VLC fails to initialize due to unknown libva error

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1

Opening a file with VLC immediate fails due to the following issue:

VLC media player 3.0.18 Vetinari (revision 3.0.13-8-g41878ff4f2)
[000055d824ded550] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
[00007f51e8007860] gl gl: Initialized libplacebo v5.229.0 (API v229)
libva error: vaGetDriverNameByIndex() failed with unknown libva error, driver_name = (null)
[00007f51e8007860] glconv_vaapi_x11 gl error: vaInitialize: unknown libva error
zsh: segmentation fault (core dumped)  vlc Desktop/CYQ_0130.MP4

vainfo shows the following message, including a libva initialization error:

Trying display: wayland
Trying display: x11
libva error: vaGetDriverNameByIndex() failed with unknown libva error, driver_name = (null)
vaInitialize failed with error code -1 (unknown libva error),exit

Could this be something I’ve omitted from an install when I set up manjaro?

2

Are you fully up to date with drivers installed/configured?

Brand new install?

3

Yes, I recently updated the kernel to 6.1.19-1.

I appear to have found a fix that works for me sourced from here.

Ultimately, I removed the libva-vdpau-driver as suggested by ‘kenny_w’ on 7 Jan 2023 and… VLC opens again.

1 Like
4

That is removing the vdpau backend for vaapi.
I have no idea whether that makes sense on your system or not.
VLC is notorious for not implementing hardware acceleration nicely and having often-failing defaults.

Example here:

5

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