VLC Media Player Crashes when playing .ts files with MPEG-2 codec

[epecwokhay]

I’m having issues with VLC 3.0.18 playing .ts files with MPEG-2 as the video codec – results in crashes/freezes … no issues in regards if H.264/MPEG-4 is the video codec, just MPEG-2.

Brief specs/setup of my primary machine in which this behavior happens:

• AMD GPU w/default driver, Kernel 6.1.12-1, KDE Plasma DE

On a Wayland Session, playing those files (.ts with MPEG-2 video codec) results in a total system freeze requiring me to press the physical reset button of my machine; on an X11 Session, playing those files will just result in a desktop session crash taking me back to the login screen.

Similar problems happened to another one of my machines with the following setup:

• NVIDIA GPU w/Proprietary 525.28.02 Driver, Kernel 5.15.94-1, KDE Plasma DE, X11

On this machine, launching those files don’t totally freeze or crash the desktop session, they just crash VLC. Below is a sample error output from the terminal when I launch VLC and one of those files from there.

[00007f9fccc26440] mpeg4audio packetizer: AAC channels: 2 samplerate: 48000
uint DBusMenuExporterDBus::GetLayout(int, int, const QStringList&, DBusMenuLayoutItem&): Condition failed: menu
uint DBusMenuExporterDBus::GetLayout(int, int, const QStringList&, DBusMenuLayoutItem&): Condition failed: menu
[00007f9fc0007420] gl gl: Initialized libplacebo v5.229.0 (API v229)
libva error: vaGetDriverNameByIndex() failed with unknown libva error, driver_name = (null)
[00007f9fc0007420] glconv_vaapi_x11 gl error: vaInitialize: unknown libva error
zsh: segmentation fault (core dumped)  vlc

I think it’s directly related to VLC since I don’t have problems playing the same files with Dragon Player as an alternative video player app. BTW, the VLC I installed for both machines is from the default Arch repo. If you need me to provide more info, please let me know, thx.

[koshikas]

usually playing TS files fail due to absence of aribb24 package;

Can't play MPEG2 with VLC

I have tried this unsuccessfully on both Manjaro and Arclinux Linux with the VLC media streamer. I can not play MPEG2 videos. There doesn’t appear to be any optional plugins that I’m missing. This is one of my first test on any Linux Distro to make sure I have the basics working. Currently, if I install the package vlc on any modern Linux It includes everything I need to play MPEG2 videos(ts) files or streams from URLs. But no luck with Manjaro or Archlinux. However, I recently installed M…

Vlc 3.0.17.4 fails playing mpeg2 ts

When I try to play an mpeg2 (dvb-s recording) ts file with vlc 3.0.17.4-7 on actual Manjaro stable (XFCE) I see different bad behaviour - on two very different computers - either video remains black, or picture evolves jumpy while remaining still for times, or only left part of picture showing, blocky, then colourful blocks, then grey towards right. One of the computers crashed two times after running the blocky video for several minutes… After that I stopped it always immediately if the video p…

but error you’ve given indicates libva error;

run;

$ vainfo 

and give results

[epecwokhay]

I already have the package aribb24 installed on both machines when the previous stated issues/problems occurred; to clarify, not all .ts files will fail, it’s only the ones that contain MPEG-2 codecs, the ones that contain H.264/MPEG-4 codecs play without issues.

This is the output when I try to run $ vainfo initially:

zsh: correct 'vainfo' to 'aainfo' [nyae]? n
The application vainfo is not installed. It may be found in the following packages:
  community/libva-utils 2.17.1-1        /usr/bin/vainfo

After installing the package libva-utils, running the $ vainfo command again outputted this:

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

[JakobDev]

I had the same problem. i got the solution from @TheReaperUK: Just remove ibva-vdpau-driver and install libva-nvidia-driver from the AUR.

[epecwokhay]

Thx, that fixed it for my machine with the Nvidia GPU. As for the other machine with the AMD GPU, I found this solution from a different post to work:

VLC crashes when trying to load a video file mp4/mov

Could this be fixed by "in VLC change Preferences > Video > Output from “Automatic” to “VDPAU” according to [Stable Update] 2023-02-20 - Kernels, GNOME, NetworkManager, KDE Frameworks, Firefox - #2 by philm ?

Edit: Later found out the change in VLC Preferences listed in solution above can cause flickering black screens on other file containers, codecs; I found this other workaround for my machine with an AMD GPU:
Preferences > Input / Codecs > Next to Hardware-accelerated decoding, select VDPAU video decoder instead of automatic in the dropdown box