Playback issues on Youtube and some streaming services

Hello guys,

For about a week i have trouble playing youtube and some other streaming services. The videos load, they buffer, but they don’t start. I can click forward on the bar, and it skips to new images, but they don’t play. I have tried different browsers but the problem persists.

System:
Kernel: 6.6.40-1-lts arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 14.1.1
Desktop: Xfce v: 4.18.1 tk: Gtk v: 3.24.43 wm: xfwm4 dm: LightDM
Distro: EndeavourOS base: Arch Linux
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: Apple product: Macmini6,1 v: 1.0
serial: Chassis: type: 16 v:
serial:
Mobo: Apple model: v: Macmini6,1
serial: UEFI: Apple v: 429.0.0.0.0 date: 03/18/2022
CPU:
Info: dual core model: Intel Core i5-3210M bits: 64 type: MT MCP
arch: Ivy Bridge rev: 9 cache: L1: 128 KiB L2: 512 KiB L3: 3 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 1549 high: 2001 min/max: 1200/3100 cores: 1: 1197
2: 1800 3: 2001 4: 1200 bogomips: 19962
Flags: avx ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics vendor: Apple driver: i915
v: kernel arch: Gen-7 ports: active: HDMI-A-3 empty: DP-1, DP-2, DP-3,
HDMI-A-1, HDMI-A-2, VGA-1 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID:
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.13 compositor: xfwm4 v: 4.18.0 driver:
X: loaded: intel unloaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa dri: i965
gpu: i915 display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96
Monitor-1: HDMI-A-3 mapped: HDMI3 model: Dell S2740L res: 1920x1080
dpi: 81 diag: 686mm (27")
API: EGL v: 1.5 platforms: device: 0 drv: crocus device: 1 drv: swrast
surfaceless: drv: crocus x11: drv: crocus inactive: gbm,wayland
API: OpenGL v: 4.5 compat-v: 4.2 vendor: intel mesa v: 24.1.3-arch1.1
glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 4000 (IVB
GT2) device-ID:
Audio:
Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:1e20
API: ALSA v: k6.6.40-1-lts status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.2.1 status: off with: 1: wireplumber status: off
2: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 3: pw-jack type: plugin
Server-2: PulseAudio v: 17.0 status: active

Please help/Silvia

Did you try latest kernel?

I guess you tried Firefox and Chrome?

On an empty profile without extensions?

Can you play stuff in MPV / VLC?

In YouTube, on a problem video, right click and hit “Stats for nerds”. Can you take a screenshot and share that please?

Your system is on the low end of spec. YouTube does support AV1 encoded video, which is quite hardware intensive. It might be possible to disable AV1 support, but how will be browser specific.

Yes i have tried the latest mainline and LTS kernels. I have also tried an empty profile and both Firefox and Chrome. I can play stuff with MPV/VLC. Further testing shows that i get stuck when i switch in between sources, i watch a clip on Youtube, pause it and open up MPV and listen to some music. If i go back to the clip on Youtube it have stuck, and i can’t play another clip. If i try to listen to music via MPV it has also stuck. The only thing that solves it temporarily for some time is to reboot, bur only for a while.
Sorry for my English, it is not my native language, but i try my best : ) Silvia.

Hello Bink, thanks for getting back to me, i will do that. Yes my computer i kind of a potato, i know, but it has worked beautifully until a couple of days ago.

The video being played back there appears to be 50fps. If you drop the video resolution down to a setting where the higher framerate is not used does it resolve it? That’s about 720p if memory serves.

The video in your example is using the VP9 codec. That’s not nearly as hardware intensive as the AV1 codec that supersedes it. If it were AV1, there’s probably a bit more you can do to address it, but VP9 is quite ubiquitous and there’s not so much.

I wonder that the VP9 codec is not hardware decoded by your generation of hardware, whereas the H.264 and H.265 alternatives, are commonly hardware decoded. Just a thought.

To help understand the issue, it’d be worthwhile seeing the “Stats for nerds” of a video that works too. I’d suspect they’re no more than 30fps, and/or encoded with H.264 or H.265.



The first one is 720 the second 1080. Further testing shows that when i switch in between sources i get stuck, both in Youtube and audio via celluloid/mpv.

Hello,
It should not be a question of source, both, the video and the music can be played at the same time (it sounds ugly, but you can do it :grinning:).
For example play a Youtube video with :

mpv 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4zOi8h-Uds'

and for audio, in Thunar, right click on the audio file → open with mpv.

Did you try with two different players, for example mpv for the video and Parole for the music ( which don’t depends on mpv).

When i get stuck i can not use any mediaplayer or play any videos via a browser.

youtube is a miserable, mostly unplayable nightmare lately. call me tinfoilly but the more control I relenquish in Umatrix, the happier youtube gets. Or disabling extensions completely also has a positive effect: poof the sluggishness disappears. I’m convinced they are testing extensions and/or discouraging them. I think they value their canvassing/fingerprinting more and more lately–that’s the only explanation that makes sense to me.

I mean after you start your system and everything is clean.

I think it’s because they try to block Invidious, but ytfzf still work with some Invidious instances and I have no problem using Youtube site.

@Silvia, do you have any of the libva-intel-driver’s installed?

yay -Q | grep libva

If not, for your gen system, perhaps try:

sudo pacman -S libva-intel-driver libva-utils

Reboot, and then share the output of vainfo to see what hardware acceleration your system supports:

vainfo

(this may also resolve the issue??)

vainfo: VA-API version: 1.21 (libva 2.22.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel i965 driver for Intel(R) Ivybridge Mobile - 2.4.1
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264StereoHigh : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Advanced : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileNone : VAEntrypointVideoProc
VAProfileJPEGBaseline : VAEntrypointVLD

The key info there is your GPU appears to support H.264 hardware accelerated decoding. It supports MPEG2 as well but that’s not particularly relevant to modern streamed content, but may apply to DVD’s and such.

The current widely used codecs missing there in terms of internet streaming, and therefore not hardware accelerated are:
VP8
VP9
H.265
AV1

You have reported issues with VP9 (@50fps) and AV1 (not surprisingly).

It’s perhaps worth seeing if this issue persists with H.264 encoded videos. If it does, it would seem it’s not a matter of (just) whether it’s hardware decoded or not.

The situation of hardware decoding in web browser in Linux is not great, but Silvia’s GPU+CPU is good enough for watching videos on Youtube (I had an i3-3220 which is similar to her CPU with worse GPU), even with no hardware decoding.

YouTube continues to advance it’s playback requirements with higher framerates, resolutions and more sophisticated codecs, AV1 in particular.

The source absolutely matters. There’s no reason to assume AV1 content should play without difficulty on modest 2012 spec hardware.

Few years ago, I could watch AV1 videos in 1080p with a CPU that is a little bit more powerful, it seems Silvia has no problem watching a video, only when switching sources.

OK, so yesterday this started to happen to me but I believe that the specs for my machine are a bit higher yet I cannot do any video playback. Streaming or local. Not sure what all information would be needed but here you go.

[nexxuz@firefly ~]$ sudo lshw -short
H/W path                   Device          Class          Description
=====================================================================
                                           system         Latitude 5500 (08B9)
/0                                         bus            0M14W7
/0/0                                       memory         64KiB BIOS
/0/1c                                      memory         16GiB System Memory
/0/1c/0                                    memory         16GiB SODIMM DDR4 Synchronous 2667 MHz (0.4 ns)
/0/1c/1                                    memory         DIMM [empty]
/0/25                                      memory         256KiB L1 cache
/0/26                                      memory         1MiB L2 cache
/0/27                                      memory         6MiB L3 cache
/0/28                                      processor      Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8365U CPU @ 1.60GHz
/0/100                                     bridge         Coffee Lake HOST and DRAM Controller
/0/100/2                   /dev/fb0        display        WhiskeyLake-U GT2 [UHD Graphics 620]
/0/100/4                                   generic        Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor Thermal Subsystem
/0/100/8                                   generic        Xeon E3-1200 v5/v6 / E3-1500 v5 / 6th/7th/8th Gen Core Processor Gaussian Mixture Model
/0/100/12                                  generic        Cannon Point-LP Thermal Controller
/0/100/14                                  bus            Cannon Point-LP USB 3.1 xHCI Controller
/0/100/14/0                usb1            bus            xHCI Host Controller
/0/100/14/0/1                              bus            USB2.1 Hub
/0/100/14/0/1/1                            bus            USB2.1 Hub
/0/100/14/0/1/1/1                          generic        USB C Video Adaptor
/0/100/14/0/1/2                            bus            USB2.0 Hub
/0/100/14/0/1/2/1          card0           multimedia     USB PnP Audio Device
/0/100/14/0/1/2/2                          input          Corsair Gaming K55 RGB Keyboard
/0/100/14/0/1/2/4                          input          USB Receiver
/0/100/14/0/1/2/4/0        input50         input          Logitech M310
/0/100/14/0/1/3                            generic        CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller
/0/100/14/0/6                              multimedia     Integrated_Webcam_HD
/0/100/14/0/8                              generic        58200
/0/100/14/0/a                              communication  Bluetooth 9460/9560 Jefferson Peak (JfP)
/0/100/14/1                usb2            bus            xHCI Host Controller
/0/100/14/1/1                              bus            USB3.1 Hub
/0/100/14/1/1/1                            bus            USB3.1 Hub
/0/100/14/1/1/1/2                          communication  AX88179A
/0/100/14/1/1/1/3          scsi1           storage        Mass Storage Device
/0/100/14/1/1/1/3/0.0.0    /dev/sda        disk           SD/MMC
/0/100/14/1/1/1/3/0.0.0/0  /dev/sda        disk           
/0/100/14/1/1/1/3/0.0.1    /dev/sdb        disk           Micro SD/M2
/0/100/14/1/1/1/3/0.0.1/0  /dev/sdb        disk           
/0/100/14/1/1/1/4                          generic        USB Station
/0/100/14/1/1/2                            bus            USB3.0 Hub
/0/100/14.2                                memory         RAM memory
/0/100/14.3                wlan0           network        Cannon Point-LP CNVi [Wireless-AC]
/0/100/15                                  bus            Cannon Point-LP Serial IO I2C Controller #0
/0/100/15.1                                bus            Cannon Point-LP Serial IO I2C Controller #1
/0/100/16                                  communication  Cannon Point-LP MEI Controller #1
/0/100/16.3                                communication  Cannon Point-LP Keyboard and Text (KT) Redirection
/0/100/17                                  storage        Cannon Point-LP SATA Controller [AHCI Mode]
/0/100/19                                  bus            Cannon Point-LP Serial IO I2C Host Controller
/0/100/1c                                  bridge         Cannon Point PCI Express Root Port #8
/0/100/1c/0                mmc0            bus            RTS525A PCI Express Card Reader
/0/100/1d                                  bridge         Cannon Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #13
/0/100/1d/0                /dev/nvme0      storage        WD Blue SN570 500GB
/0/100/1d/0/0              hwmon3          disk           NVMe disk
/0/100/1d/0/2              /dev/ng0n1      disk           NVMe disk
/0/100/1d/0/1              /dev/nvme0n1    disk           500GB NVMe disk
/0/100/1d/0/1/1            /dev/nvme0n1p1  volume         299MiB Windows FAT volume
/0/100/1d/0/1/2            /dev/nvme0n1p2  volume         448GiB EXT4 volume
/0/100/1d/0/1/3            /dev/nvme0n1p3  volume         16GiB Linux swap volume
/0/100/1f                                  bridge         Cannon Point-LP LPC Controller
/0/100/1f/0                                system         Motherboard registers
/0/100/1f/1                                system         Motherboard registers
/0/100/1f/2                                system         AT Real-Time Clock
/0/100/1f/3                                generic        PnP device INT3f0d
/0/100/1f/4                                input          IBM Enhanced keyboard controller (101/2-key)
/0/100/1f/5                                generic        PnP device DLL08b9
/0/100/1f/6                                system         Motherboard registers
/0/100/1f/7                                system         Motherboard registers
/0/100/1f/8                                system         Motherboard registers
/0/100/1f/9                                system         Motherboard registers
/0/100/1f.3                card1           multimedia     Cannon Point-LP High Definition Audio Controller
/0/100/1f.3/0              input25         input          HDA Intel PCH Headphone Mic
/0/100/1f.3/1              input26         input          HDA Intel PCH HDMI/DP,pcm=3
/0/100/1f.3/2              input27         input          HDA Intel PCH HDMI/DP,pcm=7
/0/100/1f.3/3              input28         input          HDA Intel PCH HDMI/DP,pcm=8
/0/100/1f.4                                bus            Cannon Point-LP SMBus Controller
/0/100/1f.5                                bus            Cannon Point-LP SPI Controller
/1                                         power          DELL C5GV285
/2                         input0          input          Lid Switch
/3                         input1          input          Power Button
/4                         input13         input          DELL08B9:00 0488:121F Mouse
/5                         input14         input          DELL08B9:00 0488:121F Touchpad
/6                         input15         input          DELL08B9:00 0488:121F UNKNOWN
/7                         input2          input          Sleep Button
/8                         input20         input          Video Bus
/9                         input3          input          AT Translated Set 2 keyboard
/a                         input5          input          Intel HID events
/b                         input51         input          ckb1: Corsair Gaming K55 RGB Keyboard vKB
/c                         input52         input          ckb1: Corsair Gaming K55 RGB Keyboard vM
/d                         input6          input          Intel HID 5 button array
/e                         input7          input          PC Speaker
/f                         input8          input          PS/2 Generic Mouse
/10                        input9          input          Dell WMI hotkeys
/11                        eth0            network        AX88179A

It is worth noting that i get this kind of problems when i switch back and forth between video and audio sources, i am well aware of that my computer is not capable to stream video with the latest codecs, but it will do for now. When i get stuck i can not play any video or audio at all, is going from pulse audio to pipewire worth trying?