Solved Tearing / flickering after upgrade (16->17) – STANDALONE ONLY!
#1
Hey guys!

After upgrading to Krypton from Jarvis (on Linux Mint 17.3), unfortunately, Kodi has become unusable. :-(

Right off the bat, in the menu and everywhere else, I'm experiencing severe tearing/flickering. It looks exactly like this guy on YouTube (so at least it'd seem I'm not the only one dealing with the issue):

I've tried toying around with everything I could think of: upgrading everything, switching graphics drivers, playing with settings (refresh rate, resolution, hardware acceleration, …) and nothing helps at all.

I can exclude many issues, since starting Mint (with Cinnamon) works fine without changing any setting; so hardware (especially cables, TV and stuff) and drivers seem to be doing their jobs. Also, everything worked fine before the upgrade.

One thing that does fix the issue: Changing "Display mode" from "Full screen" to "Windowed" (in System -> Settings -> System -> Display)—with the caveat that the system uses the top left quarter of the TV… :-s
(When switching back to full screen while playing a video, there is no tearing, "just" pretty bad flickering.)

Any ideas or hints?
Thanks,
Nicola
Reply
#2
Hey!

OK, so today I realised: the issue only arises in standalone-mode.
I started Cinnamon and before playing a video via VLC, I gave Kodi a try—and to my surprise, it works like a charm! Since both versions resort to the same settings, I'm inclined to believe that it's nothing in there, either?

(I've changed the thread title to reflect this information.)

Nicola
Reply
#3
I got exactly the same issue after upgrading from 16.1 to 17 on lubuntu 14.04. (same LTS release as your version of Linux Mint)
I tried enabled the video trace in kodi but there is nothing written to the logs regarding video error's. I don't get this issue when I tested on Android or Windows.
I will try to run a further linux video trace sometime over the next few day's to get to the bottom of it.
Reply
#4
Regardless of what information you find about "standalone" mode, running Kodi without a window manager is not supported. I know because i have written most of this code.
Reply
#5
Hey FernetMenta!

(2017-02-20, 12:20)FernetMenta Wrote: Regardless of what information you find about "standalone" mode, running Kodi without a window manager is not supported. I know because i have written most of this code.

Thanks for the info!

Since I'm a big fan of "if it's broken, deactivate it" I'm a bit surprised: Why hasn't standalone-mode been disabled (at least by default) if it's not supported? :-(

Also, I've been running Kodi in standalone-mode for >5 years on the same setup without any hitch; it's a pity that of all things, this breaks in upgrading 16->17. :-s (I'm honestly considering downgrading to 16 because of this issue—all the new features introduced with Krypton, cool as they may be, aren't of any interest to me…)
The main pain is that running Kodi on top of X (an whatever other stuff Mint runs in the background) brings my setup to its knees (yes, the machine could use a bit more oomph). In the last couple of days I'v seen quite a bunch of artefacts and flickerings and stuff; nothing like that ever happened in standalone-mode.

Regards
Nicola
Reply
#6
Hey!

Oh, and of course: If I can do anything to help figure out any of the issues, just let me know. I'd be glad to help!

Nicola
Reply
#7
Use a lightweight WM like openbox or fluxbox. You won't notice any performance penalties.
Reply
#8
Hey!

(2017-02-20, 18:01)FernetMenta Wrote: Use a lightweight WM like openbox or fluxbox. You won't notice any performance penalties.

OK, so I spent the evening testing things out.
It seems I was wrong about the system being on its knees: CPU usage is at 30-40%, memory at less than 15%.

I installed and tried out both Openbox and Fluxbox, and with both I'm actually getting exactly the issues describe in the first post! Both tearing and flickering are extreme and make Kodi unusable.

So basically only when running Cinnamon things more or less work. "More or less", because while experimenting I realized that while there is no tearing, flickering is present throughout on the overlays when a video is playing. Nothing like this was ever present before upgrading to Krypton.

I can gladly provide videos of what I'm seeing or—more to the point—logs and such (which ones?) if it'd help to debug. I'm thankful for any ideas!
Nicola
Reply
#9
Please post your hardware spec.
Reply
#10
Hey!

(2017-02-21, 08:58)FernetMenta Wrote: Please post your hardware spec.

I'm running Kodi 17 Krypton on Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa (Kernel 4.4.0) on an HP ProLiant MicroServer N36L (AMD Athlon II Neo N36L 2x 1.30GHz, 16 GB ECC RAM) with an ATI (AMD) Radeon HD 6450. I assume these to be the relevant specs for the issue. ;-)

Nicola
Reply
#11
I will ask a contact at AMD if he has an idea.
Reply
#12
Hey!

(2017-02-21, 20:03)FernetMenta Wrote: I will ask a contact at AMD if he has an idea.

That's really kind of you!
Please stress that the issues arose only after upgrading to Krypton.

Nicola
Reply
#13
A side note: I get this kind of tearing on my TV only when I use light acceleration with my graphic card and two displays open, taking of the accel and it all behaves. I believe this issue is in the graphic engine/driver.
Reply
#14
Hey PatK!

(2017-02-22, 00:05)PatK Wrote: A side note: I get this kind of tearing on my TV only when I use light acceleration with my graphic card and two displays open, taking of the accel and it all behaves. I believe this issue is in the graphic engine/driver.

What do you mean exactly by "light acceleration"?
One of the first things I tried was disabling both VDPAU as well as VAAPI hardware acceleration (since that once used to cause issues on another system of mine), but to no avail. (Also, I'm using just one display; still, I thought I might try whatever you tried just to see if things change.)

Nicola
Reply
#15
(2017-02-22, 16:27)NicApicella Wrote: Hey PatK!

(2017-02-22, 00:05)PatK Wrote: A side note: I get this kind of tearing on my TV only when I use light acceleration with my graphic card and two displays open, taking of the accel and it all behaves. I believe this issue is in the graphic engine/driver.

What do you mean exactly by "light acceleration"?
One of the first things I tried was disabling both VDPAU as well as VAAPI hardware acceleration (since that once used to cause issues on another system of mine), but to no avail. (Also, I'm using just one display; still, I thought I might try whatever you tried just to see if things change.)

Nicola

Overclocking was the culprit for me, seems that stressing the gpu changing the 'clocks' interferes with the page display. This looks like a timing issue with that graphic card, not sure how to sync it up unless you want to bring out the calculator and figure out speed of the frames, speed of the chips and try and match the display refresh and cross your fingers the software included has the ability to make these kind of minor adjustments. I'd be more inclined to go after the card manufacturer and accuse him of taking shortcuts in the design. This is a support site for AMD cards http://www.rage3d.com/ the AMD guys haunt the forums here.

My Radeon HD 5770 is not far off your Radeon HD 6450, I had some issues with a mint install, but found some beta drivers, that settled out my acceleration issues.
Reply

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
Tearing / flickering after upgrade (16->17) – STANDALONE ONLY!0