Arch Linux

tihnessa

Member

Registered: Yesterday

Posts: 2

VLC stuttering and freezing

I have just got a new computer and, since it was bought without an OS, have put Arch on it - of course - along with VLC and my problem is this; VLC is stuttering and freezing appallingly. The stutters are for a fraction of a second but tend to occur in clumps while the freezing can last for up to ten seconds at a time. I have tried:

* In VLC
     * Increasing caching to 20,000ms
     * Setting video display output to Disable
     * Setting skip H.264 in-loop deblocking filter to disable
     * Setting FFMPEG threads to 4
* In system settings
     * Switching my screensaver off entirely
     * Switching power management off entirely

And while all of this has helped with the stuttering, it has not eliminated it entirely and has done nothing for the freezing.

I am connecting to my monitor via DisplayPort and reading video files from an external disc - but it makes no difference whether I copy the files to the local disc or not. I have also tried switching off Dropbox and InSync (which sync to the same external drive) with no effect.

I suspect the freezing *may* possibly, perhaps be a system problem rather than a VLC one as it seems to take a while before starting (about half an hour to an hour of playback) and it seems as though jiggling the mouse temporarily kicks things back into action, but I cannot state this with a high degree of certainty.

My specs are

* Intel Core i5-14400F 2.7Ghz 10 Core 16 Threads CPU
* Nvidia RTX 3050 8GB GPU using Nouveau drivers
* 16GB DDR4 3200Mhz RAM

I have the following optional VLC plugins installed

* vlc-plugin-dvd
* vlc-plugin-ffmpeg
* vlc-plugin-x264

Any thoughts, ideas, suggestions or even just sympathy and commiserations greatly welcome. Many thanks, in advance

David Shaw

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,261

Re: VLC stuttering and freezing

Have you tried disabling HW video decoding? Also are you intentionally using nouveau? It's support for newer GPUs is generally not "the best" and you'll likely get better perf with the proprietary drivers.

Which desktop environment? Xorg or Wayland? What outputs do you get from

glxinfo -B #mesa-utils
vdpauinfo
vainfo

potentially terminal output of VLC?

If you think the freezing might be systemic, post a journal

sudo journalctl -b | curl -F 'file=@-'  https://paste.c-net.org/

tihnessa

Member

Registered: Yesterday

Posts: 2

Re: VLC stuttering and freezing

Yes, I have tried disabling HW video encoding - sorry, forgot that one.

I am intentionally using the Nouveau as that was the only option offered by archinstall. I shall look into using the proprietary drivers

I'm using XFCE with X11.

I don't appear to have vdpau or va-api installed.

Output from journalctl -b:  https://paste.c-net.org/CrumbleFella

Output from glxinfo -B
==============================
name of display: :0.0
display: :0  screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
    Vendor: Mesa (0x10de)
    Device: zink Vulkan 1.4(NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 (NVK GA107) (MESA_NVK)) (0x2584)
    Version: 26.1.3
    Accelerated: yes
    Video memory: 6144MB
    Unified memory: no
    Preferred profile: core (0x1)
    Max core profile version: 4.6
    Max compat profile version: 4.6
    Max GLES1 profile version: 1.1
    Max GLES[23] profile version: 3.2
Memory info (GL_ATI_meminfo):
    VBO free memory - total: 6137 MB, largest block: 6137 MB
    VBO free aux. memory - total: 11846 MB, largest block: 11846 MB
    Texture free memory - total: 6137 MB, largest block: 6137 MB
    Texture free aux. memory - total: 11846 MB, largest block: 11846 MB
    Renderbuffer free memory - total: 6137 MB, largest block: 6137 MB
    Renderbuffer free aux. memory - total: 11846 MB, largest block: 11846 MB
Memory info (GL_NVX_gpu_memory_info):
    Dedicated video memory: 6144 MB
    Total available memory: 17990 MB
    Currently available dedicated video memory: 6137 MB
OpenGL vendor string: Mesa
OpenGL renderer string: zink Vulkan 1.4(NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 (NVK GA107) (MESA_NVK))
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.6 (Core Profile) Mesa 26.1.3-arch1.2
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.60
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile

OpenGL version string: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 26.1.3-arch1.2
OpenGL shading language version string: 4.60
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL profile mask: compatibility profile

OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 26.1.3-arch1.2
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20

When running from the terminal, nothing happens when the video freezes, but I get the following on starting to play
==============================
VLC media player 3.0.23 Vetinari (revision 3.0.23-2-0-g79128878dd)
[000055b81bd7c5d0] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
libva error: /usr/lib/dri/nouveau_drv_video.so init failed
[00007f760c001ea0] glconv_vaapi_x11 gl error: vaInitialize: resource allocation failed
libva error: /usr/lib/dri/nouveau_drv_video.so init failed
[00007f760c001ea0] glconv_vaapi_drm gl error: vaInitialize: resource allocation failed
libva error: /usr/lib/dri/nouveau_drv_video.so init failed
[00007f760c001ea0] glconv_vaapi_drm gl error: vaInitialize: resource allocation failed
Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_zink.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
[00007f7634c30120] main decoder error: Timestamp conversion failed for 2160001: no reference clock
[00007f7634c30120] main decoder error: Could not convert timestamp 0 for FFmpeg
[h264 @ 0x7f76366e33c0] get_buffer() failed
[h264 @ 0x7f76366e33c0] thread_get_buffer() failed
[h264 @ 0x7f76366e33c0] no frame!