Raspberry Pi VLC player screen goes black after a few videos when playing a playlist

[niko9enzo]

Hi!

I use my raspberry pi mostly to play playlists with many videos with VLC

After playing a few videos from a playlist, at the end of one the videos, the screen goes black and won't play anything else. And I also lose control of the mouse and keyboard.

I have to kill the vlc process to regain control of the screen and start the playlist again. Which will run into the same issue at another random video eventually

This also happens with many different playlists and video files. It doesn't happen with the same playlists on other devices, only on pi.

Any idea what could be wrong?

I tried changing a lot of the settings in vlc player but nothing seems to fix this.

Could it be an over heating issue? I'm about to buy a heatsink anyway but I doubt that's the issue

I'm using a raspberry Pi 4B 8GB and Raspbian bookworm. It also happened with Rapbian bullseye

Any suggestion I could try to fix it is very appreciated. Thanks!

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

If you're using VLC from Raspbian, they have custom unofficial changes, which is the most obvious difference.

[niko9enzo]

Good point. I am indeed. I'll try installing the official version and see how it goes with that one. Thanks!

[niko9enzo]

I turned on debug logging on vlc and when I see the black screen, I see an endless flood of messages:

main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty

Any idea what could be causing it?

To help you, we need messages, to completely understand what your problems is.

From windows command line or linux or macos terminal, launch vlc with options -vv and --logfile=file

• Windows example: vlc.exe -vv --logfile=c:\vlclog.txt
• Linux example: vlc -vv --logfile=vlclog.txt, or vlc -vv 2>&1 > logfile.txt

Then paste the full resulting log here between [​code]and[​/code] (or use Pastebin.com if it's too long)

Also don't forget to name your Operating System and provide the VLC media player version.

Endless waiting decoder fifos to empty
…
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
-> here I turn off and on the tv and playback resumes
pulse debug: removing sink 1252
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
pulse debug: connected to sink alsa_output.platform-bcm2835_audio.stereo-fallback
main debug: resized to 1140x450
main debug: VoutDisplayEvent 'resize' 1140x450
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
mmal_xsplitter debug: Change size: 1140, 450: fs=1
main warning: picture is too late to be displayed (missing 15154465 ms)
main warning: picture is too late to be displayed (missing 15154423 ms)
main warning: picture is too late to be displayed (missing 15154381 ms)
…
main warning: picture is too late to be displayed (missing 15153380 ms)
main warning: picture is too late to be displayed (missing 15153339 ms)
main warning: picture is too late to be displayed (missing 15153300 ms)
main warning: picture is too late to be displayed (missing 15153258 ms)
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
…
…
Many of these same logs
…
…
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
pulse debug: adding sink 1552: alsa_output.platform-fef00700.hdmi.hdmi-stereo (Built-in Audio Digital Stereo (HDMI))
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
pulse debug: changing sink 1552: alsa_output.platform-fef00700.hdmi.hdmi-stereo (Built-in Audio Digital Stereo (HDMI))
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
pulse debug: connected to sink alsa_output.platform-fef00700.hdmi.hdmi-stereo
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
main debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
…
Many more of these
…
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)
avcodec error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)
avcodec error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)
avcodec error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)
avcodec error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)
avcodec error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)
avcodec error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)
avcodec error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)
avcodec error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)
avcodec error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)
avcodec error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)
avcodec error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)
main warning: picture is too late to be displayed (missing 15090493 ms)
main warning: picture is too late to be displayed (missing 15090410 ms)
…
Many more of these logs
…
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
avcodec warning: More than 11 late frames, dropping frame
main debug: killing decoder fourcc `h264'
main debug: removing module "avcodec"
main debug: saving a free vout
main debug: reusing provided vout
main debug: killing decoder fourcc `mpga'
main debug: removing module "avcodec"
main debug: removing module "ugly"
main debug: removing module "audio_format"
main debug: removing module "scaletempo"
main debug: removing module "audio_format"
main debug: removing module "integer_mixer"
main debug: keeping audio output
main debug: removing module "mpegaudio"
main debug: removing module "mkv"
main debug: Program doesn't contain anymore ES
mkv debug: Stopping the UI Hook
main debug: removing module "record"
main debug: removing module "cache_read"
main debug: removing module "filesystem"
main debug: dead input
main debug: changing item without a request (current 81/296)
main debug: using item 82
main debug: starting playback of new item
main debug: resyncing on /music_videos/05_bands_best/queen/Queen-Tie_Your_Mother_Down.mkv-/music_videos/05_bands_best/queen/Queen-Tie_Your_Mother_Down.mkv
main debug: /music_videos/05_bands_best/queen/Queen-Tie_Your_Mother_Down.mkv-/music_videos/05_bands_best/queen/Queen-Tie_Your_Mother_Down.mkv is at 82
main debug: creating new input thread
main debug: Creating an input for '/music_videos/05_bands_best/queen/Queen-Tie_Your_Mother_Down.mkv-/music_videos/05_bands_best/queen/Queen-Tie_Your_Mother_Down.mkv'
[/logfile]

[niko9enzo]

If anyone else runs into this, what worked for me to stop having these errors:
- Use `raspi-config` to move from Wayland to X11

Change vlc settings to:

Code: Select all

- Audio > - Output: Default - Video > - Output > Default - Device: Default - Input/Codecs > - Hardware accelerated: Automatic - Skip h264 in-loop deblocking: All - Preloading mkv in same dir: disabled - Video quality post processing: 0 - All Settings > Input/Codecs: - Demuxers > Matroska: - Preload mkv in same dir: uncheck - Video Codecs: - Preferred decoders list: FFmpeg - Preferred encoders list: FFmpeg - Video Codecs > FFmpeg - Direct Rendering: Check - Show corrupted frames: Uncheck - Hurry up: check - Skip Frame: Default - Skip idct: 1 - Skip loop filter: All - Error resilience: 4 - Work around bugs: 1 - Threads: 0 - Debug mask: 1 - Codec name: h264 - Hardware decoding: DRM Video decoder - Playlist: - Disable automatic preparse

You probably don't to change all these settings but this is what worked for me

Tested with both a raspberrypi 4B with ssd card and raspberrypi 5 with nvme ssd, both with bookworm 64bit