ffplay not working on picore 13 Raspberry pi B rev 2

[rohitggarg]

Hello everybody,

I am looking for some pointers here to get ffplay working on my Raspberry pi B.
Whenever I try to play a video, I get an error

error: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set in the environment.
Could not initialize SDL - No available video device
(Did you set the DISPLAY variable?)

I tried exporting DISPLAY=:0 but it didn't help.

Here is the list of files in my /dev directory:
agpgart       loop110       loop6         ram4          tty36
atibm         loop111       loop60        ram5          tty37
audio         loop112       loop61        ram6          tty38
autofs        loop113       loop62        ram7          tty39
beep          loop114       loop63        ram8          tty4
block/        loop115       loop64        ram9          tty40
bus/          loop116       loop65        random        tty41
cachefiles    loop117       loop66        raw/          tty42
char/         loop118       loop67        rfkill        tty43
console       loop119       loop68        sda           tty44
core          loop12        loop69        sda1          tty45
disk/         loop120       loop7         sda2          tty46
dma_heap/     loop121       loop70        sda3          tty47
fb0           loop122       loop71        sda4          tty48
fd            loop123       loop72        sda5          tty49
fd0           loop124       loop73        sda6          tty5
fd0D360       loop13        loop74        sda7          tty50
fd0D720       loop14        loop75        sda8          tty51
fd0H1440      loop15        loop76        sda9          tty52
fd0H1722      loop16        loop77        sdb           tty53
flash         loop17        loop78        sdb1          tty54
full          loop18        loop79        sdb2          tty55
gpiochip0     loop19        loop8         sdb3          tty56
gpiomem       loop2         loop80        sdb4          tty57
hda           loop20        loop81        sdb5          tty58
hda1          loop21        loop82        sdb6          tty59
hda2          loop22        loop83        sdb7          tty6
hda3          loop23        loop84        sdb8          tty60
hda4          loop24        loop85        sdb9          tty61
hda5          loop25        loop86        shm/          tty62
hda6          loop26        loop87        snd/          tty63
hda7          loop27        loop88        sr0           tty7
hda8          loop28        loop89        sr1           tty8
hda9          loop29        loop9         stderr        tty9
hdb           loop3         loop90        stdin         ttyAMA0
hdb1          loop30        loop91        stdout        ttyS0
hdb2          loop31        loop92        tty           ttyprintk
hdb3          loop32        loop93        tty0          urandom
hdb4          loop33        loop94        tty1          usb/
hdb5          loop34        loop95        tty10         vc-mem
hdb6          loop35        loop96        tty11         vchiq
hdb7          loop36        loop97        tty12         vcio
hdb8          loop37        loop98        tty13         vcs
hdb9          loop38        loop99        tty14         vcs0
hdc           loop39        mem           tty15         vcs1
hdd           loop4         mmcblk0       tty16         vcs2
hwrng         loop40        mmcblk0p1     tty17         vcs3
inportbm      loop41        mmcblk0p2     tty18         vcs4
input/        loop42        net/          tty19         vcs5
kmem          loop43        null          tty2          vcs6
kmsg          loop44        nvram         tty20         vcs7
logibm        loop45        port          tty21         vcsa
loop-control  loop46        ppp           tty22         vcsa0
loop0         loop47        psaux         tty23         vcsa1
loop1         loop48        ptmx          tty24         vcsa2
loop10        loop49        pts/          tty25         vcsa3
loop100       loop5         ram           tty26         vcsa4
loop101       loop50        ram0          tty27         vcsa5
loop102       loop51        ram1          tty28         vcsa6
loop103       loop52        ram10         tty29         vcsa7
loop104       loop53        ram11         tty3          vcsu
loop105       loop54        ram12         tty30         vcsu1
loop106       loop55        ram13         tty31         watchdog
loop107       loop56        ram14         tty32         watchdog0
loop108       loop57        ram15         tty33         zero
loop109       loop58        ram2          tty34         zram0
loop11        loop59        ram3          tty35

Dmesg says display is available
tc@box:~$ dmesg | grep disp
[    2.747435] bcm2708_fb soc:fb: FB found 1 display(s)
[    2.810608] bcm2708_fb soc:fb: Registered framebuffer for display 0, size 1824x984

Not sure what has gone wrong. Kindly help

[Juanito]

I’d guess that a dep is missing or broken - what does this give:

Code: [Select]

$ ldd /usr/local/lib/lib*.so | grep found

[rohitggarg]

Hello Juanito, thanks for your reply.

Code: [Select]

tc@box:~$ ldd /usr/local/lib/lib*.so.* | grep found
tc@box:~$

Code: [Select]

tc@box:~$ ldd /usr/local/lib/lib*.so
        libgbm.so.1 => /usr/local/lib/libgbm.so.1 (0xb6e8f000)
        libglapi.so.0 => /usr/local/lib/libglapi.so.0 (0xb6e54000)
        libexpat.so.1 => /usr/local/lib/libexpat.so.1 (0xb6e28000)
        libX11-xcb.so.1 => /usr/local/lib/libX11-xcb.so.1 (0xb6e16000)
        libxcb.so.1 => /usr/local/lib/libxcb.so.1 (0xb6dea000)
        libxcb-dri2.so.0 => /usr/local/lib/libxcb-dri2.so.0 (0xb6dd6000)
        libxcb-xfixes.so.0 => /usr/local/lib/libxcb-xfixes.so.0 (0xb6dc0000)
        libdrm.so.2 => /usr/local/lib/libdrm.so.2 (0xb6da3000)
        libwayland-client.so.0 => /usr/local/lib/libwayland-client.so.0 (0xb6d89000)
        libwayland-server.so.0 => /usr/local/lib/libwayland-server.so.0 (0xb6d6c000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0xb6d59000)
        libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0xb6ced000)
        libxcb-dri3.so.0 => /usr/local/lib/libxcb-dri3.so.0 (0xb6cda000)
       ....


[rohitggarg]

I tried to install Xorg after your reply thinking it could be about missing libraries.

I was successful in installing it, I can confirm that it started up as it shows up in the processes list.
After that, if I tried to run ffplay, it doesn't show me the error of no display but it doesn't show anything on the screen.

Thanks in advance!

[Juanito]

I just tested ffplay - albeit in piCore-12.x - remotely using vinagre to connect to an x11 session and it played without problems.

[rohitggarg]

Can you please send me set of steps and packages you installed? I just want to cross verify things.
If it works on 12.x, I am happy to make that switch as well.

[Juanito]

I don't believe there's any need to downgrade to piCore-12.x, you just have to check you have nettle7 loaded as an upgrade broke gnutls in piCore-13.x

In the interim I updated SDL2.

I have loaded: Xorg flwm aterm wbar x11vnc (to connect, you shouldn't need this) ffmpeg and ffplay works.

[rohitggarg]

Cool! It does work but with following caveats:

- its terribly slow.. runs at like 1 frame per second
- no audio

Can you provide some tips around that as well? Thanks!

[Juanito]

What resolution are you using? Anything less than uhd works fine for me.

Are you trying to use the headphone socket or hdmi for audio? You can use either alsa or pulseaudio for sound - alsa is less bloat, but pulseaudio is probably easier via pavucontrol.

[rohitggarg]

I am trying to use hdmi audio. I set the config to use force hdmi.
When I run the stream, an error pops up saying alsa.conf is missing. What should I do to fix this up?

Thanks!!

[rohitggarg]

Ok my bad, I had to install alsa package.

One curious question, I think h264_mmal codec is missing in ffmpeg build probably that's why its so slow. Any chance we could have it for 13.x please?
Thanks!

[Juanito]

It’s the h264m2m codec and it’s in ffmpeg - I believe you’ll need to load Xorg-3d and set the dtoverlay as per the info file.

[Juanito]

Something like:

Code: [Select]

$ ffplay -i filename.mp4 -vcodec h264_v4l2m2m
I'm using an RPi4 with dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d-pi4

[Juanito]

I discovered that the bcm2835 drivers were missing from the v4l-dvb-5.10.16-piCore-v7l extension - this has been corrected.

With the drivers, ffplay will not work with "-vcodec h264_v4l2m2m", which I suspect is due to a kernel bug - it works with the more recent kernel in aarch64.

In any case, this is on an RPi4 and I believe you are using an RPi3.

[Juanito]

After updating ffmpeg in the piCore repos, ffplay now works with "-vcodec h264_v4l2m2m" on both RPi3 and RPi4.