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Potomac

Member

Registered: 2011-12-25

Posts: 556

[SOLVED] Glitchs on Youtube videos (AV1 codec) with AMD GPU

Hello,

I have a graphic card AMD Radeon RX 7600, I use Plasma in a Wayland session, and linux kernel 7.1.8-arch1-3.

I notice very recently strange glitchs/artifacts on Youtube videos when AV1 codec is used, if the GPU is used for the decoding then I see strange glitchs on the video :

you can see this bug in this screenshot: if you look closely, the left half is a darker blue than the bottom-right half; the issue disappears and reappears randomly during playback:

Issue occur with Firefox and Chromium.

YouTube is currently enabling the AV1 codec by default instead of VP9, which can probably cause issues with hardware decoding on certain graphics cards.

If I disable the AV1 codec (setting the "media.av1.enabled" option to "false" in Firefox's "about:config" menu) to force YouTube to serve videos encoded with VP9, the problem goes away.
To check if YouTube is serving you a video using the AV1 codec, simply right-click on the video and select "Stats for nerds"; this will display the video codec type being used.

You should also verify that hardware decoding is actually enabled; you can check this using utilities like `amdgpu_top`. In the list of displayed processes, you should see an "RDD Process" line where the "VCNU" column shows a value greater than zero while playing a YouTube video.
If AV1 video decoding is handled solely by the CPU, there won't be any glitches, but CPU usage will increase.

If I download the Youtube video (AV1 codec) and if read this video with MPV then I see the same bug (strange glitchs).

If I download a test video (AV1 codec) not made by Youtube then the decoding is perfect when GPU is used :

$ mpv --hwdec=vaapi spbtv_sample_bipbop_av1_960x540_25fps.mp4  
● Video  --vid=1  (av1 960x540 25 fps) [default]
● Audio  --aid=1  (aac 1ch 32000 Hz 9 kbps) [default]
Using hardware decoding (vaapi).
AO: [pipewire] 32000Hz mono 1ch floatp
VO: [gpu-next] 960x540 vaapi[nv12]
AV: 00:00:06 / 00:00:15 (40%) A-V:  0.000

Last edited by Potomac (2026-08-15 20:58:18)

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 78,379

Re: [SOLVED] Glitchs on Youtube videos (AV1 codec) with AMD GPU

Do you have a link to the particular yt video?
Does it flicker or are the colors constantly wrong?

There seems some kind of gradient going on and possibly a bug in ffmpeg, mesa or the amdgpu module, reps. the codec might use a profile that's not (fully/properly) supported by either of those (but the CPU implementation)

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topcat01

Member

Registered: 2019-09-17

Posts: 345

Re: [SOLVED] Glitchs on Youtube videos (AV1 codec) with AMD GPU

Maybe this: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/ … items/5615

Potomac

Member

Registered: 2011-12-25

Posts: 556

Re: [SOLVED] Glitchs on Youtube videos (AV1 codec) with AMD GPU

Do you have a link to the particular yt video?
Does it flicker or are the colors constantly wrong?

There seems some kind of gradient going on and possibly a bug in ffmpeg, mesa or the amdgpu module, reps. the codec might use a profile that's not (fully/properly) supported by either of those (but the CPU implementation)

Here is the link for the Youtube video :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIH7VT8jgwY

The bug creates the appearance of blocks of color (often rectangular or square) that vary slightly in shade—either darker or lighter—compared to the rest of the image, the color is correct but not the intensity (sometimes it's slightly darker, sometimes slightly lighter).

The bug will occur on all Youtube videos that use AV1 codec, if the AMD GPU is used for AV1 decoding, and if you use a Wayland session (on X11 session with Plasma it seems that GPU decoding is never used).

But if I download an AV1 video (not created by Youtube) then I don't have the bug, for example if I download this AV1 file then there is no bug (when using MPV player with GPU decoding enabled) :
https://www.elecard.com/storage/video/C … x1080.webm

Last edited by Potomac (2026-08-15 20:41:45)

Potomac

Member

Registered: 2011-12-25

Posts: 556

Re: [SOLVED] Glitchs on Youtube videos (AV1 codec) with AMD GPU

Maybe this: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/ … items/5615

Yes it's probably the same bug, thanks for the link.

I have linux-firmware-amdgpu package installed, in 20260810-1 version.

Potomac

Member

Registered: 2011-12-25

Posts: 556

Re: [SOLVED] Glitchs on Youtube videos (AV1 codec) with AMD GPU

The bug is solved by updating linux-firmware-amdgpu package to 20260810-2 version.

Last edited by Potomac (2026-08-15 21:01:08)