The most common trigger is an app update. Smarters updates can silently reset playback settings, including buffer depth, back to a generic default built for an average connection rather than yours. If the timing lines up with an update notification, open playback settings and check buffer depth and DNS handling before assuming anything about your service changed. A working setup that suddenly buffers is much more often a settings reset than a genuine service change. Write down the date it started and check that against your app's update history; if they match within a day or two, you've almost certainly found the cause before touching a single other setting.

Buffer depth, set as low as the app allows. A deep buffer sounds like it should help, but it delays playback start and, more importantly, makes a recovering stream take longer to catch back up after any stall, which shows up as more buffering, not less. Pair that with a public DNS resolver set at the device or router level, since it shortens the lookup step ahead of every six-second segment request the app makes. Most other settings inside Smarters, subtitle handling, EPG refresh rate, theme, have no real effect on buffering at all, so it is worth being specific about which two actually matter before spending time in the wrong menu.

Scope it first. If it's one channel, that's a source feed issue and no Smarters setting reaches it; switch away and back to confirm, then move on or wait it out. If it's one group, it's server-side for that group. If it's everything, force a clean session by fully closing Smarters (not just backing out of the channel) and relaunching, then check buffer and DNS as above. That three-step order, scope, switch-back, settings, covers almost every case people bring to a Smarters troubleshooting thread, and it takes a few minutes rather than an afternoon of random changes.

Yes, mainly through the channel list it holds in memory. Player apps including Smarters destabilize somewhere above roughly 18,000 visible channels on lower-memory devices, and that shows up as buffering and stutters that have nothing to do with any single channel. Hiding groups you don't use shrinks what Smarters has to load and hold, which is a genuine fix rather than cosmetic tidying. This matters more on older phones, budget streaming boxes and first-generation Firestick models than on a current-generation TV, so the same list size can be a non-issue on one device and a real problem on another.