Bug 27612 – xv causes X crash and screen corruption, i810 video

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED NEEDINFO

[Description bdonlan 2003-08-30 11:42:36 UTC]

When I play video using XV (via mplayer), sometimes X crashes, corrupting my
screen and making my keyboard unusable. Restarting X via ssh fails with:

Fatal server error:
Active ring not flushed

This occurs both with xfree-4.2.1-r2, and xfree-4.3.0-r2 (with updated drivers
from dri.sf.net)

This happens frequently, but not on every usage of XV.

Reproducible: Sometimes
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Play video with mplayer -nofs

Actual Results:  
Sometimes it works. Other times, the video window goes blue, followed shortly
with the entire screen displaying a staticky pattern.

Expected Results:  
It should not have crashed.

Logs will be attached once the bug is filed, along with configuration

Portage 2.0.48-r5 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.2.3, glibc-2.3.2-r1)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.4.20-gentoo-r5 i686 Celeron (Coppermine)
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /var/qmail/control /usr/kde/2/share/config
/usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/3.1/share/config
/usr/share/config"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
USE="x86 oss apm avi foomaticdb gif jpeg libg++ mad mikmod mpeg ncurses nls
pdflib png quicktime spell xml2 xmms xv gdbm berkdb slang readline tetex svga
java guile sdl gpm tcpd pam libwww ssl python esd imlib qt motif opengl mozilla
cdr -arts mysql cups tcltk X gtk -gnome alsa kde crypt emacs encode ipv6 mmx
oggvorbis perl truetype zlib apache2 mng"
COMPILER="gcc3"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=i686 -O3 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=i686 -pipe"
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
FEATURES="sandbox ccache"

[Comment 1 bdonlan 2003-08-30 11:43:12 UTC]

Created attachment 16821 [details]
/etc/X11/XF86Config

[Comment 2 bdonlan 2003-08-30 11:44:28 UTC]

Created attachment 16822 [details]
Log of the session where X crashed during xv playback

[Comment 3 bdonlan 2003-08-30 11:45:32 UTC]

Created attachment 16823 [details]
Log of session where X crashed

Wrong log file - this is the correct one

[Comment 4 bdonlan 2003-08-30 11:45:58 UTC]

Created attachment 16824 [details]
Log of attempt to restart X

[Comment 5 bdonlan 2003-08-30 12:12:50 UTC]

Created attachment 16826 [details]
Output of lspci -vv

[Comment 6 bdonlan 2003-11-09 15:33:19 UTC]

This appears to be connected with strange artefacts that sometimes appear
flickering down mplayer xv playbacks - blue or green blocks and lines flickering
down the scren usually. Restarting X stops these artefacts. This usually
results in a crash when I do some sort of other activity in a windowed xv
playback, or when the screensaver activates, which makes me suspect a race
condition. In addition, by running 'mode3' from svgalib, I can get a text
console, but X still refuses to restart, with "active ring not flushed".

[Comment 7 Andrew Bevitt 2003-11-23 19:50:44 UTC]

Have you tried installing x11-base/xfree-drm for your i810 card?
If not could you please try drmfrom this package over the drm in the kernel and attach results.

[Comment 8 vjacob 2004-07-31 07:11:16 UTC]

I'm using: xorg-x11-6.7.0-r1

I also see strange artifacts appear sometimes, flickering down mplayer xv playbacks - but only green blocks and lines flickering down the scren usually.

Switching to framebuffer and playing using -vo fbdev2 shows me that there's nothing wrong with my media files.

Previous reporter mentions "Restarting X stops these artefacts." I'm not sure this is the case for me. I've crashed at least once, but often I just stop abort mplayer (also VLC) when I see the green artifacts, and reboot. Usually stuff works again. So here I think we can conclude it's something to do with i810, X and/or kernel. It's not specific to mplayer.

I've disabled Xscreensaver for now, as I use my laptop for watching movies often, so I haven't crashed due to that, and haven't done more than one XV playback at a time for now, that I remember.

For me also: This happens frequently, but not on every usage of XV.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Play video with 'mplayer' or 'vlc', at least with files sized 50Mb and up..

Actual Results:  
Sometimes it works without any problem. Other times, the video window goes green (not blue as previous reporter mentions). I do get weird blocky patterns, usually in the bottom of the video output in X - the entire screen displaying perhaps a "staticky pattern", as previous reporter mentions.

Expected Results:  
Less green blocky patterns while watching encoded video files.

Portage 2.0.50-r8 (default-x86-2004.0, gcc-3.3.3, glibc-2.3.3.20040420-r0, 2.6.7-gentoo-r5)

And from /etc/make.conf:

CFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/Linux/gentoo http://
mirror.pudas.net/gentoo ftp://ftp.wh2.tu-dresden.de/pub/mirrors/gentoo"
USE="-java -svga -offensive distcc ipv6 jack oci8 gtk2 sasl maildir portaudio dv
dr cdr monkey directfb speex faad faac dvd matroska jikes nas wifi fbcon imap ss
l perl sse mmx x86 zlib xvid usb theora oss truetype spell readline quicktime nl
s ldap mad flac cups dga audiofile avi alsa acpi apm aalib crypt ncurses slang t
hreads"
ALSA_CARDS="intel8x0"
VIDEO_CARDS="intel8x0"

P.s. I can supply Xorg.log if need be. Just ask for more detail. Thanks in advance. I haven't tried another DRM, because I don't know if that exists/makes sense, at this point.

P.P.s. I asked someone on #mplayer and he told me it was likely something to do with X and/or my video card.

[Comment 9 Donnie Berkholz (RETIRED) 2005-10-05 20:11:25 UTC]

If you can reproduce with >=6.8.99.15, please reopen.