VLC 2.0/2.0.1/2.0.2 audio stuttering/lag

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

I never said that I was the only live force of the VideoLAN team.

You said, and you even used bold characters for doing so:

What I do not do is beg for the whole VideoLAN volunteer team to look at "my" bug.

You're again and persistently misrepresenting my statement, by removing the first part of the quoted paragraph (emphasis added):

When a regression in VLC affects me, I investigate the bug myself.

(...) I have the feeling it will be terrible for the VLC reputation if it is released as it. The reason why this bug must be tracked down and fixed as soon as possible, six months gone already and time flies.

You still don't get the point, do you? The question is not what you think "must" be done. Even if that were the objective truth - which it absolutely is not - it would not be relevant. The relevant questions are how and by whom.

I asked for the regression to be bisected by anyone able to reproduce the bug. Nobody replied. Instead, you came taunting the hobbyist devs. That's not helpful and constructive to resolving the bug.

[DanteElysium]

is there anything I can do to help you find the source of the bug ?

I'm not a dev but I can test some things if you want

[Lotesdelere]

When a regression in VLC affects me

Once again, as I said many times before, I'm talking to the VideoLAN team and not to you only. This is a team work.
And you don't apply to yourself what you're asking the other people to do and just repeat again and again what you're not going to do, so you're not bringing any help at all and, at the end, you fool no one.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

And more deliberate misrepresenting me as egotistic. Plonk.

[Lotesdelere]

I let you talk to yourself, about yourself.

[evasive]

Gentlemen, can we get back on-topic?

Maybe I have a bit of useful info.

I have been disabling the power management settings in the bios on a HP 6000 pro SFF PC that had the issue with all 2.x.x players. Now after setting everything back to how they were, videos play smooth.

I will try and see if I can find another system that has the same issue, disable each option one by one until I know what exactly stops VLC from tripping over invalid timer/whatever.

I do remember seeing something about the linux cpufreq still being broken with Core2 Duo and newer CPU's. Coincidence?

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

If changing the power management settings helps, then the clock is wrong.
If removing speex_resampler dll helps, then the issue is in the audio core or the audio modules.

[evasive]

"the clock is wrong" means the RTC chip is not functioning properly or the timeserver used is out of sync?

I have to find another system with the same issue first, otherwise I cannot tell if it's a clock or the audio.

[DanteElysium]

I have to find another system with the same issue first, otherwise I cannot tell if it's a clock or the audio.

I disabled the clock management on my computer (EPU-6 Engine) and now, everything is OK.
But the fans are noisy....

Hope I helped

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

So, likely a clock issue.

[evasive]

It seems to be. Next question: can this be solved now you know what the cause is? I guess 2.x is using the wrong clock as a reference then. I'm not looking forward to disable power management on every system I encounter to solve this flaw...

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Well, I need a team of testers that can try different builds I give.

[evasive]

Oh right, after completely restoring the system (recloning) and resetting the bios to factory defaults (like it was when I started) I do no longer have the issue...
Possibly some sort of ACPI/PnP table corruption causing this?

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Maybe, it impacts it.

[RazzMaTazz007]

nice did some changes on the Power Management Settings

and 2.0.3 is working fine now no more audio stuttering

[evasive]

What settings did you change and more important, where? If only in windows, there's a remote chance I might be able to script the settings in some sort to help out other with the stutter issue. I am leaning towards a corruption issue in the power management settings of which I hope is just the registry, not the bios acpi tables...

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

He already said that he reset the BIOS settings to defaults.

[evasive]

Eh? Who? Me?

He already said that he reset the BIOS settings to defaults.

I am asking RazzMaTazz007 to find out if also resetting the bios to defaults was overkill.

[evasive]

And another question: what audio chips/drivers do you use. I am seeing a pattern there...

[vnicolici]

There really are no needs for more people saying "me too". At this point, it is clear that some people have stuttering problems in VLC 2.0.x for Windows and that their logs show broken audio timings. If you have nothing to add, please save your energy. This is really not helping unless you have some more useful technical facts.

After fighting the issue on version 2.0.3 for an hour changing various settings on vlc, power management and system audio settings I gave up, I fixed the issue by uninstalling VLC and installing Winamp.

Oh, and "me too".

[evasive]

What OS, what hardware, what settings did you adjust before giving up? If it is Realtek and windows XP SP3 we have definitely a pattern here.

[Lotesdelere]

This is not about the OS, there have been reports with any Windows version from XP x86 to Seven x64. The visualisation test explained here
viewtopic.php?p=349018#p349018
viewtopic.php?p=349684#p349684
occurs on any version of Windows, with any CPU and GPU, but only with VLC v2.0 and v2.1 series. This does not happen on v1.1 series, on the same machines, using the same files.
This is the pattern you're looking for: v1.1 series work fine whilst v2.x series does not. It's called a regression.

[evasive]

Ok, maybe there's even something else interacting here as my DPC tool screen was showing no troublebefore and after I toggled the settings for power management disable/enable and reports elsewhere say the same after toggling the sound output between Default/WaveOut/Default.

After you do something like that would the DPC flaw magically heal itself? I am thoroughly confused...

[schenn]

I can also confirm, I have an identical bug with my copy of VLC. The issue began in VLC 2.0 and has continued to 2.0.2.

This occurs with every video file regardless of format, bit-rate or file-size.

I have the same messages in my message log about the audio desyncing.

The issue does NOT occur in windows media player, itunes, or winamp.

Windows 7 (64)
12 Gigs Ram

Intel Core2 Q9550 quad core processor using factory settings: 2.83 ghz

Tweaking processor priority to high or realtime does not solve the issue


Message Log:

main warning: resampling stopped after 11449985 usec (drift: 79502)
main warning: buffer too early (-79502), down-sampling
main warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates (-41642 us)
main warning: not synchronized (-41641 us), resampling
main warning: buffer way too early (-120643), clearing queue
main warning: timing screwed, stopping resampling
main debug: audio output is starving (-727250), playing silence
main warning: audio output out of sync, adjusting dates (-47550 us)
main warning: not synchronized (-47549 us), resampling
main warning: buffer too early (-47549), down-sampling

etc..

Edit:
Tools->Media Information->Statistics:
Audio Buffers: 13,434 decoded and played, 2 lost;
Video Frames: 8044 Decoded 17277 Displayed 12 lost;

Tools->
Audio Effects: All Disabled
Video Effects: All Disabled/Default

Preferences->Audio:
Output: Default - No change

Final Edit:

Changing the preferences-audio-output setting to waveout:
waveout warning: aout_PacketNext no buffer got next_date = 588627981ms, 7 frames to play, waiting...
Repeats 4-5 times before "Audio Out of Sync, Adjusting dates" Message.

Changing the setting to directx output gives:
mpgatofixed32 debug: libmad error: bad main_data_begin pointer
main warning: resampling stopped after 18940273 usec (drift: 510)
!!!waveout warning: Same as waveout setting above, repeats before audio out of sync, adjusting dates message

[SSonik]

I'm also experiencing this issue on one of my computers, but not on my others.
Is there anything I can do to help gather more info?

I'm not a pro coder, but I work in IT - and am willing to put in time to squash this bug.