vainfo requires a nvidia sofile not in repositories

[Patola]

$ vainfo
libva info: VA-API version 1.7.0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/nvidia_drv_video.so
libva info: va_openDriver() returns -1
vaInitialize failed with error code -1 (unknown libva error),exit
$ ls -la /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/nvidia_drv_video.so
ls: cannot access '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/nvidia_drv_video.so': No such file or directory
$ apt-file search nvidia_drv_video.so
$

The bug report interface does not allow me to say it's in the 'vainfo' package, so I had to use what ubuntu-bug made me use, libva-utils.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: vainfo 2.6.0+ds1-1
Uname: Linux 5.6.0-19.1-liquorix-amd64 x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.6
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CurrentDesktop: ICEWM
Date: Fri Aug 7 14:21:03 2020
InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-01-08 (942 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" - Release amd64 (20171018)
SourcePackage: libva-utils
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to focal on 2020-05-01 (97 days ago)
modified.conffile..etc.default.apport: [modified]
mtime.conffile..etc.default.apport: 2018-12-08T09:39:42.468905

[Matt McDonald (gardotd426)]

Yeah the package missing is vdpau-va-driver, which is in previous releases of Ubuntu, but for some reason was dropped for Canonical.

This breaks numerous things on 20.04 when using the Nvidia proprietary drivers.

What's crazy is that this actually isn't Nvidia's fault, Ubuntu dropped the package.

Can you guys please add the package to the repositories for Focal like you have for previous versions?

Link to the files for the package in the bionic repos:

https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/amd64/vdpau-va-driver/filelist

That package does not exist on Focal.

[Patola (patola)]

Incredible. More than one week later, this bug report has not been touched and it's still unassigned. What happened with Canonical?

[Goro Daimon (gorodaimon71113)]

When will they fix this error?

[Patola (patola)]

For anyone looking at this bug report, if you use debian's packages it works. It's vdpau-va-driver:

64 bits:
http://ftp.br.debian.org/debian/pool/main/v/vdpau-video/vdpau-va-driver_0.7.4-7_amd64.deb

32 bits:
http://ftp.br.debian.org/debian/pool/main/v/vdpau-video/vdpau-va-driver_0.7.4-7_i386.deb

Install both. Then run vainfo.

[Patola (patola)]

And this bug is left unattended for 42 days now. Is this a new record or something? Congratulations for the incompetence in dealing even with the most basic and easy to fix bugs, Canonical. Just for the sake of it, I opened a bug in Arch Linux stating the same thing, even referencing this one. The result? Assigned and closed with the solution in less than one hour and a half. https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/67932

Learn how to deal with bugs, Canonical. You don't just let them lingering around.

[Goro Daimon (gorodaimon71113)]

Canonical doesn't even care about its users. This is a bad support.

[nukedathlonman (areginato)]

Well, still broken....Or rather a key package is MIA. Trying to configuring up my new HTPC and this was one of the major headaches I was having with getting the video card operating properly. But thanks to Patola, I pulled the missing package (vdpau-va-driver_0.7.4-7_amd64.deb) from Debian - yes everything is functioning properly now.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Srijan Kumar Sharma (raja-srijan)]

I'm facing same issue. This is not the only package missing in 20.04 I has issues install some other packages too.

[Pander (pander)]

Can more people confirm that this is also an issue for 21.04?

[Tarassov Sergey (satarasov)]

This is still an issue in 21.10 after I made do-release-upgrade from 21.04.

[Francisco Canela (fcanela)]

Installing the package from 18.04 (https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/cosmic/amd64/vdpau-va-driver/0.7.4-6ubuntu1) worked for me. Just download the .deb and install it.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The vdpau-va-driver was removed from Debian as deprecated in 2019, https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=934397 so that's not the solution there

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Please finally fix this bug by SRU or something. Rebuild VLC, vainfo and so on.
It continues to happen - see questions like https://askubuntu.com/q/1378418/66509 even with fresh Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS (20210819) installation.

Moreover I have just confirmed this bug while running vainfo on Ubuntu MATE 22.04 LTS on VAIO F13Z1 with Nvidia GT425M using 390.144 video driver. Can't play a video with VLC player (see attached log). It is unbelievable.
Fixed by using package from 18.04 LTS as follows:

```
cd ~/Downloads
wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/v/vdpau-video/vdpau-va-driver_0.7.4-6ubuntu1_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get install ./vdpau-va-driver_0.7.4-6ubuntu1_amd64.deb
```

But it absolutely unexpected for newbies and inexperienced users.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

vdpau-video 0.7.4 was released over nine years ago, there has been no updates to it since, Debian removed the package and we had it synced from there so naturally it got removed from Ubuntu as well

Since nvidia supports VDPAU natively, why can't you use it instead?

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

@Timo could you please reproduce the issue without this 9years comments?

I have video GT425M card which is older, but still works on 18.04 LTS. But not on 20.04 LTS and 22.04 LTS. See above screenscast. It can't play video in VLC.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

I don't have nvidia

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

that said, if the automatic setting isn't good, force it to use vdpau

[Sebastian Ramacher (s-ramacher)]

For NVIDIA cards, use VDPAU. Most media players (if not all) have auto-detection implemented and otherwise the settings can usually be changed to force VDPAU. The message " Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/nvidia_drv_video.so" is harmless (and part of the probing). There is nothing to fix.

[Marcos Alano (mhalano)]

What about NVENC/NVDEC? New standard created to replace VDPAU? This project implements a VA-API driver for this technology: https://github.com/elFarto/nvidia-vaapi-driver I think it would be a nice idea to package it.

[Martin Privat (martinprivat)]

@Sebastian I need to use gstreamer1.0 with hardware acceleration for some video processing application in MATLAB (MATLAB uses gstreamer1.0, I know I should be using python but a lot of scripts I am using are already in MATLAB and I am not going to reinvent the wheel). Is there a way to use hardware acceleration with gstreamer directly through VDPAU ? If not I am missing the functionality provided by vdpau-va-driver

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

pretty sure this is a wontfix at this point