Wow! I am so excited to have FINALLY found a resolution to this, I just had to post about it.
I’ve had a Shield (Tube) for almost 5 years, and paid for TiviMate around the same time. I’ve “trialed” at least 30 IPTV providers over the years. I bought a NordVPN subscription for my Shield. I’ve played with every “buffer size” setting, and almost every other settings in both TiviMate and Shield settings, yet nothing seemed to resolve the one primary recurring problem. I’ve tried VPNing to almost every country on earth. Plain, Obfuscated, Onion… nothing resolved the issue.
Regardless what I was trying to watch, every hour or so (usually more often) the program would buffer for EXACTLY 14 “sweeps” of the little blue “wait” circle, then after 14 sweeps, the program would come back, jumping 14 seconds into the future. (Often skipping some critical part of the show.) It drove me crazy for a couple years, but eventually I just wrote it off as “Well, this is what happens with IPTV…” My wife & I still cursed every time it happened, but we got used to it. Until yesterday…
I read someone’s post here suggesting “Turn off IPv6” in the Shield settings. That just happened to be one thing I’d never tried. Shield settings/Network & Internet/IPv6 to OFF.
I turned it off yesterday morning. Since then, I’ve been watching the same 24/7 channels that GUARANTEED some amount of the “14-second buffering” problem previously. Since then, I have not seen a single moment of buffering at all. Not even 1 second! It’s incredible! Now I can watch multiple shows, one after the other with no buffering at all! I turned off my VPN and every channel for every provider now works! It used to be at least 1 in 4 or 5 channels I selected were “dead”. Again, I just wrote it off as “well, I guess this is what IPTV is like.” Since turning off IPv6, I haven’t hit a channel that didn’t work.
To whoever posted that suggestion in another thread here… THANK YOU! You are a GOD!
Man I am so sorry. This was an issue discussed here many months back and I never even thought about that. I think it first arose a long time back when it was stated that SS did not support IPv6. Way cool that you figured it out and let us know. Again I should have remembered that as I had a Shield Pro and had to turn IPv6 off, but mostly because my ISP did not support it and at that time it was thought that it was not secure. Now you can enjoy streaming again.
Headed to check mine now. THANKS for the Post! Although my Grandaughter has “commandeered” the Shield, (she claims its hers now) I will check it (she has to sleep sometime…) and ensure ipv6 is indeed “Off”
just an fyi, most vpns block ipv6, rather they do or not I always turn it off. Ipv6 i can reveal info about what you are viewing, not just with tv bur browsers as well. It is one of the 1st things I disable on any setup.
Yep. It helps in many instances. But one of the key factors (certainly in the UK and Ireland) is to NOT utilise a ‘local’ vpn location - EVEN IF you’ve paid for a dedicated local VPN. Avoid your own national locations. I’ve no idea, but perhaps this is a solution generally.
I’m a newbie, a little lost in this conversation. What is a Shield (hardware, like my ONN?), where are peeps turning IP6 off? Don’t see that in Surf Shark, or projectivy settings. I want to set up a network share drive for recordings, but have been unable to get a single recording on local device. Most of what I have read says recording stops if buffering occurs, so I was interested in this article. Any clarity you can provide is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
