After the upgrade to OpenPHT 1.6.x inconsistent OSD display during Video playback

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1

Just wanted to check if anybody else noticed an issue with OSD information during Video playback disappearing or being delayed a lot after OpenPHT 1.6.0 and 1.6.1 upgrade. It was not happening with ver. 1.5.2.

My environment is Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS on Intel NUC. After OpenPHT is started, the OSD information (display title info, subtitles enabled/disabled, etc) is snappy and displayed as I press the remote buttons. After some time, possibly next time I decide to use the player it either does not display the OSD at all or displays it after few minutes. I have recompiled several times, the issue appears consistently, so it seems like a bug introduced with version 1.6. I checked the plexhometheater.log and I see that the commands are passed by the remote, so somehow this bug is preventing the OSD information to be displayed on the screen. It happens with all skins I have tested (Black, Default, Night 2.0).

Anybody else with this issue?

2

I just upgraded from old PHT to openpht. Ubuntu 14 as well. Have the same problem. After trying to get the menu to show up for a while, gave up. Then 5-10 mins later I noticed the menu pop-up for about a half second randomly while I was watching a show. Definitely something up.

3

I was having the same problem with the embedded version 1.6.1 running on Chromebox, however it seems to be fixed with version 1.6.2

Fingers crossed it will stay fixed.

4

Just checked the version I have:

1.6.2.123

This is the only version I’ve had so far.

5

Okay, apparently disabling VSYNC fixes the OSD issue, but then I have tearing during playback so it was not an option for me.
I am testing now with custom configuration and it seems to be working fine for now but I need to test it for few days as the issue usually disappears with a restart for few hours.

VSYNC option is enabled during playback, as on my Intel Nuc with Ubuntu 14.04 Let the driver choose causes tearing in all Plex menus. The workaround that seems to be working is to disable the dirty regions:

In .plexht/userdata create advancedsettings.xml file:

<advancedsettings>
  <gui>
    <algorithmdirtyregions>0</algorithmdirtyregions>
    <nofliptimeout>-1</nofliptimeout>
  </gui>
</advancedsettings>

Apparently, the issue is know to the Kodi users and there is thread about it:
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=228594&page=3

Edit: Another test to do is using the VSYNC option Let the driver choose. It seems like it is not causing the menu tearing anymore, maybe related to the Xenial LTS kernel and xorg update I did recently. And it may be helping with the OSD issue. Too bad it may take hours for the issue to re-appear after restart, so I won’t know for sure.

6

Just to confirm that the issue with the delayed OSD was fixed by using the VSYNC option Let the driver choose and the following Xorg conf:

cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf
Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Graphics"
Driver "intel"
#Option "SwapbuffersWait" "true"
#Option "AccelMethod" "sna"
#Option "TearFree" "true"
EndSection

Note that I have commented out the advanced settings, the default options for SwapbuffersWait is true and AccelMethod is sna. The default option for TearFree is false. I had used this Xorg configuration before to help with tearing.
I have recently upgraded my Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to Xenial lts kernel and xorg. Before that I was not able to use the Let the driver choose option due to tearing in all Plex menus.