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+---- Thread: Irregular playback in lubuntu/ubuntu 24.04 (/showthread.php?tid=378489)
Irregular playback in lubuntu/ubuntu 24.04 - arad85 - 2024-08-15
Hello,
Long time user of kodi (going back to the xbox days) and have hand built around 8 systems in that time. Once kodi moved to PCs, I have been using Ubuntu (maybe 15 years?). Even on lowly powered systems, I have always been able to get things to work flawlessly (I'm a retired programmer and Linux sys admin) as far as video playback is concerned. I have just bought a fanless N100 based system to run in someone else's house. I have tried libreexec and that works flawlessly - video playback is perfect and smooth (I am really intolerant of frame rate mismatches between source and display as I used to work in the video decoding business). I have also tried lubuntu and ubuntu with oibaf's drivers installed and flatpak'd tv.kodi.Kodi. Playing the same file produces no errors (no frames lost/dropped/skipped from the player debug pane brought up with ctrl-shift-o) and no errors in the logs that I can see (see below). What I am getting is what I can only describe as "micro jerkiness" like the same frame gets displayed twice or it could be that a frame is missed (but doesn't show in the statistics) every second or two.
I recently upgraded the systems we have here to 22.04 and they too work flawlessly (all Intel video based).
This is a fresh install of ubuntu/lubuntu, install oibaf's drivers and then install flatpak kodi. The reason I don't just use libreexec is that the person wants to use this as their computer as well so wants to install a few other packages once the main
Anyone with any ideas?
Log file: https://paste.kodi.tv/owokukegud.kodi
glxinfo
Code:
p$ glxinfo -display :0 | grep oibaf
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.6 (Core Profile) Mesa 24.3~git2408150600.1f34eb~oibaf~n (git-1f34eb5 2024-08-15 noble-oibaf-ppa)
OpenGL version string: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 24.3~git2408150600.1f34eb~oibaf~n (git-1f34eb5 2024-08-15 noble-oi
OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 24.3~git2408150600.1f34eb~oibaf~n (git-1f34eb5 2024-08-15 noble-oibaf-ppa)
RE: Irregular playback in lubuntu/ubuntu 24.04 - Neo1973 - 2024-08-16
Can you confirm if switching of the resolution and refresh rate actually works with Flatpak? I'm not sure if the sand boxing does interfere here.
RE: Irregular playback in lubuntu/ubuntu 24.04 - arad85 - 2024-08-16
Yes, the resolution switches OK. Xrandr shows it at 23.98Hz for that video.
RE: Irregular playback in lubuntu/ubuntu 24.04 - arad85 - 2024-08-16
OK. Some new information. To rule out flatpak, I compiled kodi from source. Both the compiled from source and flatpak display the same traits, microjumps. The new information is that VSyncOff on the libreelec build is pretty constant at 1.1 - 1.2. Both the flatpak and kodi from source invariably show the offset as negative, plus it is not constant. -9.9. -12.6, 0, -12.6, -11. There appears to be no pattern, but I have seen one that said -25.
EDIT: I have rebooted and sometimes seeing a fairly stable value as the VSyncOff on the kodi build. Play the file one time and it is 1-2, another 12-14. Another play it jumps around -4 to +23. The jumps are still there in every playback.
Searching the forums show people occasionally have the same problem with no real solution.
Any ideas what might cause this?
RE: Irregular playback in lubuntu/ubuntu 24.04 - fritsch - 2024-08-16
Keep it on 60 hz. You are using the mesa drivers for intel. This was actually never fixed to provide a proper sync besides 60 hz. LibreELEC uses the video-intel opion iirc or some non-upstream patches for the intel build or no X11 build anymore at all ...
RE: Irregular playback in lubuntu/ubuntu 24.04 - arad85 - 2024-08-16
Thanks, but the other machines work perfectly for Intel graphics - and hve done for ages! This is so obvious that I would know within seconds of watching so I know the other machines. The occasional frame repeat/drop will annoy me at 60Hz, plus I have videos at 50Hz...
I will try a few options.
Maybe a dual boot would work, although I like the flexibility of running Linux underneath kodi to do - for example - swap audio out to headphones.
RE: Irregular playback in lubuntu/ubuntu 24.04 - arad85 - 2024-08-17
Trialling 60Hz. Forgot that the eye doesn't "see" small duration microjumps (60Hz microjumps are 2.5x shorter in duration than 24Hz). May well work.
Still doesn't explain why the other 2 boxes I currently have running Intel h/w/oibaf drivers are perfect...
Away on holiday for a week, but will update on findings on return.
RE: Irregular playback in lubuntu/ubuntu 24.04 - Neo1973 - 2024-08-17
(2024-08-17, 21:06)arad85 Wrote: Still doesn't explain why the other 2 boxes I currently have running Intel h/w/oibaf drivers are perfect...Are those also running on Xorg?
RE: Irregular playback in lubuntu/ubuntu 24.04 - arad85 - 2024-08-17
(2024-08-17, 21:12)Neo1973 Wrote:(2024-08-17, 21:06)arad85 Wrote: Still doesn't explain why the other 2 boxes I currently have running Intel h/w/oibaf drivers are perfect...Are those also running on Xorg?
Yup. LXDE on top of "headless" ubuntu server install. It is how I always used to install (start minimal, install LXDE/Openbox, and tried the same way with this new box but got the jumps.
RE: Irregular playback in lubuntu/ubuntu 24.04 - contadino - 2024-08-19
Some time ago a had similar problems which you face now.
As far as i can remember this tutorial solved my issue.
It's about tearing, but in my case the problems with stuttering were also gone.
RE: Irregular playback in lubuntu/ubuntu 24.04 - arad85 - 2024-08-19
Thanks. Will take a look at the file (I had forgotten you can put hardware directives in that file) when I'm home at the end of the week.
RE: Irregular playback in lubuntu/ubuntu 24.04 - fritsch - 2024-08-19
(2024-08-19, 12:30)arad85 Wrote: Thanks. Will take a look at the file (I had forgotten you can put hardware directives in that file) when I'm home at the end of the week.
That exactly switches away from the mode setting driver to Intel xorg driver.
RE: Irregular playback in lubuntu/ubuntu 24.04 - arad85 - 2024-09-29
Coming back to this...
It appears the culprit is PulseAudio. Installing without this stops the micro-jumps. It appears A/V sync can't be maintained with PulseAudio installed. No idea why, but when PA is installed, the A/V sync keeps drifting, causing a reset every few seconds so getting a frame jump.