Upgraded to V32 Getting “Decoder timed out waiting for free video buffers.”

[Igor]

Hi. I just upgraded from v29 (which was working fine except for a problem with EIT data from one station) to v32. Now the frontend is reporting a “Decoder timed out waiting for free video buffers.” message when trying to play a recording or when trying to watch live TV. After starting the video, I hear about 2 seconds of audio, the screen is then blank for about 30 seconds, and then it displays a single frame for about another 30 seconds before displaying the error message.

I’ve got the following software loaded:
Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS (x86_64)
Qt version: 5.9.5
NVIDEIA GeForce 9400 GT/PCIe
OpenGL version: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 340.108
The playback profile is VDPAU Normal. Trying VDPAU Slim, various OpenGL and VAAPI profiles, as well as trying the “Use FFmpeg’s Original MPEG-TS Demuxer” without any change in the results.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks!

[blm-ubunet]

Did you find any solution?
v0.32 changed everything w.r.t. video playback/decoder setup.

Logs starting frontend from terminal with playback debug messages?

[Gribnif]

FWIW, I ran into the same thing on my old ION boxes. Comparing verbose playback logs between 31 and 32 didn't reveal any clues. I should also note that even the UI in the frontend seemed slightly slower than in v31.

I finally ended up recompiling the v31 frontend without the schema check (-DIGNORE_SCHEMA_VER_MISMATCH), so it would run with the v32 backend. (The schema differences between the two versions are of little consequence to the frontend.)

[henca]

FWIW, I ran into the same thing on my old ION boxes. Comparing verbose playback logs between 31 and 32 didn't reveal any clues. I should also note that even the UI in the frontend seemed slightly slower than in v31.

I finally ended up recompiling the v31 frontend without the schema check (-DIGNORE_SCHEMA_VER_MISMATCH), so it would run with the v32 backend. (The schema differences between the two versions are of little consequence to the frontend.)

I also had the same trouble with an ION box, was able to play h264 720p recordnings but not old mpeg2 576i recordings. This thread helped me solve the problem by downgrading the frontend to version 0.31 compiled with -DIGNORE_SCHEMA_VER_MISMATCH .

regards Henrik

[smkranz0506]

Hello,
I also have this problem on one of my old frontends (quite old!).
I am using an NVIDIA 8400 GS on Debian 11 (Bullseye) and the 340.108 drivers from Sid as the 340 drivers are no longer supported.
I also was using VDPAU.
If i change to pure software decoding (ffmpeg) i can get it to work but obviously i don't have any hardware acceleration or hardware de-interlacers and I will probably run out of CPU if i want to watch higher quality tv recordings.

I don't have any problems on my main desktop (nvidia GT1030 NVDEC) nor my main backend which uses a GT430 (VDPAU) on the 390xx drivers.
I suspect this unfortunately might be specific to the older nvidia cards with VDPAU on the 340xx drivers?

On the other hand, i do have an issue with the GT430 machine where i seem to get a crash and machine reboot when i bring up a menu during playback (keypress "m") but i think this is a completely different issue.

I'm willing to try to recompile v31 as well but i have to learn about debian packaging from source first.

[tomdaley]

I have an ION system with 340.108 drivers and have the same error with V32.
I will likely remain at V31, unless some solution is found.

[ridesn]

I too am experiencing the same issue since upgrading to .32 for some but not all tv channels. Recordings which mythtv cannot playback will play fine with ffplay. Is there a bug ticket for this issue?

[chunter2]

I posted an issue on github here but haven't found a solution yet.

https://github.com/MythTV/mythtv/issues/725

Would anyone who's recompiled mythfrontend 31 with the schema version mismatch be willing to share their build?

Thanks

[tomdaley]

Has anyone found a solution to this? I have a NVIDIA ION system with the same symptoms. I just tried mythtv 33.1 and still have the issue, so will roll back to v31 (sigh).