home network streaming issue; every media player crashes

Work in progress. Just seeing Mr Hoffman's recs...I have not yet disabled the media players in safari, nor have I (yet) removed the VPN.

I thought I only had one VPN, PIA, is there another in my system? AFAIK, I never installed a second vpn, and my present VPN has been operative for years, predating the problem. TBC the videos are not streamed from an internet source, eg Safari, but from an external drive connected to my main computer, the "mothership" of the home network, everything hard wired.

This is the etre report from last evening when the problem recurred.

>Disable the IINA and Movist Pro extensions in Safari, and in any other

browsers involved. (This to test with the built-in media players.)<

This is what I see under settings...extensions for Safari. Safari is not my default browser—Firefox is and no media player is enabled there—

So, is this the proper setting, or should I "uninstall" as pictured above? Does that uninstall, uninstall the app from my machine or just as an extension?

Disabled the media players in Safari, did not uninstall them, problem persists.

I went into settings for DuckDuckGo and VPN is not enabled, in fact it is a paid service, so though listed it is not running.

I still need to uninstall my PIA VPN—the sole VPN— and try, will report.

Question: Do you think upgrading the new M4 Sequoia mini to Tahoe may help? My "mothership" computer is running Ventura. Or do you think it would add a level of complexity and confusion to the whole process?

Thanks

I used the uninstall feature of the VPN software to uninstall, then, after that, I rebooted.

Would a reinstall of the OS via recovery suffice, with the VPN uninstalled? Or are you talking about wiping clean the internal mac mini drive and starting from scratch?

And, tbc, I am using the same vpn software on my laptop and my desktop and there is no problem

does it matter if the satellite machine is running safe mode? I can run terminal.

I am in safe mode now.

I don't know if my imagination or not, but it seems when I test during the daytime things are more likely to run fine, but in the latter part of the evening, things get screwed up.

I am in central time USA

Last night I was in safe mode, VPN uninstalled and the problem was still there—etre attached.

I wonder if something is getting blocked or congested because once it starts happening it becomes quicker to recur. It may last 15+ minutes at first, then as time goes on, it may only play properly for 3,4 minutes.

Anyway I am attaching the Etre report for the crash that happened in safe mode and the VPN uninstalled. I am going to run those terminal prompts and report.

here are the results of the terminal commands. This was taken after a normal boot and no running of any media player, vpn uninstalled

2nd command running media, vpn uninstalled

netstat command, no vpn, media NOT running

seeing zeros

really appreciate the help and patience!

I'll do that. I'll get you a netstat after reboot and after the problem occurs and post.

So, am I understanding you that the VPN as the cause has been ruled out? If so, then I can just run it again, correct?

I tried videos from a different external drive connected to my server and the same problem presents itself. So I think that eliminates the the original external drive as the problem, correct?

>You forgot the -i switch after netstat<

doh!

ok, that will be coming.

One thing I notice, and it may just be coincidence, is that during the day, when I try to reproduce the problem, things very often play fine, so I can't get the crash diagnostics, ie no crash. Things are much more apt to screw up when played in the later evening, like after 930, 10pm. If anything our home network traffic is unchanged or less during those later hours when the system seems more affected.

And again, many thanks

This took a couple of days to post because sometimes, and it seems more common now (I think???) that the crashing sometimes doesn't appear one evening, only to reappear the next. Once it starts though it is most likely going to repeat. TBC NOTHING has changed in my setup.

Throw another question out there.

My server machine is running the latest version of Ventura and the mini is running Sequoia latest. A few months ago, when Ventura was upgraded on the server is when the problems started. There was a big discussion here, at the time, about the "incompatibility" between Ventura and Sequoia. A new update for Ventura arrived and for most of the people in the thread the problems were solved. My problem only was somewhat improved and the problem of all media players crashing was not solved at all...So, I am wondering if Ventura and Sequoia still just don't play well together and my problem is related to that. Now, that said, my laptop runs the same OS as the mini (15e.7.1) and does not exhibit the problem. TBC the media crashing problem seems to be unique to the mini, whether it runs via ethernet or wifi, but only when it is accessing files on the server.

Thanks

and my cable is 5e

I tried the changed setting last night and problem persists

why are the responses appearing chronologically out of order?