Unsolvable Hulu stuttering

[decksnap]

Has anybody else had a stuttering/stopping issue with Hulu? My system runs it fine, but my friend's won't play anything without stutter.

Intel iMac, latest flash player, bandwidth tests say she's getting about 5000 kbps download speed. Stutters in all browsers.

Any ideas?

[FF_productions]

Is he running any background apps?

I was watching a movie in Hulu and it didn't play so smoothly cuz I was encoding like 3 videos in Handbrake...

[Dimwhit]

I find that often, despite having a good broadband connection, I still get stuttering. I pause the video for a couple minutes and start it again. Usually works fine.

Remember, you could have the best connection available, but if the Hulu servers are being hit hard, it may not be delivering the content and fast as it can be watched. So pausing it and giving it some time to catch up may do the trick. Always does for me, anyway.

[decksnap]

thanks. just weird that mine has never stuttered and theirs ALWAYS stutters/stops. I can't imagine it is just their servers. They definitely aren't running anything in the background at the time.

[ZigZagLens]

thanks. just weird that mine has never stuttered and theirs ALWAYS stutters/stops. I can't imagine it is just their servers. They definitely aren't running anything in the background at the time.

Sorry to necropost, but have been hunting around to solve my own video-stuttering issue and found this.

I have found that on both my Mac Pro and my Macbook Pro, basically any kind of Flash video (Youtube, Hulu, Break, Google Video to name a few) running on Flash Player 9 on OSX Leopard does this. I'd call it skip or stutter but basically it's about one second or so of dropped frames (while audio continues normally) and then the video "catches up" to the audio. This is irrespective of whether the entire video is loaded or not - it is not a streaming or bandwidth issue.

I am told Adobe has fixed this in Flash Player 10, which is not out yet, but a beta is here (http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html).

(Word to the wise: if you install this beta it may break a lot of Flash sites that will think you are using an outdated player.)

[rplichta]

Greetings,

I have a similar problem. At various times (can't find a pattern), any Hulu programming stutters so badly that it is unwatchable. All other applications and user processes were shutdown (ignoring standard OS stuff).

This is using Safari or Firefox on OS X 10.5.

Interestingly, I have a VM of Windows Server 2008 running in VMware Fusion on the same box. I tried running the hulu content through at at the exact same time and it streamed without a problem.

It has to be something on the Mac side. I would guess something with Flash. However, I did try the 10 beta with no luck.

If anyone has any further suggestions, I'd appreciate it.

[jasonhedrick]

So, I was just reading this thread, and at the same time I opened a large ECAD drawing. I'm on a 8 Core Mac Pro w/ 6Gigs of RAM. I noticed that my 'windowserver' process peaked out one of the cores and took almost 2G of ram. When that happened, Hulu (which of course, I was watching at the same time) started doing this video hesitation thing constantly.

Then I realized that while I'm typing into Firefox, my text display lags at the same moment the video lags on Hulu. I killed the ECAD drawing, and everything gets better.

This looks like a problem with the OSX display drivers. It doesn't happen when I'm watching a DVD, but OSX may process the DVD stuff at a different level.

Jason

[decksnap]

I hate that I can not solve this for them. Now the videos just seem to load for a while, play five seconds of video and then just plain stop. Immediately before/after running speed tests showing 5000 kbps down. Not just hulu either.

[kaitak98]

I hate that I can not solve this for them. Now the videos just seem to load for a while, play five seconds of video and then just plain stop. Immediately before/after running speed tests showing 5000 kbps down. Not just hulu either.

I've been having the same problem. I installed Flash10 and that didn't help. Finally, I decided to stop SnapzPro (a Macheist package I don't use much) from loading at startup. Not sure why but now Hulu works with just some very minor glitches. Watched a whole episode of Family Guy with just a couple of split second stutters.

Hope this has solved my problem permanently and helps you as well.

[spitfyre]

I just got a Macbook yesterday and I am having this problem and it is really frustrating b/c I don't have a TV so the only shows I watch are on my computer. Anyway, it can't be Hulu b/c I tried it simultaneously on my old PC and it worked perfectly (no stuttering) there. I'm not running anything else when I do this and I downloaded all of the Mac software updates. Ahhhhhhh. Help. :mad:

[watevr56]

I've been having the same problems when I installed flash 10 on my computer.

The best solution I can think of is to downgrade your flash player to a previous version.:

First, uninstall your flash player by downloading this program from adobe:
http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/uninstall_flash_player_osx.dmg

Then install the archived versions of flash 9:
http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/installers/archive/fp9_archive.zip

After you extract the 'fp9_archive.zip' file, browse into to the 9r151 folder within it.

You should see 'flashplayer9r151_ub_mac.dmg.zip'.

Extract it and install the dmg.

I hope this helps you:)

[macadmiral]

tell him to try it on firefox. thats helped me lately

[synth3tik]

I stopped using Hulu after I started getting way to many ads like 1 every 4-5 minutes.

I suspect the shuttering comes from the way the show is broken up. If you look at the time line at the bottom of the window you will notice the dots. The dots signify an ad break. So you are only buffing one section at a time and not the whole show. Which is kind of annoying, but I would figure that is really the only way of doing it, without eliminating the ads.

[spitfyre]

I tried to uninstall flash and then I installed Flash Player 9.whatever. It didn't work and I'm having problems at other flash sites as well. this sucks. I am so annoyed.

Thanks for the suggestions though.

[Big-TDI-Guy]

It just started happening to me yesterday. Prior to that - it was running fine. No new software or configurations to speak of.

Somewhat annoying. But, what can you expect for $0.00usd?

[brgale]

This is happening to me as well, and it's driving me crazy. I know bandwidth isn't a problem, and the system should be able to handle this fine (2x2.66 GHZ Mac Pro, 3Gigs Ram). I'm using Flash Player 10. It does this in firefox or safari. Youtube is a big offender for me.

Anybody?

[Superman07]

My Hulu stopping problems always happen when watching NBC content. Conincidence?

[macadmiral]

Hulu really blows. stuttering problem makes watching vids unbearable. I have a 2.5 mbp with 512 vram and extremely fast university line internet.

[decksnap]

I think you guys do not have the same problem. General Hulu stuttering from time to time is not the issue of this thread. It is 'plays for five seconds, stutters to a stop, waits 45 seconds, plays 3 seconds of stutter, repeat.'

[macadmiral]

I think you guys do not have the same problem. General Hulu stuttering from time to time is not the issue of this thread. It is 'plays for five seconds, stutters to a stop, waits 45 seconds, plays 3 seconds of stutter, repeat.'
yeah about the same for me

[decksnap]

yeah about the same for me

Well when you solve it, come back and let me know how. I've tried almost everything. (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=587794)

[SnowLeopard2008]

Different browsers, reset Safari, other video sites?

[czaffa]

I'm having the exact same issue on both Hulu and Comedy Central (Daily Show/Colbert Report), making just about all of my favorite shows unwatchable online. I've tried both Safari & Firefox, on both a university OC3 line (75 mbps during tests) and a U-verse max line (8 mbps during tests). Flash version 10,0,12,36.

[Dimwhit]

Maybe someone with the resources can do a little investigation? If someone has Windows installed on the Mac and is having this issue, try booting into Windows and see if the problem persists. Then maybe try some other different options. Are other computers on the same network having the problem?

[decksnap]

If anybody is interested, I have isolated my particular issue to the ISP. Not that they will solve it.

[macadmiral]

Maybe someone with the resources can do a little investigation? If someone has Windows installed on the Mac and is having this issue, try booting into Windows and see if the problem persists. Then maybe try some other different options. Are other computers on the same network having the problem?

Ive booted into windows and tried with no luck, same results. Someone over at macnn forums said he tried it on all of his different machines.

I think mine is my ISP as well as I tried setting up my ethernet with a different location and it worked for about an hour before starting to stutter again

[brgale]

To clarify, I'm not having problems where it plays fine for a minute and then stops for a minute. I'm having more of a constant stutter, where the audio is fine, but the video drops maybe 10 frames or so every 3ish seconds. It creates a noticeable stutter and is very annoying, but a different problem than deckswap's.

The exact same youtube video in firefox in windows xp in vmware runs fine. In VMWARE!! If anything, there should be a lag there.

So this must be an issue in Leopard, somewhere, right? Flash 10,0,12,36 installed.

[decksnap]

To clarify, I'm not having problems where it plays fine for a minute and then stops for a minute. I'm having more of a constant stutter, where the audio is fine, but the video drops maybe 10 frames or so every 3ish seconds. It creates a noticeable stutter and is very annoying, but a different problem than deckswap's.

The exact same youtube video in firefox in windows xp in vmware runs fine. In VMWARE!! If anything, there should be a lag there.

So this must be an issue in Leopard, somewhere, right? Flash 10,0,12,36 installed.

If this is happening on Youtube, it is definitely not the same issue (I'm on Tiger anyway) In my research I have learned Youtube does not use the flash streaming protocol through port 1935 like sites like Hulu and CBS. So, it shouldn't be that issue either.

[bchurl]

I found this thread through a search, and think the problem I am having may be related to what at least some of the correspondents are talking about. Streaming videos STOP after 4 seconds. I can click the progress bar ahead of where it stopped and get another 4 seconds.

At first I thought this was a Firefox issue, but no it is in Safari at the same time. Then I was ready to blame it on my new ISP, but that can not be the whole story as I find that my G4 running Tiger (on the same router) plays video while my G5 running Leopard does not.

Restarts do not help. But, it will sometimes work at random times without a restart.

very annoying.

[maccompaq]

I just tried Mama's Boys on Hulu with my PC running Windows XP, and it works great with no stuttering.

Tomorrow I will try it with my Mac and Leopard and report back.

[bchurl]

In the case of my version of the problem (see two posts up), I followed up on some of the posts regarding Flash and installed the latest version of the Flashplayer plugin. (from Adobe). That seems to have made the problem go away. (for the moment, anyway.)

[maccompaq]

I have played Mama's Boy on my Mac, Leopard with Firefox at 480p Full Screen, and it played perfectly with no delays or stuttering.

[lego8]

I have played Mama's Boy on my Mac, Leopard with Firefox at 480p Full Screen, and it played perfectly with no delays or stuttering.

Same here. I don't know what your problem is, OP.

[Keleko]

Some people have this problem and others don't. I definitely have the stutter problem as well, and I haven't been able to solve it.

[Amdahl]

For those experiencing the clearly ISP-related stutters only(ie, your WIndows also doesn't work):

Are any of these people using VPNs, PPPoE, or Jumbo frame Gigabit Ethernet to your desktop(at University) ? Because this sounds like it could be an MTU problem, caused by some router in the path blocking ICMP. What is the IP address of the problem Mac? If it is 172.16, 10.0.0.0, or 192.168, or similar, there could be a problem with NAT not doing the ICMP right.

Furthermore, if any of the routers in the path have an IP like that, they could be doing the right thing (generating ICMP), but Hulu (or ISP) might be filtering the ICMP packets out, because they are 'not supposed' to be on the Internet with those IPs.

[bfryman79]

I am also having the same problem on my MacBook Pro. But with the tests I have done, it is really making me believe it has something to do with the computer's hardware running Leopard and Flash. This is what I have done so far:

- 1st Generation Intel MacBook Pro running Leopard 10.5.6, Safari 3.2.1 (5525.27.1), Firefox 3.0.6, and Flash 10.0.12.36 gives me the stuttering and hanging issue with Hulu on both browsers.

- I went into Boot Camp with the next test on the same MacBook Pro and tested Hulu on both the latest versions of IE and Firefox. Boot Camp is running Windows Vista SP1 with all the latest updates as of 2/11/09. The latest version of Flash (10.0.12.36) is installed and Hulu works absolutely perfect on both browsers - no stuttering whatsoever.

- Then I tested Hulu on my iMac, which was purchased in Jan. '08. It also is running the same versions of Leopard, Safari, Firefox, & Flash that the MacBook Pro is running and Hulu works perfectly on it with no stuttering at all.

- Both computers were running on the same wireless network for the tests, and have, as noted, completely different results.

Very, very strange.

[Amdahl]

- Both computers were running on the same wireless network for the tests, and have, as noted, completely different results.


Can you try the MBP via Ethernet cable and turn off Airport?

[bfryman79]

Can you try the MBP via Ethernet cable and turn off Airport?

Yeah, I tried that with no luck. I even took my MacBook Pro into my office at work and connected via ethernet and through wireless network but it still gives me the same issues.

I have an update - I downloaded the beta version of Safari 4 today on the MacBook Pro and so far, Hulu seems to be working perfectly. I'll cross my fingers, but if any stuttering occurs in the next few days, I will post it.

So it's back to stuttering all the time - same issues, even with Safari 4.

[Dimwhit]

So it's back to stuttering all the time - same issues, even with Safari 4.

It's a long shot, and it might have been mentioned before, but have you cleared out your cache in Safari? Maybe too much cache messes with the buffering or something.

[bfryman79]

Yeah, I've definitely tried that, but just did it again to make sure, with no luck. Here are some more symptoms in addition to the "stutter":

Sometimes, the selected video won't play at all, but rather just cycle through the ad announcement by hulu of who is sponsoring the video. It just keeps repeating that over and over again. Or it will start the video for a minute or so and then just suddenly start the ad announcement again as if I started the video over.

Other times the video won't play at all and you sit and wait for a couple of minutes until hulu comes back and says the video has trouble playing, please try again later - or something like that.

And then, the stutter thing if the video ever happens to actually start playing.

[Zonyc]

Found this thread in a mroogle search. I'm having this problem as well. Everything that uses flash stutters - youtube etc. I've downgraded to flash 9 from 10 and have noticed no difference! Im running last previous gen Imac 3.06 ghz intel. My macbook does not have the same issue and it's running the same software for the most part. Anybody find a solution to this yet?

[Eric-PTEK]

Me too, its driving me nuts.

I believe this is a Mac 09 HW problem or OS problem.

Hulu and everything else plays perfect on my wife's crappy 2.2ghz Celeron laptop, my Core Duo 1.8 laptop, QC 3.2ghz Desktop, her QC desktop. Hell even on my 2008 R2 server running in a Hyper V session.

My 08 mini had no problems, but this 09 no matter what will not work.

Windows or OSx...

Anyone every find a cure?

[bfryman79]

I found a solution! Well, a work-around anyway. Hulu has just come out with a beta version of their own desktop software so we can now bypass the whole browser problem. You can get it here:

http://www.hulu.com/labs/hulu-desktop

It works for Mac and Windows and is actually a pretty cool interface. I've been using it all week with no problems at all. You can even use your Apple Remote with it.

[jasonhedrick]

I know it sounds weird, but I dealt with this for some time, and all my problems went away when I upgraded the video card in my MacPro. I know that's a tough solution for anything other than a MacPro, but I definitely think this is graphics handling related. Maybe try some updated drivers for your graphics card?

Jason

[Eric-PTEK]

Hulu Desktop fixes 95 percent of the problem.

Watched Better Off Ted and it gave me a jump every few minutes.

Warehouse 13 so far has played fine.

Good enough to watch.

[Dimwhit]

Hulu Desktop fixes 95 percent of the problem.

Watched Better Off Ted and it gave me a jump every few minutes.

Warehouse 13 so far has played fine.

Good enough to watch.

Have they changed Hulu Desktop to allow you to watch a show in a small window that can be moved around? Last time I tried, it had to be watched full screen (that I was able to figure out, anyway). Still the case?

[macorpcrepair]

Ok. I have multiple computers both PC and MAC in the house.

I'm with Time warner Cable 10MBPS.

I'm using a wireless router N.

1. Powermac G5 Dual 2.7Ghz with 256MB Video card. Hulu plays just fine.
2. Macbook Pro 2.16Ghz core duo 4GB ram 256MB Video card - Plays just fine
3. Macbook White - Intel core 2 Duo 1.83Ghz - Plays just fine
4. Powerbook G4 1.5Ghz 12" - sluggish and lagging.
5. Imac g5 17" 1.8Ghz - Sluggish and lagging
7. HP Pavilion Centrino 1.5Ghz 1.5GB RAM 32MB Video Card - No problems playing. I got this laptop in 2002.
8. Emachines M6811 AMD Athlon 64 bit working on windows xp home 32 bit, 64MB RAM - No problems.

This tells me something. The only 2 unites that I am having problems with are both using the old processor before intel with low video cards. My powermac G5 has also the old processor but with a higher video card.

Could it be the old G5 processors if you don't have 256MB Video RAM is not enough to run hulu stuff online? I can play DVD's just fine on my 2 computers that are lagging.

Hope they can come up with a patch or solution soon.

Thanks for all your threads. I also see some people with Intel core processors having problems. What I would try to do in that matter is to try and see if you can hook up directly to the modem and see if it's going to make a difference or not.

Update:

I downloaded Hulu Desktop and i set the resolution for the video to "LOW". now it's running better than before. i'm watching saturday night live right now. But I can still see that it's lagging.

Here's a screen shot of hulu while browsing it on firefox on my imac g5 17" 1.8Ghz. Also good to note that i formatted this desktop and wipe it clean. So there is no special programs installed. I am using 10.4.11 Tiger. I had 10.5.8 on this computer also last time but no help.

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/4899/huluonimacg5.png

Please notice the CPU activity is on full when I play a video. In this case, dawn of the dead.

Thank you all.

[NC MacGuy]

PPC and Hulu, Youtube or any flash doesn't work well at all. If I remember correctly, you used to be able to install Flash 8 for better performance but now Hulu won't even play with it and Youtube keeps hounding you to upgrade your flash plug-in.

If you look at the Hulu desktop link it even says minimum requirements are an Intel processor. You're still using Flash 9 and Adobe hates our PPC's and Apple's OS for reasons that go back a decade or more. Basically us PPC users are screwed.

[macorpcrepair]

PPC and Hulu, Youtube or any flash doesn't work well at all. If I remember correctly, you used to be able to install Flash 8 for better performance but now Hulu won't even play with it and Youtube keeps hounding you to upgrade your flash plug-in.

If you look at the Hulu desktop link it even says minimum requirements are an Intel processor. You're still using Flash 9 and Adobe hates our PPC's and Apple's OS for reasons that go back a decade or more. Basically us PPC users are screwed.

I just downgraded my adobe flash back to 9. It's working much better than flash 10. Activity monitor is not that high.

Link for Adobe flash 9 http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/406/kb406791.html.

Good luck everyone.

[MacUser1995]

drive and 10.4.11 OS system.

My old hard drive had only 40 GB with 10.2.8 and it could run Hulu and other free TV programs just fine!

What is the deal with this? The old system AND PCs work OK with Hulu but newer MAC OS systems do NOT??

what would cause this? Is there ANY free TV sites out there that run fine with the newer Mac OS systems like Tiger, Snow Leopard etc?

[Amos Nomore]

From what I've been able to gather, Adobe Flash Player plugin appears to be incompatible with certain graphics cards on Macs and PCs. This may only be part of the problem with poor Flash video rendering and cpu intensive behavior.

I would encourage all to register and vote on the FP-890 Adobe bug issue board

http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-890 vote on this issue
http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-2600
http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-2111

[Bluze]

this has been a problem for awhile and I couldnt fix it. So I went to Apple store today for same issue. Of course, there it works fine, no problem. :eek: Is this a car? ;)

Anyhow, I figured it must be a network issue if it worked there and not at home. I shut off all network sharing/remote access, and it seemed to fix it.
fingers crossed.

Edit: scratch that. Damn

[dangerisa]

I had the same problem with Hulu but only if I went into full screen mode.
Reinstalled Flash, tired multiple browsers but nothing worked. So I googled Hulu mac problems, looks like Hulu has a like app for the desktop which fixed the problem. No stutters, no shakes I think it looks better than going to hulu.com. Check it out http://www.hulu.com/labs/hulu-desktop

[alicia adams]

This is an old thread but the problems continue. My 2 cents is that I have both a mac mini (leopard) and a pc laptop (win 7) and it's the laptop which is having the stuttering---well, more like long pauses where it stops for 30 sec and then runs fine for 5 min.

I haven't got around to trying to fix it since this is a new laptop and the problem started late last night.

Edited to add that I reduced the bandwidth to the lowest res and paused until the buffer filled up and that will fix it for now.