Video playback problems, troubleshooting and solutions on Linux.

ugly

I'm on Linux Mint 18.1, and I ran the Ubuntu script provided in the guide.

I got:
chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra is already the newest version (55.0.2883.87-0ubuntu0.16.04.1263)

The test page still failed for H.264.

I did recently upgrade from Mint 18 to 18.1. But I think I might have been having issues before that. I know I had it working earlier. Not sure when it stopped.

I had to manually copy libffmpeg.so (2.4MB) from

/usr/lib/chromium-browser

to

/opt/vivaldi-snapshot/

and it works now.

I did have a copy of libffmpeg.so with a file size of 1.3MB in
/opt/vivaldi-snapshot/lib

Panino

Until 2 snapshots agora everything worked...

I tried every every solution here, executing that script from gwendragon finally updated libfdmpeg.so (from 1.4mb to 3.2mb) and MSE & H.264 videos started to work again, but not VP8 and MSE & VP9.
I give up.

Ruarí

@ugly said in Video playback problems, troubleshooting and solutions on Linux.:

I had to manually copy libffmpeg.so (2.4MB) from

/usr/lib/chromium-browser

to

/opt/vivaldi-snapshot/

This is why you continue to have problems. By copying the libffmpeg.so into the Vivaldi folder you are preventing the system from working automatically.

You probably had an old libffmpeg.so there, where you have done this before.

Uninstall all copies of vivaldi. Look for /opt/vivaldi-snapshot/libffmpeg.so and /opt/vivaldi/libffmpeg.so and if present delete them. Then reinstall vivaldi. From now on the automatic system where the correct libe is found from the chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra will just work.

Ruarí

@Panino uninstall any copies of vivaldi and after install issue:

sudo rm -fr /opt/vivaldi*

Note: uninstalling Vivaldi and removing the vivaldi opt directories will not delete your preferences and settings

If you are on Ubuntu issue

sudo apt update
sudo apt install chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra

If you use any other distro, re-read the instructions on this gist.

Reinstall Vivaldi.

You should now have working h264 videos

msbentley

I've also just hit this problem after upgrading Vivaldi - previously everything, including h264, worked fine. Now it has stopped working - I'm on version 1.6.689.40 running on ubuntu 16.10 x64. chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra was and is still installed. I tried re-installing Vivaldi, but still hit the same problem.

Please let me know if I can provide additional diagnostics!

zsolt.futo

@ugly Thank You , I had the same issue and Your suggestion/solution worked for me!

Ruarí

@msbentley said in Video playback problems, troubleshooting and solutions on Linux.:

Please let me know if I can provide additional diagnostics!

What version of chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra do you have installed?
What is the result of this command?

find /opt/vivaldi* -name 'libffmpeg.so'

Ruarí

@zsolt.futo said in Video playback problems, troubleshooting and solutions on Linux.:

@ugly Thank You , I had the same issue and Your suggestion/solution worked for me!

It is not a good solution as it will likely cause you issues in the future unless you keep doing this for every upgrade. Instead I suggest you remove the lib you copied. Then start the browser as follows:

bash -x /opt/vivaldi/vivaldi > ~/Documents/vivaldi-startup-log.txt

When the browser has finished starting, immediately shut it down. You will find the file vivaldi-startup-log.txt in your Documents directory. Post its contents here.

ugly

@ruario said in Video playback problems, troubleshooting and solutions on Linux.:

@ugly said in Video playback problems, troubleshooting and solutions on Linux.:

I had to manually copy libffmpeg.so (2.4MB) from

/usr/lib/chromium-browser

to

/opt/vivaldi-snapshot/

This is why you continue to have problems. By copying the libffmpeg.so into the Vivaldi folder you are preventing the system from working automatically.

You probably had an old libffmpeg.so there, where you have done this before.

Uninstall all copies of vivaldi. Look for /opt/vivaldi-snapshot/libffmpeg.so and /opt/vivaldi/libffmpeg.so and if present delete them. Then reinstall vivaldi. From now on the automatic system where the correct libe is found from the chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra will just work.

I don't remember copying the libffmpeg.so file in there. I'm not saying I didn't, but I don't think I would have even know where to look for everything to do it. Unless maybe I looked at your portable script to figure it out. But I don't think I would have, since H.264 was working at one point.

Even so, this does not seem to work for me.

Just to be thorough, these are the steps I tried:

Uninstalled vivaldi-snapshot from the software manager
Checked the /opt/vivaldi-snapshot folder and there was a leftover libffmpeg.so file.
sudo rm -fr /opt/vivaldi*
Checked for /opt/vivaldi-snapshot and it was gone.
sudo apt update
sudo apt install chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra
Got the message that it was up to date.
Installed the latest 64-bit snapshot from the .deb file I downloaded earlier.
Checked the test page: http://www.quirksmode.org/html5/tests/video.html
WebM and Ogg/Theora work, but not H.264/MP4
/opt/vivaldi-snapshot has no libffmpeg.so file. /opt/vivaldi-snapshot/lib has the 1.3MB libffmpeg.so file.

I don't have the stable channel installed. But I do have a portable version from your script: https://gist.github.com/ruario/8f648cc3069d1a55d9c8

Also, I can't edit my previous post where I have my improper workaround. Maybe it should be edited so others don't try it and mess up their install.

msbentley

@ruario I have the following:

chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra: 55.0.2883.87-0ubuntu1.16.10.1330

libffmpeg.so is indeed where it should be:

/opt/vivaldi/lib/libffmpeg.so

But this does differ from the version in /usr/lib/chromium-browser/

If I make a symbolic link:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/chromium-browser/libffmpeg.so /opt/vivaldi/lib/libffmpeg.so

and restart Vivaldi, everything works OK...

Panino

Following the procedures here H264 started to work again, but what is happening after all? Why it stopped working in the first place? I'll need to repeat this every update?
This is wrong.
Was Linux a mistake after all? We can never have nice things.

Ruarí

After investigating a little more it would seem that Ubuntu has pulled an OpenSUSE and moved the directory for libffmpeg.so.

On Ubuntu 14.04, the latest chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra package is 53.0.2785.143 and it stores the libffmpeg.so in /usr/lib/chromium-browser/libs. However, on Ubuntu 16.04 and 16.10 the latest chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra package is 55.0.2883.87, which stores libffmpeg.so in /usr/lib/chromium-browser.

Thus, our startup script does not find it as we only look in /usr/lib/chromium-browser/libs.

We will need to update Vivaldi stable to look in both locations.

Ruarí

@msbentley It works but it is the wrong fix because /usr/lib/chromium-browser/libffmpeg.so will always be used even if it is the wrong version (this may happen in a future update). If it is ever the wrong version you will likely get crashes and/or other serious issues. So do not do this lightly.

We have worked out the issue now. It is because the Ubuntu maintainers changed the location of this file. We have a fix we are testing internally and will try and get it out shortly.

msbentley

@ruario understood - I've revert it once the changes have been rolled out!

Ruarí

Ok, let's try this!

https://vivaldi.net/en-US/teamblog/199-minor-linux-update-to-vivaldi-1-6-html5-mp4-h-264-aac-video-and-mp3-audio-fix

Ruarí

Also updated the snapshot stream

https://vivaldi.net/en-US/teamblog/200-ime-and-linux-media-fixes-vivaldi-browser-snapshot-1-7-705-3

ugly

@ruario said in Video playback problems, troubleshooting and solutions on Linux.:

Also updated the snapshot stream

https://vivaldi.net/en-US/teamblog/200-ime-and-linux-media-fixes-vivaldi-browser-snapshot-1-7-705-3

Works for me on Linux Mint 18.1 x64. Thanks for getting it sorted out so quickly before the holidays.

I see you also updated your portable script. It's a bit different than the old version I had, but I got it running as a portable install with the temp profile. Video also seems to work for the portable version. Thanks again.

Ruarí

@ugly said in Video playback problems, troubleshooting and solutions on Linux.:

Works for me on Linux Mint 18.1 x64. Thanks for getting it sorted out so quickly before the holidays.

Np, thanks for all your feedback and that of the others in this thread

I see you also updated your portable script. It's a bit different than the old version I had, but I got it running as a portable install with the temp profile. Video also seems to work for the portable version. Thanks again.

Yes, the old script actually had a number of issues:

It used its own startup wrapper script, so all fixes had to be copied into that and the script constantly updated
People don't seem to like or trust install scripts on Linux, so that point was an extra complication that I expect was rarely (if ever) used by anyone but me
You could not use the build with the main (shared) profile/preferences without install (see point 2).

The new script is much simpler and allows for the main advantage of install, desktop environment integration.

cecoates

I wasn't having much luck with these suggestions on Vivaldi 1.6 on Debian Stretch. However, Gwendragon's script, with the -F fallback switch worked like a charm. Hulu and Netflix are back in action.

StanG

Vivaldi, both stable and snapshot, can't play cnet videos on my openSuse Leap 41 and 42 machines, on pages like this:

https://www.cnet.com/news/apples-iphone-turns-10-where-does-it-go-from-here/

It's the only place where I notice non-playing videos and I can't figure out what's wrong. On Chrome and FF they play fine.

The solution might have been already offered in the thread but I don't know which fix applies to my case.