Crash unless ffmpeg direct rendering disabled with ATI X1400

[Boris Gjenero]

After upgrading to Ubuntu 20.10, VLC started crashing when I tried to play video. I tried changing to different video output methods, but none of them worked. In the past, I remember several methods working fine.

In the ffmpeg advanced preferences page, disabling the direct rendering option made video playback work.

I thought the vaapi errors VLC reports had something to do with it, but apparently not, because they still happen with successful playback. This is on a Dell Inspiron 6400 with ATI Mobility Radeon X1400, which doesn't support hardware decoding of the H.264 video I'm trying to play.

Here's one backtrace:
Thread 26 "vlc" received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
[Switching to Thread 0x7fff880df640 (LWP 11335)]
__memcpy_ssse3 () at ../sysdeps/x86_64/multiarch/memcpy-ssse3.S:104
104 ../sysdeps/x86_64/multiarch/memcpy-ssse3.S: No such file or directory.
(gdb) bt
#0 __memcpy_ssse3 () at ../sysdeps/x86_64/multiarch/memcpy-ssse3.S:104
#1 0x00007ffff7d03fc2 in picture_CopyPixels ()
    at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libvlccore.so.9
#2 0x00007ffff7d04016 in picture_Copy ()
    at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libvlccore.so.9
#3 0x00007ffff7cdf1ea in () at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libvlccore.so.9
#4 0x00007ffff7ce1438 in () at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libvlccore.so.9
#5 0x00007ffff7f67590 in start_thread (arg=0x7fff880df640)
    at pthread_create.c:463
#6 0x00007ffff7e87223 in clone ()
    at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/x86_64/clone.S:95

Also another:
#0 __memcpy_ssse3 () at ../sysdeps/x86_64/multiarch/memcpy-ssse3.S:104
#1 0x00007fffc7022bff in () at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/r300_dri.so
#2 0x00007fffc74f1d66 in () at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/r300_dri.so
#3 0x00007fffc6b41317 in () at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/r300_dri.so
#4 0x00007fffc6cb4b07 in () at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/r300_dri.so
#5 0x00007fffc6cb7dcc in () at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/r300_dri.so
#6 0x00007fffc6cbd9d9 in () at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/r300_dri.so
#7 0x00007fff885b2eee in ()
    at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/vlc/plugins/video_output/libgles2_plugin.so
#8 0x00007fff885ad2c5 in ()
    at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/vlc/plugins/video_output/libgles2_plugin.so
#9 0x00007fff885b3cee in ()
    at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/vlc/plugins/video_output/libgles2_plugin.so
#10 0x00007ffff7cdf4e6 in () at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libvlccore.so.9
#11 0x00007ffff7ce1438 in () at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libvlccore.so.9
#12 0x00007ffff7f67590 in start_thread (arg=0x7fff886bb640)
    at pthread_create.c:463
#13 0x00007ffff7e87223 in clone ()
    at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/x86_64/clone.S:95

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.10
Package: vlc 3.0.11.1-2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.8.0-36.40-generic 5.8.18
Uname: Linux 5.8.0-36-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu50.3
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CurrentDesktop: KDE
Date: Fri Jan 15 18:46:42 2021
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-01-19 (3284 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release amd64 (20111012)
SourcePackage: vlc
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to groovy on 2020-10-21 (86 days ago)

[Sebastian Ramacher (s-ramacher)]

Sounds like a driver bug.

[Boris Gjenero (boris-gjenero)]

But, not all VLC video outputs are supposed to use OpenGL, so I don't see why Mesa is relevant. One of the crash backtraces doesn't involve Mesa.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

does it happen with 21.04 or impish?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for mesa (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]