dots, but seems to mostly stay in the 2 dot mode (well it did on the 8th and 9th of Nov, but not sure about now).... I will keep this post updated if things change.

I will be happy to provide any further information if I can. Thank You!

EDIT1: I just realized even though some of us are getting great speed tests during these 1-2 dot issues, the Roku player is in fact downloading the forced 2.2 stream VERY VERY slowly. If the player was simply underestimating the speed that alone should not hinder the downloading performance of the stream. If its underestimating the connection speed the player would request a 1 or 2 dot stream but the download would increase in speed since the data has now shrunk in size. This is NOT the case, the download during a forced 2.2 setting is in fact MUCH slower than it should be, sometimes taking 5 to 10 minutes to start the play back. Something to think about.

[rexboe]

1. Omaha,NE
2. Qwest DSL
3. DSL
4. 6.0 mbps
5. 2DF89L009967
6. Happens between 7-8 pm continues til the next day
7 Tried the secret screen I get 4 dots but it rebuffers a lot.
8. I will be in the middle of a movie and will rebuffer then after a long wait play back at 2 dots I have a full 4 dots all day but at about 7-8 pm it will drop to 2 dots.Last night it actually caused the Roku Player to reboot on its own.

[killurcable]

1. Portland, Oregon
2. Comcast
3. Cable
4. 8mb
5. 20F84W013143
6. Issue began when Starz content came to netflix. If the events aren't related, that's still the date the issue began.
7. Resulted in long load times.
8. If the video starts at 4 dots, it will rebuffer somewhere around 5 mins. Issue does not seem to be affected by time of viewing.

Thanks for working on this guys. This really is a great product when properly functioning.

[firemann]

1. Your geographic location (city/town and state is adequate) Mulino, OR
2. Your ISP (internet service provider) Molalla.net
3. Type of service (DSL, cable, etc.) DSL
4. Maximum speed of your service -
Molalla DSL Service "sonic pkg": 3000 dl/512 up
Molalla ISP: 4222 measured dl
Seattle: 3086 measured dl "speakeasy"
Chicago: 3293 measured dl
NY: 2675 measured dl
SanFrancisco: 1966 measured dl
LA: 1480 measured dl
5. Your Roku Player serial number (ESN) - found in the settings under 'player info'.
20F88F013306
6. Approximately when you began encountering this issue
November
7. If you tried to force the stream speed via the "secret" screen, did it improve things or did it make it worse?
I would lock it in at 3 dots
For example, were you able to get 3 or 4 dot of quality consistently again?
Did it result in frequent rebuffering?
Yes frequent rebuffering, usually once ever 1/2 hour when watching a 3-dot feed.
8. Any additional details on the nature of the problem you are experiencing, such as the presence and frequency of rebuffering, that will be helpful
I first started Netflix service I usually get 3 dot sometime 4 dot, then it stated going to 2 dots and sometime 1 dot, so I locked it at 3 dot in October. lately tho' the rebuffering seems to be getting worse. last nit it was rebuffering about ever 10 minutes on a 3-dot feed.

Hope this info helps

[bookishatx]

Austin, Texas
AT&T/Yahoo! DSL
10mbs DL
N/A UL
Can't access serial # right now because I'm getting "movie unavailable at the current time" message became "retrieving movies from your queue" which is peremtory in the administrative process.
Been getting less than 3 dots for three weeks. Forced 4 with rebuffed every half hour, more or less.
This is extremely frustrating, but what's moreso is coming to this site for answers, and having subjective fanboys disparage us for complaining about massive FAILs. I was going to buy one of these units for my brother & SiL for Christmas...no chance of that now.

[jackman]

1. Monroe, Oregon

2. Monroe Telephone - www.monroetel.com (a rural ISP)

3. 4Mb/s DSL

4. approx. 4-5 Mb/s using Speakeasy speedtest

5. 20f876016456

6. Hard to say when this started. I got my box in September and have always had varying (between 1 and 4 dots) performance. More importantly it's a time-of-day problem. In the mornings I get 4 dots routinely. During prime time it's between 1 and 2 dots.

7. I tried the forced stream speed feature but I got tired of the rebuffering during prime time and can't tolerate the quality at 1 dot. I let the Roku box decide for me and put up with whatever quality I get. Or, I revert to a Netflix DVD. BTW, I don't receive any cable/broadcast programming. Netflix is our only viewing.

8. I've done alot of my own testing and worked with the network administrator at my local ISP. There are time-of-day and geographic location dependencies contributing to the problem. Performance starts to degrade when the kids get out of school in the afternoon. I doubt I'll ever see a fix for this problem due to my rural location in Oregon and close proximity to two major college campuses. In Oregon we're served by smaller/independent connections to a major POP. Looking at some of the other posts for those in the big cities and closer to the backbone the problems are not as dramatic.

It's just life on the Internet.

[RebelElvis10]

I made a posting up above where I said my roku player has been struggling to achieve even 2 dots of quality for the last few weeks, and that was after forever being at 4 dots. Well I don't know if anything was done to fix this, but the last two nights I have had 4 dots again. It loaded up within less than 10 seconds. Just thought you guys might like to know if you have changed anything on your end.

[petem]

1. Denver, CO
2. Qwest
3. DSL
4. 7 Mbps (speedtests between 4 - 6 Mbps net throughput)
5. 20F88L004281
6. Purchased Roku player 4 weeks ago, have never been able to get consistent streaming during evening watching hours (6-11pm). I tried extensive tests with different movie selections (top 50, indie films, tv shows, etc.) earlier this week. Most resulted in 2 dot streams, with occasional 1 or 3 (rare) dots.
7. When forced to 4 dot quality, it will rebuffer every 8-10 minutes. Rebuffer delays are 5-10 minutes each.
8. With debugger on, and in automatic mode, debug message indicates the player can get 1.5-1.8 Mbps stream, and chooses 2 dot quality. If I pause the player and immediately run a speedtest from the same location, the laptop can get a full 4-5 Mbps downstream speed.
During the day, or very late at night, Roku debug mode will show 5.2 - 5.6 Mbps stream, so this definitely seems to be congestion / time-of-day related.

[TheBigCheese]

1. Voorhees, NJ
2. Your ISP Comcast
3. Cable Internet
4. 6MBPS constant 12-20MBPS Burst. I really do get 6MBPS most of the time
5.
6. Started about 10 days ago
7. Restarting the movie did not help. Power recycling the Roku always clears up the problem
8. I will watch something at 4 dots and then the next selection is at 1-2 dots or will start at 3 dots but rebuffer and change to 1-2 dots. As I mentioned, power cycling the Roku is 100% effective (about 3 or 4 times so far in 10 days

[firemann]

My issue seems to be that the Limelight Netflix feeds come from San Jose via Sprintlink up to Seattle and then down to Portland to my ISP. My situation would probably improve if Sprintlink from get my feeds from Limelight in Seattle instead of San Jose.

traceroute: Warning: netflix-822.vo.llnwd.net has multiple addresses; using 208.111.148.6
traceroute to netflix-822.vo.llnwd.net (208.111.148.6), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 192.168.3.1 (192.168.3.1) 1.809 ms 0.932 ms 0.840 ms
2 rdbk.p2-001.molalla.net (216.134.164.1) 36.224 ms 37.487 ms 35.268 ms
3 br1.cethr.molalla.net (216.134.160.1) 36.287 ms 38.473 ms 35.935 ms
4 sl-gw14-sea-3-3.sprintlink.net (144.224.113.125) 42.360 ms 41.226 ms 40.856 ms
5 sl-bb21-sea-9-1.sprintlink.net (144.232.6.133) 39.221 ms 40.560 ms 41.300 ms
6 sl-crs1-tac-0-0-5-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.8.61) 48.837 ms 46.214 ms 49.075 ms
7 sl-crs1-sj-0-9-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.20.8 ) 68.160 ms 65.197 ms 65.183 ms
8 sl-st22-sj-5-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.18.31) 67.529 ms 68.257 ms 69.356 ms
9 64.212.107.149 (64.212.107.149) 69.952 ms 282.730 ms 259.803 ms
10 limelight.po4.440.ar2.sjc2.gblx.net (64.211.64.154) 71.390 ms 76.414 ms 74.426 ms
11 ve5.fr3.sjc.llnw.net (69.28.171.209) 77.885 ms 71.390 ms 70.344 ms
12 cdn-208-111-148-6.sjc.llnw.net (208.111.148.6) 68.144 ms 78.098 ms 71.119 ms
13 * * *

[runner58]

I am ever glad I found this discussion!! I have been trying to trouble-shoot the video quality loss and have not been able to decipher a reason.

When we first received the Roku box in June, the video quality was great. But, we are now experiencing the same problems as described by others in this discussion.

Here is the requested info:
1. Waco, Texas
2. Time Warner
3. Cable
4. As measured tonight on Speakeasy: an approximate average of 18,000 kbps from the Dallas server; 9,000 from Seattle and as high as 20,000 from San Francisco
5. 20F871026844
6. I noticed the consistent loss of video quality two to three weeks ago (late October, early November)
7. I did force the video quality with initial improvement. But, now setting the quality at four or three dots only increases the frustration of frequent and very slow re-buffering.
8. With the video quality set at automatic, the initial video quality might be two, three or four dots, but very frequently now, within a very few minutes of playing, the video quality drops to one dot when the video stream is re-buffered. The re-buffer time can be extended even at one dot.

I have noted that the problem is not as bad in the morning (weekdays as well as weekends); it appears to worsen starting in mid-afternoon.

Over the last two days, 90% of all video quality starts and stays at one dot.

The problem appears to be worsening.

Hope this helps.

[petem]

Update to my earlier post on streaming problems (Denver, Qwest, 7Mbps DSL). After four weeks of 2 dot quality and extensive buffering delays, tonight we're getting 4 dot quality and the debugger is detecting 5.2-5.8 Mbps connection streams. Initial buffering is 10-15 seconds instead of 5-10 minutes and the rebuffering delays have disappeared.

There's been no change to outside speedtest results, which have returned 4-6 Mbps consistently throughout this ordeal. The improvement seems to be entirely on the Netflix content delivery connection.

This is a huge improvement, and I pray it continues. This is the first time since we purchased the Roku Player that we've been able to sit down in the evening and actually use it "normally", that is, to just start a movie and watch it without interruptions or problems.

[amarusa]

Player has been great since June. Lately experienced loss of video quality. Player has gone from 4 dots consistantly to one or two dots. Less than 4 dots is very blury on my 50 inch Sony Vega TV.

Location: Tampa, Florida
ISP: Road Runner on Bright House
Service: Cable
Speed: Consistanly 7MB
Serial Number: 20f857003399
Started: unsure but worsended last week 11/14 to every movie listed as unavaliable; no movies avaliable.
Secret Screen: Tried using it but movie paused to reload buffer several times.
ETC: Talked with Netflix on 11/14 and rebooted ROKU box, did Factory reset, rebooted wireless router; nothing had any positive result. ROKU tech on 11/17 said software version (1.01 version 00229) was outdated. Player still not updated on 11/18 and indicates no new update available.

While trying to load movies on 11/15 download became possible but very slow. Then while trying to load a movie for the third time everything went back to normal. My opinion is that wireless receiver in ROKU box may be unstable although everytime I look at network screen the signal strength is excellent.

Any suggestions would be welcome.