Le Pan 2 constant buffering on You Tube

[wrench]

Hi all,

Just wondering if any owners are finding that you tube videos seems to keep buffering while watching? On other boards it seems some are experiencing and some aren't.

Is there a fix, or is it just a device problem? In searching the forum here on other devices, there seems to be a concern with Honeycomb devices, but can't seem to find any solutions, other than to use a browser to access you tube. I have tried, and it's a little smoother, but still buffers. This didn't seem to happen on my Le Pan 1.

Thanks for any input/help on this!

 

[Johna2u]

yeah, i am experiencing that as well. i have a b/g router. i was going to get an n router to see if that might help.

 

[Yela57]

I had that same issue with the lepan I. Seemed like the buffer could never keep up with the video. Even when trying to watch short videos it would still stop. Was so bad that i gave up and returned the unit. Was hoping that the lepan II wouldnt have that issue especially with a dual core processor but i see thats still not the case. This makes me love my hp touchpad Even more

 

[Johna2u]

i did a little research on this today. i think I found some solutions. 1. go into settings/applications find your youtube app and clear the cache .try using the app again. if that doesn't help. 2. try watching youtube using the stock browser that came with the tablet instead of using the app. 3. get an N router. I did all three and my buffering problem seems to be gone.

the N router still show my connection speed at 54mbps. the same speed my old G router was connecting at so I don't know if that really helped but so far the buffering is completely gone.

 

[yann2]

Johna2u's suggestions are good, another one I could add is trying out the DolphinHD browser.

On it's settings, there's an option to identify the tablet as an iPad, turn that on and YouTube will think you can't run Flash at all, and use alternative methods (HTML 5 possibly, I am not sure).

I have used Dolphin HD on my wife's underpowered Archos 101 (only got 256 MB system RAM, woot), and was able to play a beautiful HD version of the '2001, a Space Odissey' film. Quality was superb, no frame loss, no stuttering. This is the one :

It's pretty sharp and can be seen in HD modes.

 

[wrench]

i did a little research on this today. i think I found some solutions. 1. go into settings/applications find your youtube app and clear the cache .try using the app again. if that doesn't help. 2. try watching youtube using the stock browser that came with the tablet instead of using the app. 3. get an N router. I did all three and my buffering problem seems to be gone.

the N router still show my connection speed at 54mbps. the same speed my old G router was connecting at so I don't know if that really helped but so far the buffering is completely gone.

Thank you all for your suggestions.

I have tried all except clearing the cache for the program-using stock browser/Dolphin HD, already using an N router (and tried all combinations of settings). I sent in a support ticket to Le Pan, and they suggested using a static IP (which I already was), and if not, send it back for exchange so that they may see themselves what's going on. Apparently the factory is wanting those tablets back that are having this issue as they cannot recreate the concern themselves.

Back it goes to Amazon, and to be honest, I don't know if I will order a replacement. I love the Le Pan, and had a 1 and now 2, they just can't seem to get all the bugs ironed out.

 

[yann2]

Well done, wrench, you crossed all the tees and dotted all the i's.

I also feel that their software development is less than stellar - they probably have a very small staff, I have seen two emails/names posted at XDA Dev forum, that might be the whole team.

And Matsunichi is trying very hard to keep users locked out of rooting the devices. We got lucky with LPI, the II model is proving much harder, according to some of the guys working on it.

Matsunichi doesn't see that having development work done independently would add value to the tablets, people would get choices, some of the improvements and bug fixes could be incorporated in their own firmware updates.

 

[Johna2u]

After using My LP II over the weekend. I found the buffering seemed be greatly reduced but sadly not eliminated. Some videos still buffer. Yann, I watched the Space Odyssey video you posted and it played flawlessly. Ironically a video on increasing router connection speed buffered to the point is was unwatchable. I am sad to see people getting discouraged with their Le Pans. It is such a beautiful little machine. I hope Le Pan can get it together before they lose too much support from the community. Maybe we should start a thread "recommendations for Le Pan" Make a list and send it on to the factory.

 

[yann2]

John, I just had an idea.

If the high rez 2001 video played well, and a less sought-after video didn't (like the one you mentioned, about setting router), it's possible they are hosted in different YouTube servers, with different loads and bandwidth connections.

You might want to test the same video, from your own network. See if it plays well or not in a different machine, then on the tablet.

They might use slower servers for less-popular or lower rez videos, possibly. Worth trying, imo.

 

[Johna2u]

Yann that is a great idea. The remaining problems I seem to be having probably are not the fault of the Le Pan at all. I have had videos that won't play on my PC so you really can't expect everything to work on any tablet. I will do some comparisons as problems arise.

 

[Yela57]

I really believe there is an issue with some of the Lepans. My Lepan had that buffering issue bad. We tried running the same videos on the acer a500 and the HP touchpad using a few diff phones as the WiFi connections and for some reason the other tablets buffered a lot faster. I was very sad because it was a great and thoughtful Christmas gift from the wife and I really wanted to keep it but streaming video was the biggest reason for me wanting a tablet

 

[Johna2u]

Clearing the Cache on the app really seems to help. It needs to be done whenever you start having too many buffering issues. Maybe this is something that should be done automatically. But Le Pan missed that step.

 

[black02em2]

maybe there will be an update later in the future to fix this and automatically clear the cache if there are enough complaints about this issue

 

[Johna2u]

I am finding the biggest improvement comes after clearing the cache on the YouTube app. I will be watching an HD video that is buffering to the point it is unwatchable. I'll clear the app cache and it will play flawlessly. My wife is not techy enough to do this everytime she.has.buffering issues so I looked around for a program that will automatically clear the cache. 1tap cleaner pro has a scheduler built in(1.49 in the market). You can set it to clear the cache as often as every hour. I am testing that now.
https://market.android.com/details?...xLDEwMiwiY29tLmEwc29mdC5ncGhvbmUuYWNjLnBybyJd

 

[yann2]

maybe there will be an update later in the future to fix this and automatically clear the cache if there are enough complaints about this issue

That's basically deleting the data files for the app, so it could be done with a shell script. It's similar to a DOS batch file, just has a lot more power since it's running in unix (linux).

Got to dust off my shell scripting skills, since that should be an easy task to do. It's user accessible (you can delete it from inside Settings - Apps, so not in a protected system directory), just got to find the file location, and the file name.