RC4 major regressions

[Lotesdelere]

So I've done some tests with the RC4 and found several regressions.
Since I didn't have much time to test the RC3, I will compare with the latest version I have fully tested which is vlc-1.0.0-rc2-20090526-0006-win32.7z. All tests done on Windows XP Pro 32 bits.

1/ A font cache file is created every time I run VLC even if the video file is a simple Xvid+MP3 in AVI that does NOT contain any subtitle at all.
This file is created in the default TEMP folder of the system with names like these ones:
8d51356f4bb435f1b6f84a242a76b34c-i686.cache-2
ef9c9ad8cc5857eb63cb3660bc8bd202-i686.cache-2
and on my system it's 571 kB large.

I have NOT installed any font on my system for ages, so surely not between RC2 and RC4. With RC2 this font cache file was created once for all on the first run and not on every run.


2/ I don't know if it's related to point #1 but now any MKV video using A.S.S. subtitles is taking about 20-30 seconds before playing. Even if the video file is alone in its folder, so it's not related to other Matroska files being scanned. The playback was instant with RC2.


3/ With the famous Haruhi video the vertical subtitles are misplaced, being displayed on the left and half cut:


While they should be on the right like this:


Again this was working fine in RC2.


4/ The playback problem with some H264 videos described in this ticket is back.
CPU is stuck at 100% and the playback is very very jerky.
And yes, all of these samples, with the exception of the Killa Sampla, are playing fine in RC2.


5/ VLC hangs on exit.
For some reason this is very noticeable with short videos, like 5-10 seconds long, most of them I've used for my tests are Xvid/Divx+MP3 in AVI and MPEG1 audio+video.
It's taking about 20 seconds for the VLC icon to vanish from the taskbar thus the process is still running. It appears not to be a crash, it just hangs for a while before closing.


6/ DMO sound doesn't work anymore.
I can't get any audio with files containing WMAP audio streams. With the RC2 I had to use a strange workaround to make it working (JB knows what it is about ) but now with RC4 it doesn't work anymore. Although the messages log says that DMO is in use but it just doesn't work. No sound, at all.

[ckteo172]

I think your problem 1 is the reason why I experience high cpu usage on my system. As I'm using WinXPE with EWF, the problem actually becomes very bad. I didn't see this problem with RC3. Something must have changed in RC4 which break it.

So I've done some tests with the RC4 and found several regressions.
Since I didn't have much time to test the RC3, I will compare with the latest version I have fully tested which is vlc-1.0.0-rc2-20090526-0006-win32.7z. All tests done on Windows XP Pro 32 bits.

1/ A font cache file is created every time I run VLC even if the video file is a simple Xvid+MP3 in AVI that does NOT contain any subtitle at all.
This file is created in the default TEMP folder of the system with names like these ones:
8d51356f4bb435f1b6f84a242a76b34c-i686.cache-2
ef9c9ad8cc5857eb63cb3660bc8bd202-i686.cache-2
and on my system it's 571 kB large.

I have NOT installed any font on my system for ages, so surely not between RC2 and RC4. With RC2 this font cache file was created once for all on the first run and not on every run.


2/ I don't know if it's related to point #1 but now any MKV video using A.S.S. subtitles is taking about 20-30 seconds before playing. Even if the video file is alone in its folder, so it's not related to other Matroska files being scanned. The playback was instant with RC2.


3/ With the famous Haruhi video the vertical subtitles are misplaced, being displayed on the left and half cut:


While they should be on the right like this:


Again this was working fine in RC2.


4/ The playback problem with some H264 videos described in this ticket is back.
CPU is stuck at 100% and the playback is very very jerky.
And yes, all of these samples, with the exception of the Killa Sampla, are playing fine in RC2.


5/ VLC hangs on exit.
For some reason this is very noticeable with short videos, like 5-10 seconds long, most of them I've used for my tests are Xvid/Divx+MP3 in AVI and MPEG1 audio+video.
It's taking about 20 seconds for the VLC icon to vanish from the taskbar thus the process is still running. It appears not to be a crash, it just hangs for a while before closing.


6/ DMO sound doesn't work anymore.
I can't get any audio with files containing WMAP audio streams. With the RC2 I had to use a strange workaround to make it working (JB knows what it is about ) but now with RC4 it doesn't work anymore. Although the messages log says that DMO is in use but it just doesn't work. No sound, at all.

[The DJ]

1/ A font cache file is created every time I run VLC even if the video file is a simple Xvid+MP3 in AVI that does NOT contain any subtitle at all.
This file is created in the default TEMP folder of the system with names like these ones:
8d51356f4bb435f1b6f84a242a76b34c-i686.cache-2
ef9c9ad8cc5857eb63cb3660bc8bd202-i686.cache-2
and on my system it's 571 kB large.

I have NOT installed any font on my system for ages, so surely not between RC2 and RC4. With RC2 this font cache file was created once for all on the first run and not on every run.

Oh fontconfig, oh fontconfig.... If anyone has a clue on how to use that on Windows, please let us know. It is being impossible. We are considering simply disabling it again. Poor Windows, you should just join all of us on the light side.

2/ I don't know if it's related to point #1 but now any MKV video using A.S.S. subtitles is taking about 20-30 seconds before playing. Even if the video file is alone in its folder, so it's not related to other Matroska files being scanned. The playback was instant with RC2.

This too is the scanning of your fonts. It should do this ONCE and then cache the information. On rc2 it was quicker, because it did not USE fontconfig, and just would only work with the fonts in the file or the default font.

3/ With the famous Haruhi video the vertical subtitles are misplaced, being displayed on the left and half cut:


While they should be on the right like this:

We are using a newer version of libass. If this is a problem, then it's a problem in libass and mplayer (developer version) should have the same problem.

4/ The playback problem with some H264 videos described in this ticket is back.
CPU is stuck at 100% and the playback is very very jerky.
And yes, all of these samples, with the exception of the Killa Sampla, are playing fine in RC2.

I don't know about this.

5/ VLC hangs on exit.
For some reason this is very noticeable with short videos, like 5-10 seconds long, most of them I've used for my tests are Xvid/Divx+MP3 in AVI and MPEG1 audio+video.
It's taking about 20 seconds for the VLC icon to vanish from the taskbar thus the process is still running. It appears not to be a crash, it just hangs for a while before closing.

I don't know about this.

6/ DMO sound doesn't work anymore.
I can't get any audio with files containing WMAP audio streams. With the RC2 I had to use a strange workaround to make it working (JB knows what it is about ) but now with RC4 it doesn't work anymore. Although the messages log says that DMO is in use but it just doesn't work. No sound, at all.

WMAP is not supported, and it won't be until 1.0.1

[Lotesdelere]

Oh fontconfig, oh fontconfig.... If anyone has a clue on how to use that on Windows, please let us know. It is being impossible. We are considering simply disabling it again. Poor Windows, you should just join all of us on the light side.

I think MPlayer and AviDemux for Windows are also using fontconfig but don't ask me how as I have no idea
As for the 90% of computer users who are running Windows, I guess it's going to take a loooong while before these millions (billions?) of people will switch to another OS. And judging by the VLC download stats, Windows users are also the vast majority of VLC users so you (the VLC team) can choose to ignore and/or drop them. But with the coming Windows 7 which is, as you may know, blocking by default third party codecs that are natively supported by the OS and has also major changes in DirectShow not to mention the new WMF framework, VLC will be one of the very few free solutions which will offer a simple and easy to use way as an alternative to WMP.
You can't miss this important rendez-vous, can you ?

WMAP is not supported, and it won't be until 1.0.1

Well I'm talking about DMO support, which is working fine in v0.9.x, which was working in git and RC1 when using a dirty workaround but which is not working at all now even though the messages log says it's in use.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Other than Windows and OSX, most users don't download VLC from the VideoLAN project, so the web stats are pretty irrelevant.

I think the distribution of developpers per OS is much more relevant (for June 2009):

• Linux: a dozen (80%)
• MacOS X: 3 (20%)
• Windows: 0 (0%)
• other: 0 (0%)

[The DJ]

Oh fontconfig, oh fontconfig.... If anyone has a clue on how to use that on Windows, please let us know. It is being impossible. We are considering simply disabling it again. Poor Windows, you should just join all of us on the light side.

We have found an indication that there is a bug in fontconfig 2.6.0 with support for summertime/daylight savings time, that might cause this problem. Let's hope that that is it.