One of the biggest problems when playing videos and any other streaming multimedia content is “buffering”. This is a term that is applied when the player’s buffer does not receive enough information to continue playing the video, and as a consequence the streaming stops or chops .
Usually this is associated with a problem with the Internet connection. That is, there is not enough bandwidth to play the streaming video. But it’s not always like this.
If we are suffering from this problem on Kodi, either with the streaming of an add-on or with some content that we have stored in one of our network folders , there is some other trick that we can use to solve it.
Recommended connection speeds for streaming video without experiencing dropouts
Before starting it would be advisable to make sure that we have enough bandwidth in our internet connection . A good measure to get an idea is to take a look at the speeds that Netflix recommends to watch its contents:
- General minimum connection: 1.5Mb / s
- Minimum connection for SD resolution (480p): 3Mb / s
- Minimum connection for HD resolution (720p): 5Mb / s
- Minimum connection for Full HD resolution (1080p): 10Mb / s
- Minimum connection for 4K resolution (2160p): 25Mb / s
We can check if our Internet connection is up to scratch by doing a simple speed test on Google .
How to fix buffering problems on Kodi
Once we have ruled out any possible problem of slowness or instability in our internet connection, it is time to get our hands on the Kodi cache . Most of the problems with the buffer are related to a bad management of the Kodi cache memory, so to solve it we will only have to tell Kodi how to do it correctly.
Adjust the cache by editing the AdvancedSettings.xml file
AdvancedSettings.xml is a file used to edit some Kodi configuration options, such as buffer management. This file is usually located in the “userdata” folder of Kodi, and depending on our operating system we will find it in the following path:
- Android: android / data / org.xbmc.kodi / files / .kodi / userdata /
- iOS: / private / var / mobile / Library / Preferences / Kodi / userdata /
- Windows:% APPDATA% \ Kodi \ userdata
- Windows Portable: <install_path> \ portable_data \ userdata \
- Windows App:% LOCALAPPDATA% \ Packages \ XBMCFoundation.Kodi_4n2hpmxwrvr6p \ LocalCache \ Roaming \ Kodi \
- LibreELEC: /storage/.kodi/userdata/
- Linux: ~ / .kodi / userdata /
- OSMC: /home/osmc/.kodi/userdata/
- Mac: / Users / <users> / Library / Application Support / Kodi / userdata /
- tvOS: / private / var / mobile / Library / Preferences / Kodi / userdata /
Once we have found the “userdata” folder we will look for the “AdvancedSettings.xml” file and if we cannot find it we will create it ourselves from scratch. If the file already exists, we will open it with a notepad or text editor and delete all its content until it is blank.
Next we will paste the following piece of code:
<advancedsettings>
<cache>
<buffermode> 1 </buffermode>
<memorysize> YOUR_RAM_VALUE </memorysize>
<readfactor> 15 </readfactor>
</cache>
</advancedsettings>
Where we put “ TU_VALOR_DE_RAM ” we must replace it by the amount of RAM of our device multiplied by 209715200 *. For example, if we have 4GB of RAM the result will be 209715200 x 4 = 838860800. In any case, if we see that we have problems and that Kodi hangs, it is recommended not to enter a value higher than 314572800.
Finally, save the changes to the file and restart Kodi to check the results.
At the time of writing this article, we have seen that there are several tutorials on the internet where it is recommended to use external Kodi add-ons to tweak the cache management, but as we have seen, most of these add-ons no longer work with the latest versions of Kodi. Therefore, the best (and almost only) solution in 2021 is to edit the “AdvancedSettings.xml” file as we have just explained.
209715200 *: It is the equivalent in bytes to 20MB, which is the standard value of the buffer in Kodi , which requires 60MB of RAM memory. By default, Kodi will not buffer more information than this.
