I currently have subscriptions to both Fab and Ace Iptv. I've tried both Kodi and Perfect Player on a Fire Stick and on a Matricom G-Box Box Q2 and still seem to have a lot of issues with buffering and freezing. My internet speed is around 50 mbps. Is there another device I should look in to that would reduce the buffering significantly or is this just the norm with IPTV?
Would clearing the cache help?
Have you tried plugging the G-Box directly into your router via ethernet or are you running strictly on wifi?
I too have had similar issues most servers if not all say no issues here, I have found its down to the iptv supplier as some do it and some don't
Most of the time with buffering is the internet connection not getting a fluent download speed. With 720p the standard at the moment which requires a constant minimum 3.5mbps to play. Also IPTV doesn't buffer from the start (about 2 seconds) hence the quick channel changing. I have used Kofi/perfect player on fire stick 1st/2nd gen no issues apart from what has been mentioned in this reddit of occasionally channel issues when busy which is rare. I would do a speed test from a PC or smartphone make sure the speed you get holds for 30 seconds and then play a SD stream from your IPTV. Also make sure the .m3u playlist is a mpegts (last part of the line given to you from provider)
did you do a speedtest on the firestick and gbox itself?
try doing a speedtest by going to http://t1.re on your devices, and see what each device can get.
I installed stb emulator last night on my fire stick and even though I haven't had a chance to play around with it too much yet, it seems much more stable than the other methods I've used.
what version of kodi?
can't really say about other than kodi. But before v17, it determines an average bitrate of the stream, and then a there is a (default) readbufferfactor that determines how quickly kodi will cache the stream. most iptv streams are variable bitrate, and therefore sections with higher bitrate can empty the cache, because kodi does not utilize your full bandwith..
increase the readbufferfactor in advancedsettings.xml to 3-5. this fixed any buffer issues i had in kodi, also with a 50mbit connection.
If it's all channels, then it's probably something to do with your setup, but if some channels run perfectly, it's probably the provider. I've tried pretty much all IPTV providers that I could through Kodi, and most have at least 10% channels that buffer (usually higher than 10%). Smoothstreams is the only one for me that almost never buffers. I don't have Ace (tried it out, tbh can't remember enough about it), but I have Fab right now and I'm finding the channels are either absolutely flawless with perfect quality or buffering to the point of being unwatchable, with little in between.