Optik TV Freezing/Buffering w/third party R7000

[gigabituser1234]

Hey guys,

As the title states my optik tv doesn’t work well at all anymore with my R7000 router.

I ditched the T3200M a while back since the wifi range was very bad on it, and saw some other threads here that suggested the Netgear R7000 as a good alternative, so I pulled the trigger and got it.

Initially it worked great, wifi was much improved and tv still worked great (I have the lite package and only watch nhl which was working good) until now when trying to watch hockey it continuously freezes up every 3-4 seconds. Funny thing is the commercials are buttery smooth but the game is impossible to watch.

I’ve tried resetting the box, re-seating connections and even the R7000 but no dice. And in case anyone is wondering I have IGMP proxy enabled in the settings as well so I’m kinda stumped here.

If anyone has any insight, please do let me know!

Thanks everyone.

[Nighthawk]

Some R7000s are known to have issues with multicast. Optik TV uses multicast data for the TV service. The firmware version on the R7000 can also be an issue as well. Certain versions have significant security vulnerabilities in them.

I used to use an expensive third party router that did fully support multicast. It burned itself out after six months because it couldn't handle the processing load for just my PVR. There's a possibility that the R7000 may have a similar issue. It'll work for most things but it'll choke on multicast data.

[xray]

The firmware for the R7000 is trash since version 1.0.9.42. I had to replace mine a year ago because there were so many bugs. Check out their support forums, it's a train wreck.

[gigabituser1234]

Well that's a bummer. Although for me the only thing that seems off is the Optik so I got that going for me at least.

How would I go about re-integrating the T3200M in the mix while using the R7000 at the same time? Would I need to disable the DHCP server on the R7000 and bridge the ports of the T3200M and R7000 together or? I saw other folks using the telus provided equipment for their TV and their own third party router for everything else but I was a little confused on how to do that properly.

[Nighthawk]

My setup was T3200 as the modem. Default config, nothing bridged. I had my router connected to LAN1 and just changed the IP range to something that won't conflict with the T3200 so I had two separate networks. I had my Optik PVR connected directly to one of the other LAN ports and then everything else in my place running off the third party router.

[xray]

You should be aware that the R7000 had some security vulnerabilities reported recently. The 1.011.104 firmware has patches for some of them but functionality is still buggy according to their support forums. I would not run the R7000 without the security patches. It's a no win situation for using the R7000 which is why mine is destined for recycling or maybe installing 3rd party firmware.

[gigabituser1234]

Well I ditched the R7000 completely and brought the T3200M back but to no avail the lag issues are still here. I’d even go as far to say they’re worse on this! At least with the Netgear I could somewhat watch hockey, with the Telus it goes for 5 seconds then completely lags out.

Pretty bummed out, might consider just axing optik completely at this point haha.

[gigabituser1234]

Was re-inspecting all cables just now as well again and noticed the 4K box is super super hot. Like too hot to touch actually! Could an overheated box cause throttling and in turn cause the buffering issues?

[NFtoBC]

Possibly. Have you a fan you could cool it with? Also make sure it is not enclosed in anything, as that slows airflow.

[gigabituser1234]

No fan but I'll try and reposition it on its side or something for better airflow. I had it positioned underneath the R7000 when I was having these issues so maybe that's why.

I'll give it a shot and see what happens.

[Casper]

What a piece of junk. Does amyone at Telus even look at this thing? I havent looked at it for a long time because irt was unwatchable and now i tried again and after all this time ir is the same or worse. Going back to Shaw.

[gigabituser1234 · Accepted solution]

Looks like it was an overheating issue after all. I dumped the T3200M as well again because it wasn’t playing nice with my Pi-hole and DLNA server so I’m back using the R7000.

So far so good! NHL is nice and smooth again. I put the optik box on its side as well so it has plenty of ventilation so if anyone ever has this issue again make sure it has proper cooling.

[CR0886]

We’re having the same issues and some nights it’s really bad. We currently have it up on an elevated wire rack, so it’s not overheating. Hopefully someone will have a remedy that will work. Last night we tried watching an hour long program and only watched about 45 minutes unobstructed. 

[xray]

@CR0886 what is the Optik box and rack sitting on top of? If it's on top of a AV receiver or similar then it may still be an overheating problem.