Re: Can't view videos in firefox: VA-API test failed

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

> Does mplayer give any more interesting errors? 

Oh, I didn't notice it at first, but now that you ask, yes it does:
after something like a timeout period it says:

    AO: [pulse] Init failed: Timeout
    Failed to initialize audio driver 'pulse'

And lo and behold if I start it with `mplayer -ao none <FILE>`, the
video plays just fine (whether Theora, MPEG2, or H.264).

So maybe I was barking up the wrong tree and the problem was on the
audio side all this time.  This machine is running Debian testing,
which seems to have selected Pipewire for me.

    % ps auxw|grep pipewire
    monnier   1810  0.0  0.1  46096  9396 ?        Ssl  jan18   0:00 /usr/bin/pipewire
    monnier   1813  0.0  0.0  34436  6412 ?        Ssl  jan18   0:00 /usr/bin/pipewire -c filter-chain.conf
    monnier   1818  0.0  0.1  41540 10460 ?        Ssl  jan18   0:00 /usr/bin/pipewire-pulse
    monnier   7472  0.0  0.0   8276  2304 pts/6    SN+  16:40   0:00 grep pipewire
    %

IIUC `pipewire-pulse` is the daemon which should let PulseAudio client
connect to Pipewire, so I don't know why mplayer's `pulse` backend is
not happy.  I know very little about Pipewire (or GNU/Linux audio in
general for that matter), so I'd welcome help diagnosing this part as well.

I tried to use `mplayer -ao alsa <FILE>` but it ends up just sitting there,
without any output nor error after the first few information lines
(which are always the same):

    % mplayer -ao alsa icfp23-explicit-refinement-types.mkv
    MPlayer 1.5+svn38446-1 (Debian)do_connect: could not connect to socket
    connect: No such file or directory
    Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.
    
    Playing icfp23-explicit-refinement-types.mkv.
    libavformat version 60.16.100 (external)
    libavformat file format detected.
    [lavf] stream 0: video (h264), -vid 0
    [lavf] stream 1: audio (opus), -aid 0, -alang eng
    VIDEO:  [H264]  1280x720  0bpp  30.000 fps    0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
    libva info: VA-API version 1.20.0
    libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/iHD_drv_video.so
    libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_20
    libva error: /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/iHD_drv_video.so init failed
    libva info: va_openDriver() returns 1
    libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so
    libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_8
    libva error: /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so init failed
    libva info: va_openDriver() returns -1
    ==========================================================================
    Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
    libavcodec version 60.31.102 (external)
    Selected video codec: [ffh264] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264)
    ==========================================================================
    Clip info:
     COMPATIBLE_BRANDS: iso6avc1mp41
     MAJOR_BRAND: dash
     MINOR_VERSION: 0
     ENCODER: Lavf60.16.100
    Load subtitles in ./
    ==========================================================================
    Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
    [opus @ 0xf6d9bb80]Could not update timestamps for skipped samples.
    AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, floatle, 0.0 kbit/0.00% (ratio: 0->384000)
    Selected audio codec: [ffopus] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg opus)
    ==========================================================================
    
My best guess is that it's waiting for Pipewire to release the audio device?
With `ao oss`, it goes a bit further (i.e. it opens up the actual
window where the window should be played) but still ends up sitting
there waiting for something and not playing anything.


        Stefan