This might not be the best place to ask. I added an extra connection to my account, when I set "max connections" to two everything buffers and is unwatchable. Is max connections not what I think it is? After changing it back, everything is fine. Meh, I doubt I'll ever need to record and watch something else anyway.
I have mine set to 5 connections since that's what vaders allows and i have no issues. I have never used 5 concurrent connections but I have used 3 (two recordings plus a live channel) and it seemed fine. Make sure you have the bandwidth to support two connections but other than that it could just be on the provider side.
Look up a project on GitHub called telly.
Do you mean this setting? https://i.imgur.com/EJx3wnM.png that is where you limit your streams.
Fwiw, I use a proxy (YAP) between sstv and tvh with tvh set to multiple connections and streaming is smooth. I think connection count is really just how many concurrent connections tvh will open to the network. When I do initial scan and watch tvh connection status, I see it limiting to my max connection count. That said, don't know why increasing that number affects your streaming unless you're actually using additional connections