System freezes while watching a video with VLC

[glock24]

While watching a video with VLC in full-screen the system freezes occasionally, even magic-keys don't work to take back control or reboot safely.

I'm using catalyst 9.2 on a Mobility HD3650.

[lordmozilla]

i get the same on my hd4850 on catalyst 9.2 or 9.1.
I found compiz/emerald was the culprit. Try to disable it and see
if it happens again.

[glock24]

I don't use a compositing window manager, no compiz/beryl, just plain KDE 4.2. Yesterday I got another freeze this time using Kaffeine.

[dokc]

KWin compositing effects are switched on by default in KDE 4.2. Did you switch them off? (System Settings->Desktop->Desktop Effects)

[glock24]

KWin compositing effects are switched on by default in KDE 4.2. Did you switch them off? (System Settings->Desktop->Desktop Effects)

Yes, all desktop effects are disabled, as I see no need for them.

With desktop effect enabled the problem is a horrible video flicker, but as I said before, I have no compositing window manager enabled, and the problem is a hard lock while playing a video.

I tried with opengl (textured) video and overlay, and both cause a lockup.

[Mr_Ed]

Yes, all desktop effects are disabled, as I see no need for them.

With desktop effect enabled the problem is a horrible video flicker, but as I said before, I have no compositing window manager enabled, and the problem is a hard lock while playing a video.

I tried with opengl (textured) video and overlay, and both cause a lockup.

Try turning textured video off. I have the same problems and turning textured video off has solved it for me. I also had this with the previous 9.1 catalyst version.

Regards,

Eddie.

[bridgman]

A couple of points:

1. "Desktop Effects" normally require a compositing window manager, and enable compositing automatically when you enable desktop effects. There may be exceptions to this, of course.

2. AFAIK you can't really turn TexturedVideo off for 5xx and higher GPUs, since they don't have the same video processing hardware in the overlay block.

Mr. Ed, which GPU are you running ?

[Mr_Ed]

Dear Bridgeman,

I have the following GPU: RV350 AR [Radeon 9600] rev 0.

I am sorry for my bad reply but I did not know that texturedvideo for newer ATI graphic boards can't be turned off.

Altough I do know that my graphic board has hard coded overlay support, I experimented with the texturedvideo parameter to see if it enabled me to play xv video using a composite window manager desktop. And it actually did gave me some positive results although the video was flickering.

Since 9.1 I am forced to turn it off because when I use totem movie player to play a video with texturedvideo = on, the screen turns black and the system locks up.

So, thatswhy I thought it might help for Glock24.

With kind regards,

Eddie.

[glock24]

Desktop effect are disabled, I disable them as I find them annoying.

In Kaffeine (whick uses xine backend) the only video output options that work are xv and xshm, and both cause lockups. As i understand, textured video work only with opengl output, right? So textured video is not causing the lockups.

I currently these options on my xorg.conf:

Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"

also tested with:

Option "VideoOverlay" "off"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "on"

But the result is the same. I noticed that the lockups are more frequent when playing a video after the computer wakes up from suspend.

[bridgman]

Mr. Ed; sorry, I just saw your post. Makes sense.

glock24; textured video uses the 3D engine but does not use OpenGL. For your system the normal settings would be :

TexturedVideo on
VideoOverlay off (5xx and higher don't have a video processor in the overlay block)
OpenGLOverlay off (this is for workstation apps which float another layer of graphics over the work area)

It sounds like the common thread here is some hanging during textured video playback (??)

[glock24]

bridgman: I'll try those settings and report back. If these are the correct settings (and problem free?) for my card, the fglrx installer should set them during installation, don't you think?

[bridgman]

I'm pretty sure those settings are supposed to be set by default. If they're not please let us know.

You have a 3650, right ?

[glock24]

Yes, I have a mobility 3650 (M86).

After performing "aticonfig --initial" none of the aforementioned options are added to xorg.conf, but the driver may set them automatically at load time... if so, how can I verify that?

By the way, with Option "TexturedVideo" "on" I get a horrible flickering in full screen mode, but at least I've had no lockups (yet).

I don't mind much if the 3D performance is not great, I just want my system to be stable. Hard lockups due to graphics drivers is unaceptable for me.

I've read the radeonhd driver is rock solid, but it does not work for me, as I only get nice white screen, and vesa doesn't work either.

[glock24]

Today I got another system freeze, also while playing a video after the computer came back from sleep.

[cutterjohn]

Same here as well, with 4850 mobility (512MB GDDR3) + cat 9.2 + Ubuntu 8.10 64b, none of the above mentioned options in xorg.conf, mplayer froze system when starting to play a video.

On a side note I haven't had the time yet, and don't have the inclination to deal w/system freezes ATM, but when I can(if it's not fixed in 9.3) I'll try changing various rendering options within mplayer and see what I can get to run OK, if anything.


Compositing (compiz/beryl) is entirely off, as it is causing problems with windowed opengl apps at least, ATM.

Still no immediate desire to monkey with mplayer setting and freezes yet, and/or debugs... Hopefully will get around to it over the weekend.

...and er, ahem, I sort of forgot to attempt to ssh into the nb and check to see if the system truly froze or X11/input just got locked out...

[Qaridarium]

While watching a video with VLC in full-screen the system freezes occasionally, even magic-keys don't work to take back control or reboot safely.

I'm using catalyst 9.2 on a Mobility HD3650.

9.2 crashes on my system to by looking DVD in VLC on an 4350!

9-4beta 8.60alpfa1 fix this to for me!

so if you wan't you can install Kubuntu9.04alpfa6 with the 8.60 9-4 beta

or wait for the 9-3 release! the 9-3 final will fix this problem to!

[glock24]

I just installed Catalyst 9.3, I hope this release fixes the problem.

[pandarean]

using 9.3, compiz7.8, kde4.2 and just got a crash with SMplayer...
Somtimes when i push play, the video screen blacks out... i have to stop and play again...

Also the tearing is still present with the xv output... so no big direct rendering tearing, but a lot of small fast motion tearing....

its better with gl output... but still tearing... gl2 is almost perfect... but still has a micro tearing

And at last, the kde4 bar is always displayed when switch to full screen with compiz and SMplayer...

Im going to test some mote things.... at last, new drivers, new problems but also some improvement.

Oh yes, did i mention a big system freeze? yes.... really bad.

[glock24]

Playing video after resume still hangs the computer with Catalyst 9.4, but this time I could reboot using magic keys.