Parole plays videos with a black screen when compositing is enabled

Chromace · 2016-04-06 11:03:45

Hi forums!

For some odd reason, Parole has suddenly decided to act out of turn today. When opening an MP4 (also tested with MKV), everything appears to work except for the actual display - the audio can be heard perfectly well. This led me to a flurry of settings resetting in Xfconf. Unfortunately, that did not help. On a whim, I deleted my GStreamer registry in my ~/.cache folder (no result - it just regenerated).

So naturally, I went onto the pragmatic thing: install another media player! To see whether or not this was a problem exclusive to Parole, I installed GNOME's default Video application, which is also GStreamer based, so logically any problems with Parole would occur there as well. However, I was disappointed - the Video app displayed my files flawlessly. This isolates the problem to Parole. Sort of...

Using guesswork, I surmised that Parole relied on gst-libav to play MP4s, which in turn relies on FFmpeg. Therefore, I attempted to play the file using ffplay [file], to see if there were any problems on that front. Unfortunately, it worked excellently, showing both audio and video.

Then I tried changing Parole's backends from X11 hardware accelerated to X11 without hardware acceleration. Unfortunately, this did not help. I avoided using the Clutter backend because of how it ended up crashing Parole whenever I enabled it.

I went on to disable Xfce's window compositing. And that made Parole work for some reason (for both X11 backends). So this beggars the question: why? What might be the fix for Parole's behaviour so that I may enjoy pretty shadows on my windows and alt-tab switching with image previews?

If it's of any help, I have installed Gstreamer's libav, bad, ugly, good and base plugins on my system (Arch), with Parole 0.8.1, Xfce 4.12. Furthermore, uninstalling Gstreamer's libav plugin causes Parole to refuse to play and ask to download the appropriate codec, and GNOME's video application to play a blank screen (but the sound from the video is still played).

Comparison of GNOME's Totem and Parole:
Media player comparison

Thanks! smile

Last edited by Chromace (2016-04-08 06:30:14)

ToZ · 2016-04-06 13:35:35

Also running Arch but not seeing the same issue.

Some follow-up questions:
1. Do other format files (e,g, avi) work?
2. Which video card and driver are you using? Was there a recent update of this driver that coincided with the issue?

To rule out a user-based config issue, try logging in with another user account to see if the problem persists.

Also, as a sanity check, can we see your parole settings:

xfconf-query -c parole -lv

MountainDewManiac · 2016-04-06 14:00:09

Have you tried using your package manager to completely remove the misbehaving media player application, then reinstall it? (Or however you perform those operations in your distro?)

I'm with ToZ on checking to see which updates you've installed that might coincide with this change in behavior. But the removal/reinstallation might help if a setting - or file - got inadvertently screwed up.

BtW, how do you like Parole (other than currently, lol)? I use VLC because it does everything that I wish it to (including occasionally "converting" a video file to an audio one and allowing me to play video files remotely on my cell phone), but it's nice to know a little bit about the various alternatives.

Regards,
MDM

Chromace · 2016-04-07 06:42:09

@ToZ:
AVI's play similarly to MP4s in Parole (black screen w/ sound), but work in GNOME's Totem. Again, disabling compositing in Xfwm allows the video to be played correctly. Interestingly, if I enable compositing while I'm playing a video in Parole, it will still show properly - it is only after restarting the player does the video become black screened. The AVI codec appears to come from GStreamer's good plugins rather than libav, so it appears that FFmpeg can be ruled out as the problem.

"lspci | grep -e VGA -e 3Dc" gives me this: 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09). The graphics driver I'm using is "xf86-video-intel". It was last updated in March, and Parole has only recently (maybe yesterday) started acting up.

"xfconf-query -c parole -lv" gives me this:
/audio/volume 100
/folders/last-used-media /home/chromace/Downloads
/playlist/play-opened-files false
/playlist/repeat true
/playlist/show-playlist true
/subtitles/font Sans Bold 20
/video/videosink xvimagesink
/window/height 516
/window/maximized false
/window/width 981

Creating a new user allows Parole to play videos properly even when compositing is enabled. But the question is what sort of configurations might I have created that would have caused such a result? While it is a relief to know that this isn't as serious of a problem as once thought, I'd rather not reset all of my configurations once again, especially considering the time it took to customise my desktop.

If it's of any help, I do recall using the command "ffplay -nodisp" (play file without the GUI opening) in an attempt to make my Xfce4 Timer play an alarm sound once time finished. Soon after, my videos began acting up in Parole. I ended up using "paplay" for the timer instead though, fearing that using ffplay further might do bad things, or stopping its use might fix things up. However, correlation does not necessarily equate to causation, no? After all, Parole also acts up with AVIs, which (as said before), Gstreamer's 'good' plugins support, away from FFmpeg.

@MDM:
I have indeed tried reinstalling Parole, combined with resetting all of its configurations via Xfconf's settings editor. However, this proved to be unhelpful. With the knowledge that a new user is able to play video files normally, this means that there is something up with my configuration. But the problem is knowing what changes they were...

And Parole is a very competent media player, playing whatever files I choose to throw at it. Its playlist handling is quite nice, showing what files are loaded as an optional sidebar. However, having it show file metadata titles isn't really for me - I prefer seeing my actual file names. Not being able to disable recent files is also icky, but I found a solution for that. And for file conversions I just use WinFF (FFmpeg GUI).

Although...I miss Daum Potplayer (Windows exclusive unfortunately). It had everything I wanted: it could display subtitles with just audio files while showing fullscreen album art (the trick to achieving that is using a visualization which just displays album art, allowing a video for subtitles to play on), and had tabbed playlists for easy access in the interface too. Unfortunately there really isn't an alternative player that fits the above criteria, so I just go with whatever's the default (and like they say, deal with it).

Last edited by Chromace (2016-04-07 14:02:30)

ToZ · 2016-04-07 12:56:01

I think you've pretty much worked this down to some sort of setting with the compositor as being the issue. Can you compare the results of:

xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -lv

...between the 2 login profiles to identify the differences?

Chromace · 2016-04-07 13:54:30

Here's the diff between the two configuration results:
5c5
< /general/button_layout O|HMC
---
> /general/button_layout O|SHMC
28c28
< /general/mousewheel_rollup false
---
> /general/mousewheel_rollup true
37c37
< /general/raise_with_any_button false
---
> /general/raise_with_any_button true
40c40
< /general/scroll_workspaces false
---
> /general/scroll_workspaces true
52c52
< /general/snap_to_windows true
---
> /general/snap_to_windows false
55c55
< /general/theme Arc-Dark
---
> /general/theme Default
69c69
< /general/workspace_count 1
---
> /general/workspace_count 4
74c74
< /general/wrap_windows false
---
> /general/wrap_windows true

Much of it seems cosmetic though...

ToZ · 2016-04-07 17:37:33

Much of it seems cosmetic though...

Yes it does. There doesn't appear to be anything there that would cause the effect you are seeing. Unfortunately, I can't think of anything else to recommend, yet some configuration setting is causing the problem.

Chromace · 2016-04-08 06:23:39

Would it be safe to just copy all of the configuration files from the new user to mine? Even if the cause of Parole's black screening can't be found, this would probably solve it right?

ToZ · 2016-04-08 10:02:49

There are many configuration files, so it might take some time to get the right one. I'm not even sure that its an Xfce configuration. Why don't you try this. While not logged in, rename ~/.config/xfce4 to ~/.config/xfce4.BAK. This is where the bulk of Xfce's configuration lies. It will be automatically created and default settings copied in on the next log in. Then log back in and see if it helps. If not, log out again and rename the directory back.

Chromace · 2016-04-09 02:57:34

I am happy to report that resetting Xfce's preferences succeeded in resolving Parole's video display. In fact, it has even resolved a few of the kinks in my system, such as the brightness indicator not properly working. It's a relief that it was only a configuration issue (although exactly what it was remains a mystery).

Thanks for the support! Next time I come up with some bizarre problems with Xfce, I'll be sure to try resetting ~/.config/xfce4.

Xfce Forum

Sub domains

#1 2016-04-06 11:03:45

Parole plays videos with a black screen when compositing is enabled

#2 2016-04-06 13:35:35

Re: Parole plays videos with a black screen when compositing is enabled

#3 2016-04-06 14:00:09

Re: Parole plays videos with a black screen when compositing is enabled

#4 2016-04-07 06:42:09

Re: Parole plays videos with a black screen when compositing is enabled

#5 2016-04-07 12:56:01

Re: Parole plays videos with a black screen when compositing is enabled

#6 2016-04-07 13:54:30

Re: Parole plays videos with a black screen when compositing is enabled

#7 2016-04-07 17:37:33

Re: Parole plays videos with a black screen when compositing is enabled

#8 2016-04-08 06:23:39

Re: Parole plays videos with a black screen when compositing is enabled

#9 2016-04-08 10:02:49

Re: Parole plays videos with a black screen when compositing is enabled

#10 2016-04-09 02:57:34

Re: Parole plays videos with a black screen when compositing is enabled

Board footer