Can't have more than one application watch videos at the same time

Greduan · 2014-11-14 00:16:55

The title isn't entirely accurate. I will write all my observations here.

I believe I started to notice these problems since the (recent) X11 update which seems to have happened in July. The subsequent Mesa updates may be related. These updates also caused X11 to crash sometimes, this issue got resolved after a patch update though, it seems.

Before I share my issues I have a Dell Vostro 1500 with the Intel Core 2 Duo processor (which includes the integrated GPU), using the Linux BFS 3.16.6-2-x86_64 kernel (plan to upgrade tomorrow morning while the internet is quick) and the packages listed in https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Intel_Graphics.

The most reproducible version of this problem I've had has to do with Chromium, VLC/MPlayer/MPV and to an extent Firefox.

To reproduce all I have to do is have Chromium open and watch some video on YouTube (HTML5 as I do not have version with Flash included). Then I open a video in VLC/MPlayer/MPV and one of two things can happen:

It can work on VLC, but then if I go back to the HTML5 video when I press play it tells me it has crashed and I should reload the tab.
VLC simply does not work and it plays the audio but no video, sometimes not even the audio.

This is VLC's output in a case where nor the audio or video work (and the HTML5 crashed as well):

https://imgur.com/J897mMG,17xu7ip (album of 2 scrots)

I had to close VLC for the HTML5 to work, and if you're curious, yes I am listening to Weird Al as I write this. Most of the time I have to reset X11 (or even reboot) to be able to watch videos or listen to audio with VLC again. I have noticed that sometimes if I haven't watched a video for a long time VLC works again (or at least the audio does, sometimes the video).

OK so that's with video apps. This may be unrelated but I think it's worth mentioning here. With Firefox I run into an issue where Flash gets super glitchy, it gets stuck in one glitchy frame or it flashes between two glitchy frames, sometimes it shows the video in the background with the glitchy frames on top still flashing (so I get glimpses of the video), and other glitches.

Some of the ways I fix it are to reload the tab, open a new Firefox window and open the video there, reset Firefox, close Chromium's video tabs, amongst others. None of these work 100% of the time. Sometimes none of them work.

That is all that I can think of. I've been doing a couple of weeks of tests and normal usage in order to acquire this report so it'd be cool if there's a solution.

Thanks! If there are any questions or further information you need, feel free to ask.

Last edited by Greduan (2014-11-14 00:17:51)

karol · 2014-11-14 00:42:12

Anything interesting in the logs, systemd's journal, in the terminal when you start firefox etc. from the terminal?
I'm using the stock kernel atm and I can play html5 and flash in firefox and local mp4 and mkv files with mpv all at the same time.

Greduan · 2014-11-14 00:53:13

Output of sudo journalctl -p 0..3 -xn: https://gist.github.com/Greduan/2c300703f95b6f280e87

karol · 2014-11-14 00:57:56

I'm not using PA.

32-bit Arch with [testing] repos enabled.

nomorewindows · 2014-11-14 00:59:50

I've never been able to run two applications that one didn't yield to the other.

Greduan · 2014-11-14 01:01:41

@karol

I don't use PA either, but I installed Mate at some point and now I'm not entirely sure how to get rid of it completely.

@nomorewindows

Oh I interesting, so you have the same or a similar problem to mine?

Last edited by Greduan (2014-11-14 01:01:53)

karol · 2014-11-14 01:11:11

Remove all the PA packages (not just pulseaudio, remove pulseaudio-alsa too, if you've got it installed). If any scripts / services depend on it, they will break.
Close all applications using it, kill PA with 'pulseaudio --kill', check with 'ps' or 'htop' that it's dead, restart multimedia applications, start playing video, check if PA came back.

See the wiki if you need more info.

nomorewindows · 2014-11-14 01:14:09

Greduan wrote:

@nomorewindows
Oh I interesting, so you have the same or a similar problem to mine?

On the videos yes. On the audio, two or more applications work just fine.

Greduan · 2014-11-14 01:20:01

@kalos

Uninstalled everything PA, also uninstalled mangler which was the only thing that depended on PA. It didn't work anyway.
No pulseaudio --kill command so I couldn't run.
Checked systemd journal and there is no mention of PA this time.
Checked top, and grepped ps aux and there is no PA there either.

I also rebooted the machine completely just to make sure. However VLC and HTML5 have the same incompatibilities.

_ vlc Videos/anime/fmab/01.mp4
VLC media player 2.1.5 Rincewind (revision 2.1.4-49-gdab6cb5)
[0x1bc30f8] pulse audio output error: PulseAudio server connection failure: Connection refused
[0x1af4118] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
Fontconfig warning: FcPattern object size does not accept value "0"
Fontconfig warning: FcPattern object size does not accept value "0"
Fontconfig warning: FcPattern object size does not accept value "0"
Fontconfig warning: FcPattern object size does not accept value "0"
[0x7fb604001248] main vout display error: Failed to resize display

But the video and audio did work until I ran some HTML5 video, after which the audio worked, and then I opened it again and it didn't work...

@nomorewindows

I see. That's too bad. At least we're not alone.

Last edited by Greduan (2014-11-14 01:34:29)

Greduan · 2014-11-22 17:05:38

Bump. Hope it gets more attention since it's early in the day.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-11-14 00:16:55

Can't have more than one application watch videos at the same time

#2 2014-11-14 00:42:12

Re: Can't have more than one application watch videos at the same time

#3 2014-11-14 00:53:13

Re: Can't have more than one application watch videos at the same time

#4 2014-11-14 00:57:56

Re: Can't have more than one application watch videos at the same time

#5 2014-11-14 00:59:50

Re: Can't have more than one application watch videos at the same time

#6 2014-11-14 01:01:41

Re: Can't have more than one application watch videos at the same time

#7 2014-11-14 01:11:11

Re: Can't have more than one application watch videos at the same time

#8 2014-11-14 01:14:09

Re: Can't have more than one application watch videos at the same time

#9 2014-11-14 01:20:01

Re: Can't have more than one application watch videos at the same time

#10 2014-11-22 17:05:38

Re: Can't have more than one application watch videos at the same time

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