17.1 video buffering & crashing from SMB

Kit list:

Fire TV running 17.1 (Kodi & Amazon both running latest versions)
iMac with external USB hard drive is my media server running snow leopard & shared using SMB
Draytek 2830n router connected to TP Link 1200 home plug
iMac connected to TP Link 1200 home plug
Fire TV connected on WiFi

Problem:

Almost every video I watch from my hard drive buffers, hangs, crashes at some point randomly. I do not stream any media from the internet, all media is stored locally.

Things tried so far:
Connecting everything wired over homeplugs – as soon as I do that Fire TV cannot see my SMB files (unplug the Ethernet & bingo all SMB files are there again) I’ve posted in other threads about this & tried everything recommended to enable my Kodi to see the content over a wired connection but no joy… so I need to sort this buffering over WiFi or else 7 years of Kodi use & personal library builds will have to be ditched for an alternative.

I have reduced “Enable HQ Scalers for scaling above” to 0%

I have turned off “Allow hardware acceleration – MediaCodec (surface)”

I have given my Mac a static IP

I have power cycled everything (hundreds of times)

None of these has even created a glimmer of improvement or hope

Log File:

HTTPS://paste.ubuntu.com/24491297/

Any help appreciated, before Kodi is ditched or my relationship!!! 🙂

Cheers