mpv - New version froze whole system while sound continue to play

By xngo on February 12, 2020

I haven't updated mpv from http://www.deb-multimedia.org since June 2019. Now that I did. There is a big issue. When playing a video for a while(<5mins) using mpv, the whole system froze but the sound still continue playing. I have to restart the computer in order to regain control.

Solution

After investigation, I found that in the new version, mpv is using gpu video output whereas in the old version, it is using x11. So, I tried mpv -vo=x11 video.avi and it is working fine.

To permanently force mpv to use -vo=x11, I added vo=x11 in ~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf.

Old video outputs(2019-06)

mpv -vo=help
    Available video outputs:
      opengl     : Extended OpenGL Renderer
      vdpau      : VDPAU with X11
      wayland    : Wayland SHM video output
      xv         : X11/Xv
      sdl        : SDL 2.0 Renderer
      vaapi      : VA API with X11
      x11        : X11 (slow, old crap)
      null       : Null video output
      image      : Write video frames to image files
      tct        : true-color terminals
      caca       : libcaca
      drm        : Direct Rendering Manager

New video outputs(2020-02)

mpv -vo=help
    Available video outputs:
      libmpv      render API for libmpv
      gpu         Shader-based GPU Renderer
      vdpau       VDPAU with X11
      xv          X11/Xv
      sdl         SDL 2.0 Renderer
      vaapi       VA API with X11
      x11         X11 (slow, old crap)
      null        Null video output
      image       Write video frames to image files
      tct         true-color terminals
      caca        libcaca
      drm         Direct Rendering Manager
Mpv

About the author

Xuan Ngo is the founder of OpenWritings.net. He currently lives in Montreal, Canada. He loves to write about programming and open source subjects.