Driver crash during HEVC playback w/DXVA2 (resume)

[GW]

Hello,

Over in the Kodi forums, many users are reporting an ongoing problem with Intel Graphics drivers for the past 2 years when it comes to playing back HEVC(x265) content on intel graphics hardware in Windows 7 and 10. This problem is widespread and affects many hardware platforms including the NUC, HD4600, HD5500, i7 6770HQ and likely most others. This crash happens when attempting to resume a HEVC encoded video file using current drivers on a windows platform with Kodi v15,16,17 and should affect any media player which uses DirectX 11 and up.

One user reports that the issue is linked to the use of "open-gop" parameter used for encoding media files using HEVC (which is default for most encoders).

I'm an IT professional but not in software development, I'd like to help in any way I can but please have a look over at the forum thread linked below for further details. This will likely affect most of your platforms as HEVC becomes more and more prevalent. Other players which are unaffected typically use a much older version of Direct X.

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=289533 https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=289533

[GW]

Thanks Ronald,

Is there any possibility that the fix can be ported over to the 15.40 baseline for those of us crashing on 5th generation intel graphics? I think its been fixed for some time on any generation ahead.

[RonaldM_Intel]

Hello WiGuy&# 127;

I apologize for the delayed reply.

I'm checking if it is possible to get this in 15.40 baseline, but confidence level is low since 5th Generation is getting older.

As soon as I have more info I'll post it here.

Kindest Regards,

Ronald M.

[DChap3]

Just tried the new driver 4835 and the problem still happens. It would be really nice to have this feature working as it was a listed feature of the HD 5500 graphics and my NUC is still in the warranty period. Since it is still in warranty I would think driver updates to fix a problem should still be provided. HEVC 10 bit support was a deciding feature for me to purchase this NUC and it has been quite frustrating that it hasn't fully worked.

[RonaldM_Intel]

Hello everyone,

I tried getting this checked and fixed on 15.40 drivers (i.e. 4th and 5th Generation graphics) under bug ID 1706736751. I regret confirming that after investigating this situation, it was determined that fixing this particular bug is not feasible at this time. Haswell (4th Generation) offers no HW decoding support for HEVC and Broadwell (5th Generation) only has hybrid HEVC decoding capabilities.

You can either disable HW decoding on HEVC on your playback application so it is done via software, or disable the video resume option when using HEVC.

I would like to mention that the first graphics controller that features full HEVC hardware decoding capabilities is Skylake (6th Generation). Obviously newer controllers will do it too, so if HEVC encoding/decoding performance is important to you, you might want to consider these new products.

Best Regards,

Ronald M.

[User1573692327152956]

I know this is 2 years old but I actually have an i5-6500T and running Windows 10 with the 25.20.100.6615 driver and I still get the Kodi crash when resuming x265 (running Kodi 18.4). According to your posts above, this was fixed and should work ... what am I missing?

EDIT: I just updated the driver to 26.20.100.7156 and tried again ... same crash.

Alex

[RonaldM_Intel]

Hi Alex,

This is indeed an old issue by all accounts, and as far as we knew it was fixed in all new driver releases.

Please go ahead and create a new post in the community - preferably using this format - because the issue may be the same but the root cause could be different. Obviously you can add a note referencing this post.

Best Regards,

Ronald M.

[User1573692327152956]

Hi Ronald,

A few weeks ago, after you replied, I was able to update the driver and Kodi to 18.4 and then was indeed able to resume. I then updated to the 26 driver series (specifically 26.20.100.7463) and the crash is now back. Has there been any regression in this driver series?

[User1573692327152956]

I can confirm that downgrading to 26.20.100.7158 the crash disappears, so this driver is problem free.

The drivers 26.20.100.7463 and 26.20.100.7584 both give a crash when resuming just like the initial report.

I'm running the latest Win10. Pro version 1909 build 18363.535. The CPU is an i5-6500T (in a HP EliteDesk 800 G2 with 8GB RAM). I had upgraded from Win8.1 solely to get rid of the Kodi crash.

[User1573692327152956]

Actually, upon further testing, it seems that in my case it was the x64 Kodi 18.4 and 18.5 that was crashing (error in the log before crash was "CRenderManager::WaitForBuffer - timeout waiting for buffer").

The x86 version works fine and can resume all the x265 videos. Leaving this post for anyone out there still struggling.

[User1573692327152956]

... and after further testing and watching, I can confirm that the x86 version now also crashes whenever I enable DXVA2. If I disable DXVA2 then it works. I tried many 7xxx version drivers. None helped.

@Ronald_Intel​ I'm afraid the fix you mentioned doesn't actually work. There is a discussion about the new behavior here: https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=350795