Bug 686646 – media-video/kaffeine-{2.0.18,9999}: libVLC "--avcodec-hw none" ignored

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE

[Description Manfred Knick 2019-05-24 06:37:20 UTC]

Opening kaffeine opens responsive.

Either starting re-play of a recorded video
or     starting dvb-t display /record
freezes X (1 thread with 100% cpu)
rendering the box almost completely un-operable.

The other seven threads kept on yawning,
not hurrying for help because not being requested ;-)

With much patience, I could press "Quit" ,
but kaffeine failed to stop.

With much patience again, I could kill kaffeine.

We had lots of changes during the last week
(intel firmware updates, qt updates, ...)
so it's hard to guess or even back-trace some "culprit".

[Comment 1 Manfred Knick 2019-05-24 06:39:53 UTC]

Created attachment 577696 [details]
Output running Kaffeine started from a terminal

[Comment 2 Manfred Knick 2019-05-24 06:42:25 UTC]

Created attachment 577698 [details]
emerge --info kaffeine

[Comment 3 Manfred Knick 2019-05-24 06:46:14 UTC]

# uname -a 

Linux XXXXX.de 4.19.45-gentoo #1 SMP Wed May 22 19:40:57 CEST 2019 x86_64 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1276 v3 @ 3.60GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux


# lspci

02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GP104 [GeForce GTX 1070 Ti] (rev a1)
02:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GP104 High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)

03:00.0 Multimedia controller: Digital Devices GmbH Cine V7

[Comment 4 Manfred Knick 2019-05-24 06:47:19 UTC]

Created attachment 577700 [details]
/boot/config-4.19.45-gentoo

[Comment 5 Manfred Knick 2019-05-24 06:53:30 UTC]

Unfortunately, dmesg and /var/log/messages did not expose any useful hints.

I'm running a pretty "stable" system; OpenRC; no systemd;
no architectural changes besides updates lately.

@ Mauro:  Please let me know what else could be of help.

[Comment 6 Manfred Knick 2019-05-31 16:34:19 UTC]

In my case,
  vlc does not work with --avcodec-hw {any,vdpau_avcodec,}
  vlc does     work with --avcodec-hw {vaapi,vaapi_drm,none}

Unfortunately, Kaffeine does not respect any of the latter entries in its
  "Settings" -> "libVLC arguments".

[Comment 7 Manfred Knick 2019-05-31 20:41:05 UTC]

Starting with clean configs:

  $ rm -r   ~/.local/share/vlc*         ~/.config/vlc*

  $ rm -r   ~/.local/share/kaffeine*    ~/.config/kaffeine* 

Force to *not* use vdpau
by passing an invalid driver name:     (*)

  $ export VDPAU_DRIVER=NonSense

  $ env | grep -i vdpau

WORKSFORME:

  $ vlc      -v

  $ kaffeine -d

Remaining QUESTION:  Why now?


(*)

Use of  vdpau is detected as default if nvidia-drivers being installed

C.f. Section "Setting VDPAU acceleration" in
     [ https://cgit.kde.org/kaffeine.git/tree/README.md ]
and
     [ https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=376893#c6 ]

[Comment 8 Manfred Knick 2019-06-01 12:20:11 UTC]

$ grep avcodec 0.out.txt

  [Debug   ] kaffeine.vlc:

    Using libVLC with args:
        --no-video-title-show --vout xcb_xv --avcodec-hw none --skip-frames
.....................................^^^^^^..............^^^^

  avcodec decoder:                                                   <-----
    Using NVIDIA VDPAU Driver Shared Library  430.14                 <-----
          Tue May  7 19:56:26 CDT 2019 for hardware decoding         <-----
  avcodec decoder error:
    hardware acceleration picture allocation failed
  avcodec decoder error:
    avcodec_send_packet critical error


SUSPICION:

Unlike other programs:
  --<parameter>=<value>
  .............^

libVLC expects
  -<parameter>   as well as
  --<parameter>  as well as
  --<parameter><blank><value>  triplets.
  ..............^^^^^

backend-vlc -> vlcmediawidget.cpp -> bool VlcMediaWidget::init()

works via

  argList = args.split(' ', QString::SkipEmptyParts);       ( Line 268 )
  .....................^^^

Perhaps triplets like

  "--avcodec-hw none"
  .............^

get disrupted, yielding into two separated parameters:

  "--avcodec-hw"   (eventually worthless without specifying value attached)
and
  "none"           (eventually disregarded as "unknown parameter")
?

[Comment 9 Manfred Knick 2019-06-01 14:43:33 UTC]

Temporary   WORAROUND:

$ VDPAU_DRIVER=block-NVIDIA kaffeine -d <file.m2t>  2> 0.out.txt

  works repeatedly, as well as

$ VDPAU_DRIVER=block-NVIDIA kaffeine -d             2> 0.out.txt

  playing DVB-T2 television broadcasting directly, 
  recording them and re-playing the contents.

  naturally resulting into the error message to be expected:

"Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_block-NVIDIA.so: ..."


HTH.

[Comment 10 Manfred Knick 2020-02-16 18:19:37 UTC]

Currently, cannot reproduce any more.