Score:1

Ubuntu

Hardware Acceleration in Firefox not working after recent update

Green绿色

7/31/24, 2:33 PM

I'm using the Firefox snap version 115.0.2 on Ubuntu 23.04 with Wayland and an Intel graphics card. Last week, I followed this article to activate hardware acceleration in Firefox and verified that it works successfully with intel_gpu_top afterwards.

However, this week I noticed that it's not working anymore. According to intel_gpu_top neither YouTube nor local MP4 videos are rendered by hardware - they are listed in the "Render/3D" category (and the fan is turning on). I already checked every setting mentioned in the article above and they are set correctly, and MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 is set as well. about:support correctly identifies the window protocol as Wayland and HARDWARE_VIDEO_DECODING is set to force_enabled.

I'm not sure whether it's related, but my dmesg output is full of messages like this (>800 messages):

[24067.727865] kauditd_printk_skb: 22 callbacks suppressed
[24159.010429] audit: type=1326 audit(1690813031.457:7329): auid=1000 uid=1000 gid=1000 ses=3 subj=snap.firefox.firefox pid=16349 comm=4D6564696150447E6F646572202332 exe="/snap/firefox/2916/usr/lib/firefox/firefox" sig=0 arch=c000003e syscall=312 compat=0 ip=0x7f2be5d6ba3d code=0x50000

Any suggestions where to look further or how to solve this issue?

109

1 + 11

video

firefox

graphics

hardware-acceleration

23.04

mikewhatever

7/31/24, 2:45 PM

That article is quite old, and since FF115 none of those workarounds are needed for Intel GPUs. It is unclear why you use FF105. May be it is time to update.

Green绿色

7/31/24, 3:00 PM

Just checked the version again and turns out, I am using 115.0.2.

Green绿色

7/31/24, 3:01 PM

But if hardware acceleration is enabled in FF115 by default, why did I had to manually activate it and now it's not working anymore? That's a little strange. Seems like something isn't working in my setup.

mikewhatever

7/31/24, 3:05 PM

You didn't have to, that's the point. :~)

Green绿色

7/31/24, 3:11 PM

Yeah, but it didn't worked before with version 115.0.2. Otherwise, I wouldn't have try to manually activate it.

Green绿色

7/31/24, 3:22 PM

@mikewhatever I'm using `intel_gpu_top` to check whether firefox is using "Video". When I play YouTube videos, there's much computation in the "Render/3D" category, but none in "Video". Furthermore, the laptop gets hot and the fan is running when I watch videos.

Green绿色

7/31/24, 3:24 PM

After updating the system, reverting the changes from the above-mentioned article and restarting firefox, it still doesn't work with YouTube. When I play a local MP4 video with Firefox, there's some video rendering going on in a process called "RDD Process" and the Firefox Render/3D portion is lower (ca. 30% instead of 60-80% before).

Green绿色

8/1/24, 7:46 AM

`vainfo` prints some info like `VAProfileXXX : VAEntrypointVLD`. Is this what I should look for? there's mpeg2, h246, jpeg, vp8, hevc and vp9. Can I install more codecs?

deanresin

8/18/24, 6:34 PM

Not sure if this is relevant but I had to uncheck "Use recommended performance settings" for all my other settings to work.

Green绿色

8/21/24, 7:12 AM

@deanresin Are you also using the latest Firefox release, and activated hardware acceleration manually the "old way"?

deanresin

8/22/24, 4:50 AM

I am using the latest Firefox, did all the tricks and it didn't work until I unchecked "use recommended performance settings" and then under that kept "hardware acceleration" checked. The problem was "hardware acceleration" was hidden until I unchecked "use recommended performance settings".

Score:1

Ubuntu

mikewhatever

8/3/24, 3:11 PM

Now that FF116 is out, there is a new section in the about:support that shows which video and audio codecs are supported by Firefox in a crystal clear way.

PS: It looks like this section is not always present.

It says: "Codec support information unavailable. Try again after playing back a media file."

So, do what it says, play a media file, reload the about:support page, and voila.

+ 3

Green绿色

8/4/24, 1:37 PM

Nice, thanks for mentioning!

deanresin

8/14/24, 6:23 AM

I'm on version 116.0.3 and the Media section has no Codec Support Information. In fact, the word "codec" doesn't show up in about:support at all.

Green绿色

8/21/24, 7:15 AM

On my system, Ubuntu 23.04, Firefox version 116.0.2, the "codec support" section is missing as well.

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Hardware Acceleration in Firefox not working after recent update

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