[megurrola]

Hello Kodi Team

I'm experiencing Kodi crashing to desktop white playing video files.
This happens with different files and randonmly.
The behaviour is always similar: video turns black and sound starts to be interrupted (sound, no sound, sound, no sound) and then crash to desktop.

Here the details of my gear:

Kodi 20.1 (20.1.0) git: 20230312-289ec664e3
Windows 10 Pro 22H2
Intel Core i5-4460 64bit
4 GB of RAM
Nvidia GeForce GT 610
HDMI audio (Realtek High Definition Audio driver version 6.0.8703.1)

Here the link to kodi.log at pastebin: https://paste.kodi.tv/azowirijef.kodi
And here the link to mediainfo data: https://paste.kodi.tv/muwediwizo

Hope this helps you to locate the apparent Kodi problem and fix it.

Thanks and best regards.

[izprtxqkft]

instead of "different files and randonmly" does this actually happen most often with hevc/h.265 files, either 8 or 10 bit (the file in your log is 10 bit)?

[megurrola]

Yeah, mostly with hevc/h.265 files. Not sure about 10 or 8 bit.
With "different files and randonmly" I mean that happens with several files, not just one. And yes, it happens ranmdomly at any moment during the playback.

[izprtxqkft]

yes thats what i was referring to, less so 'playback time in the video' and more to do with the video type itself

best i can find out your 610 isnt capable of doing 10 bit hevc hardware decoding, its unclear if 8 bit is possible

if my assumptions are correct if you look at taskmgr when playing hevc you will likely find high system resource usage and this would be the reason for the crash

-----

i was unable to locate anything definitive as far as the capabilities of the card because of its age however

[megurrola]

yes thats what i was referring to, less so 'playback time in the video' and more to do with the video type itself

best i can find out your 610 isnt capable of doing 10 bit hevc hardware decoding, its unclear if 8 bit is possible

if my assumptions are correct if you look at taskmgr when playing hevc you will likely find high system resource usage and this would be the reason for the crash

-----

i was unable to locate anything definitive as far as the capabilities of the card because of its age however

Mmmmm.. interesting what you say about the 610 card. Hardware acceleration - DXVA2 is disabled, do you think that even in that case the decoding is being done by the 610?
I'll take a look to resources consumption white playing one of these files and post my findings.

[megurrola]

if my assumptions are correct if you look at taskmgr when playing hevc you will likely find high system resource usage and this would be the reason for the crash

Played same file again whle having an eye on the resources: CPU always under 30%, RAM always under 70%, GPU allways under 60%.
This time Kodi didn't crash, BTW.
But, I don't see hardware resources shortage here, honestly.

[CrystalP]

Those two lines seem to be closest to the problem
 

Code:

2023-06-20 12:24:18.219 T:10292   debug <general>: DX::DeviceResources::ReleaseBackBuffer: release buffers.
2023-06-20 12:24:18.219 T:10292   error <general>: DX::DeviceResources::FinishCommandList: failed to finish command queue.

ReleaseBackBuffer is not expected and usually is a reaction to a device lost situation - in Windows 10 happens when the graphics driver crashes and is restarted.
Then Kodi is not able to recover and continue to play (could be improved, but not the root cause)

Other symptoms of the driver restarting are black / sometimes garbled screen and unresponsive computer for a few seconds (no reaction to mouse/keyboard input for example). Then it all comes back to normal. Seems familiar?

Looks like an internal fault of the driver, I don't suppose there is a more recent one to upgrade to?

There may be additional information available if running Kodi under Visual Studio at the time (or maybe just a debugger, haven't tried), but it requires technical skills.


edit: to be exhaustive, ReleaseBackBuffer also happens when the window is resized, but you didn't mention doing that during playback, or switching a screen on/off...

[megurrola]

Those two lines seem to be closest to the problem
 

Code:

2023-06-20 12:24:18.219 T:10292   debug <general>: DX::DeviceResources::ReleaseBackBuffer: release buffers.
2023-06-20 12:24:18.219 T:10292   error <general>: DX::DeviceResources::FinishCommandList: failed to finish command queue.

ReleaseBackBuffer is not expected and usually is a reaction to a device lost situation - in Windows 10 happens when the graphics driver crashes and is restarted.
Then Kodi is not able to recover and continue to play (could be improved, but not the root cause)

Other symptoms of the driver restarting are black / sometimes garbled screen and unresponsive computer for a few seconds (no reaction to mouse/keyboard input for example). Then it all comes back to normal. Seems familiar?

Looks like an internal fault of the driver, I don't suppose there is a more recent one to upgrade to?

There may be additional information available if running Kodi under Visual Studio at the time (or maybe just a debugger, haven't tried), but it requires technical skills.


edit: to be exhaustive, ReleaseBackBuffer also happens when the window is resized, but you didn't mention doing that during playback, or switching a screen on/off...

Hey, thanks for the answer.
No: no new version of the graphic card driver available. Already checked that.
And again, no, I didn't resized the Kodi window during the playback.
I know Visual Studio as I work in IT, but honestly, sorry: I have no plans of installing it in my mediacenter PC and run Kodi under it.
I uninstalled an application that I installed recently that matches in time when this issues started to happen, and now it seems that it is not happening again, or at least not as often as before. I'm talking about RealVNC.
Well, just wanted to share my problems here so it would help to improve Kodi.

Best regards

[PatK]

I uninstalled an application that I installed recently that matches in time when this issues started to happen, and now it seems that it is not happening

Bingo, HDR10 compatible Codec ID : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC challenging at the best of times for that set-up. Quite unusual for Kodi player to stop mid play, suggest using the onscreen display to look for through-put and fetch issues, failing that I might disable the screen blanker, and weather app to see if the hardware is at threshold.

[megurrola]

I uninstalled an application that I installed recently that matches in time when this issues started to happen, and now it seems that it is not happening

Bingo, HDR10 compatible Codec ID : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC challenging at the best of times for that set-up. Quite unusual for Kodi player to stop mid play, suggest using the onscreen display to look for through-put and fetch issues, failing that I might disable the screen blanker, and weather app to see if the hardware is at threshold.

Man, thanks for your answer. I hope that means you have found an explanation to what I was suffering, but honestly, I'm unable to understand what you said

[CrystalP]

I don't know the low-level details but RealVNC inserts itself in the graphics chain and is high on the suspects list.
Maybe Kodi does something wrong, but it's really not a well tested combination.

For SDR source the software render method could be an alternative, but for HDR/HLG (your video) it lacks the color conversion from BT2020 to BT709 at this time and colors look off.

[megurrola]

I don't know the low-level details but RealVNC inserts itself in the graphics chain and is high on the suspects list.
Maybe Kodi does something wrong, but it's really not a well tested combination.

For SDR source the software render method could be an alternative, but for HDR/HLG (your video) it lacks the color conversion from BT2020 to BT709 at this time and colors look off.

Time passes since I disabled RealVNC, and I've not experienced problems anymore. Everything points to RealVNC as the bad boy in this movie. It is curious however that there were no active RealVCN connections while the issues happened. I mean, RealVNC was loaded and listening for connections (icon in the system tray) but that's all. Calls my attention that even being in that state it could interfere in video processing.

[PatK]

Thread marked solved.