VLC 3.0.12 hangs after pausing / single-stepping through MPEG .ts file

[martinu]

VLC 3.0.12 often hangs (picture remains frozen, no sound, but timeline advances normally) if I am playing a .ts file (MPEG 720x576x25) recorded off-air from UK television. Once this has happened, VLC sometimes stops responding to a Close Application (X in top right-hand corner of window) and has to be killed off in Task Manager. Once it has happened, the same file or a different file cannot be played again: it is always necessary to kill/close VLC and restart it. Playing of a video, without pausing or single-stepping, always works: it is even possible to drag the time line to a different place and start playing at that point. It seems that pausing or single-stepping is what stops the playing of sound and video.

This happens on both a Windows 7 PC (VLC 2.1.5 upgraded to 3.0.12) and a Windows 10 PC (clean installation of 3.0.12, VLC not previously installed). It happens with files stored on a local drive (connected by SATA) as well as those on a SAMBA-shared network drive.

The same files played OK on V2.1.5 on the Windows 7 PC before I upgraded that PC to V3.0.12. Both versions of VLC were the 64-bit exe.

I have attached a debug file (Tools | Messages | log level 2).

The logfile shows the playing of two files: Rumpole of the Bailey (544x576x25) which did not provoke the error, and then The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (704x576x25) which hung after single-stepping through several frames.

[martinu]

Ah, I cannot find a way to attach a logfile, apart from pasting the text between [ logfile ] and [ /logfile ] tags - and that exceeds the permitted message length.

Here's a link to the logfile https://pastebin.com/RJDikTyv

I've not attached a video file because it happens with almost every file I play (I've just tried a 1920x1080x25 H264 .ts file, and a 720x576x25 .mpg file).

[Lotesdelere]

Which video card are you using ?

You can try another video output module:
http://wiki.videolan.org/WindowsFAQ-2.0 ... _output.3F

You can try with and without hardware acceleration.
You can also try to enable or disable some video options such as Overlay and/or Hardware YUV -> RGB conversions.

Also upload a short sample of your original problematic file to Zippyshare.com or to WeTransfer.com and then post the link to the file here.
https://www.zippyshare.com
https://wetransfer.com

If needed cut it with DGsplit and read here about how to do it:
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.ph ... 35#p193335
100 MB max should be enough.

[martinu]

This happens with two PCs:

- Windows 7 Home Premium SP1: Asus EAH5450 graphics (from Piriform "Speccy" program), 1920x1080, 32 bpp

- Window 10 Home 20H2: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 graphics (from Piriform "Speccy" program), 1920x1080, 32 bpp

On the W7 PC, I have tried with Tools | Preferences | Video | Output = DirextX (was Automatic) and DirectX | Accelerated video output (Overlay) = unchecked. Use hardware YUV->RGB was already unchecked. I closed and restarted VLC after making those changes.


I can reliably provoke the problem by pressing the Frame by Frame button about 10 times. When I then press Play, the sound resumes and the position counter starts to increment but the picture (including DVB subtitles, if enabled - with Output=Automatic rather than DirectX) remains frozen. Further Frame by Frame sometimes causes the picture to advance a few frames, and then when I press play, the video jumps and becomes synchronised once again with the sound, and normal play resumes. On one occasion I left VLC playing (playing sound and displaying a still frame) and when I returned to the PC a few minutes later, the picture was playing normally.

Tools | Codec | Statistics shows Audio and Input Read counters increasing, but Video counters not increasing. "Lost" or "discarded/dropped" is zero buffers/frames for audio/video/input.

So it looks as if it is not a complete hang, but a very long delay before the video starts to play again after repeated advancing using the Frame by Frame button.

It did not happen with a much older version V2.1.5 which I used until I recently upgraded to V3.0.12.

I have confirmed that this happens with an off-air DVB-S recording, which has not been edited or cut with a program such as VideoRedo or DGsplit.

The following excerpts were made with DGsplit.

This is a 10 MB (31 second) excerpt which I have confirmed demonstrates the fault. https://we.tl/t-FI1x3otOpJ That is 720x576x25 with streams

- video
- programme sound
- audio description sound
- DVB subtitles
- teletext subtitles


I have also seen it with an MPG file https://we.tl/t-xyj0e19dcF (10 MB, 25 seconds): 720x576x25 with streams

- video
- programme sound
- no AD sound or subtitles streams

So it looks as if it is not the container (TS or MPG) or the presence of the extra sound and the subtitles streams.

[Lotesdelere]

I can reliably provoke the problem by pressing the Frame by Frame button about 10 times. When I then press Play, the sound resumes and the position counter starts to increment but the picture (including DVB subtitles, if enabled - with Output=Automatic rather than DirectX) remains frozen.

I can reproduce the issue using VLC 3.0.14 with "Midsomer Murders-excerpt_0.ts" but not with "The Hit (1984) - excerpt_0.mpg".
In any case I don't need to kill VLC neither to restart it for being able to play the same video again or another video.

Have you tried another video output module as I suggested ? And to disable / enable hardware acceleration ?

[martinu]

I can reliably provoke the problem by pressing the Frame by Frame button about 10 times. When I then press Play, the sound resumes and the position counter starts to increment but the picture (including DVB subtitles, if enabled - with Output=Automatic rather than DirectX) remains frozen.

I can reproduce the issue using VLC 3.0.14 with "Midsomer Murders-excerpt_0.ts" but not with "The Hit (1984) - excerpt_0.mpg".
In any case I don't need to kill VLC neither to restart it for being able to play the same video again or another video.

Have you tried another video output module as I suggested ? And to disable / enable hardware acceleration ?

After further testing, I found that sometimes I was able to restart playing just by pressing the stop button and then the play button. Other times this didn't work and the only remedy was to kill the vlc.exe process from Task Manager and restart it.

I did try a different output module and no acceleration, as I said in my most recent post (in which I linked to the test file):

"On the W7 PC, I have tried with Tools | Preferences | Video | Output = DirextX (was Automatic) and DirectX | Accelerated video output (Overlay) = unchecked. Use hardware YUV->RGB was already unchecked. I closed and restarted VLC after making those changes."

I've checked "The Hit (1984) - excerpt_0.mpg" again several times, and I can always make the problem happen, so you must have been lucky

[Lotesdelere]

This sounds like something similar to these reports:
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=157228
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=157290

Please try with forcing the video output module to Direct3D9.

[martinu]

Please try with forcing the video output module to Direct3D9.

No it still fails. Not as easy to provoke, but it does happen.

Once I had pressed frame-by-frame, I could see successive frames for as long as I kept clicking on the button, whereas with Output=Automatic, the screen stopped updating after about 10 clicks.

However when I then pressed Play, the video was still frozen even though sound was playing and the counter was moving. I left it playing for 5 minutes and video did not resume playing (some of the people on the other linked threads implied there was a pause but playback did eventually resume).

The only way out was to press stop and then play - which of course resets video playback to begin from the start.

[stevenroussos]

Tried everything else mentioned here & elsewhere. Turning off Fast Seek, counterintuitively, fixed it.

[martinu]

Tried everything else mentioned here & elsewhere. Turning off Fast Seek, counterintuitively, fixed it.

I thought your fix might have worked for me too, but when I check on my Win 10 laptop, the setting was already turned off. So on my PC, it's something else which is causing it.

I've ticked the box (turning Fast Seek on, closed VLC, restarted it, unticked the box (turning if off again), closed and restarted it (in case the absence of a tick in the box was out of step with the setting that VLC used!) but it doesn't help.

I can reliably reproduce the problem by pressing pause, pressing frame-advance |> a couple of times and then pressing play. Time advances, but picture remains frozen. I can still advance one frame at a time with frame-advance |>

Given that it happens on several computers (different graphics cards), some of which use Linux (eg Ubuntu) as opposed to Windows, with a variety of off-air MPEG or H264 (SD or HD) TS-file recordings, I'm surprised there don't seem to be many other people reporting the problem in this thread. I'm even more surprised that after all this time, Videolan haven't investigated and/or fixed the problem.

Maybe I'm unusual in freeze-framing videos and then resuming playing...