The VideoLAN Forums

Hi folks, hoping someone can assist here. I'm trying to watch avi's encoded with divx through vlc. Everything is fine.. picture quality/sound and both synced with no problems until I open Firefox 3.5.3. Once it's opened, about every 2 seconds, there's a quick stutter. This problem does not happen if I open IE8. I've uninstalled vlc and divx, and reinstalled but the problem still continues. Something that will probably complicate things is I just changed video cards from an Nvidia 8800 to an ati hd4890. Audio codecs may have changed there too, but I've reinstalled those as well. I thought it might be the divx web player, but that doesn't seem to be it either.

Any ideas?

Thanks
Brian

What does Tools -> Messages... (set Verbosity to 2) complain when stuttering happens?

I'm having exactly the same problem. Here's what the messages window looks like:

Hard drive usage spikes at that moment?

Yes it does. I never had this problem until I upgraded to the latest version of VLC.

Could check with tool like Process Explorer what file is created/modified during the spike?

I've had the same problem for some months now and I'm glad I figured out it was Firefox open to cause audio stuttering in VLC.
Anyway, before VLC 1.0 and/or Firefox 3.5 things were fine (I actually don't know which of the 2 softwares began to cause conflict with the other).

I have a PC with Windows XP SP3, i7 920, 6 GB ram, ATI Radeon 4550 and the latest drivers.

I'd like the issue to be sorted out!

Many thanks to the VLC team.

We need additional info.

Hi and thank you for considering the issue.

I can only say that whenever I open VLC to play any video file, if Firefox is open, the audio in VLC stutters every few seconds (plays silence for a brief moment).

To resolve the problem I have to both close VLC and Firefox and just restart VLC.

Here's a brief log:
main warning: mixer start isn't output start (-135296)
main warning: late picture skipped (4000 > -2489)
main debug: audio output is starving (356334), playing silence
main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-45334)
main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-41000)
main warning: resampling stopped after 16381000 usec (drift: 53439)
main warning: buffer is 53273 in advance, triggering downsampling
main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-44333)
main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-43333)
main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-43334)
main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-44666)
main warning: resampling stopped after 20855000 usec (drift: 86105)
main warning: buffer is 85939 in advance, triggering downsampling
main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-40667)
main warning: audio drift is too big (-125251), clearing out
main warning: timing screwed, stopping resampling
main warning: mixer start isn't output start (-67072)
main debug: audio output is starving (178334), playing silence
main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-40667)
main warning: buffer is 40501 in advance, triggering downsampling

Hope this help!

VLC messages aren't really helpful in this case.

I have the same problem when I have GOM player open. When I close it and then also close VLC, and then restart VLC, everything's fine.
It seems to me that some applications share some audio module which causes VLC audio to stutter when they're both open.

You can change VLC's default audio output module, if you think that is the case.
http://wiki.videolan.org/WindowsFAQ-1.0 ... _anomalies

For Firefox plugin, you have to remove the .dll files of those audio output modules you don't want to use.

Hi all,

same problem here, found out this happens only with AMD Cool&Quiet energy saving enabled. OS is Windows XP SP3, didn't notice this issue with Windows 7.
If i switch my enery profile to desktop (no C&Q) everything is fine. I don't think this has anything to do with audio output or harddrive spikes. Didn't notice anything suspicious with process monitor.

These are the messages when starting Firefox, looks like something gets out of sync:

main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-42000)
main warning: buffer is 82000 in advance, triggering downsampling
main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-42000)
main warning: audio drift is too big (-123250), clearing out
main warning: timing screwed, stopping resampling
main warning: mixer start isn't output start (-50160)
main debug: audio output is starving (146709), playing silence
main debug: audio output is starving (51709), playing silence
main debug: audio output is starving (53625), playing silence
main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-44792)
main warning: buffer is 44626 in advance, triggering downsampling
main warning: resampling stopped after 550000 usec (drift: 44605)
main warning: buffer is 44439 in advance, triggering downsampling
main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-45063)
main warning: timing screwed, stopping resampling
main warning: buffer is 89481 in advance, triggering downsampling
main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-43854)
main warning: audio drift is too big (-133022), clearing out
main warning: timing screwed, stopping resampling
main warning: mixer start isn't output start (-59008)
main debug: audio output is starving (162958), playing silence
main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-46583)
main warning: buffer is 46416 in advance, triggering downsampling
main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-45167)
main warning: resampling stopped after 775000 usec (drift: 91542)
main warning: buffer is 91375 in advance, triggering downsampling
main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-44917)
main warning: audio drift is too big (-136146), clearing out
main warning: timing screwed, stopping resampling
main warning: mixer start isn't output start (-69376)
main debug: audio output is starving (195604), playing silence
main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-43604)
main warning: buffer is 43437 in advance, triggering downsampling
main warning: resampling stopped after 775000 usec (drift: 43396)
main warning: buffer is 43229 in advance, triggering downsampling
main warning: output date isn't PTS date, requesting resampling (-43959)
main warning: timing screwed, stopping resampling
main warning: buffer is 87167 in advance, triggering downsampling

AMD Cool&Quiet

Known issue.