On 2024-01-20 18:51 -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> Whenever I try to view videos in Firefox in my trusty Thinkpad T61,
> Firefox just eats up the CPU but doesn't actually show the video.
>
> At startup I get the following message:
>
> [GFX1-]: vaapitest: VA-API test failed: failed to initialise VAAPI
> connection.
>
> So, IIUC the problem is that the hardware video decoder drivers aren't
> found for some reason. I checked my VA-related packages and they seem
> to be installed:
>
> # aptitude search '\<va\>' | grep '^i'
> i A i965-va-driver - VAAPI driver for Intel G45 & HD Graphics family
> i intel-media-va-driver - VAAPI driver for the Intel GEN8+ Graphics
> family
> i A libvdpau-va-gl1 - VDPAU driver with OpenGL/VAAPI backend
> i A mesa-va-drivers - Mesa VA-API video acceleration drivers
> i va-driver-all - API de Video Acceleration (VA) – métapaquet de pilotes
> i A vdpau-va-driver - VDPAU-based backend for VA API
> #
>
> I tried to install `intel-media-va-driver-non-free` to see if that's the
> problem, but it did not make any difference.
>
> I understand that my machine is fairly old, but it used to be able to
> play youtube videos just fine without eating all my CPU time (i.e. using
> hardware video decoding from its GM965/GL960 Intel integrated graphcs).
>
> Any idea what might be going on?
It is probably due to the removal of old drivers, including i915 and
i965, in Mesa 22.0. There is a separate branch for the old drivers
called "Mesa Amber" but unfortunately no packages have appeared in
Debian yet[1,2,3], and honestly I do not think they ever will. :-(
> Any hint how I could diagnose the problem?
Look for "swrast" in ~/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log. If it is mentioned
there, you are likely using software rendering.
Cheers,
Sven
1. https://bugs.debian.org/1006202
2. https://lists.debian.org/debian-x/2022/06/msg00041.html
3. https://lists.debian.org/debian-x/2023/08/msg00138.html
