[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] Fixing HW accelerated decoders hanging or throwing error in h263dec

[Stefan Schoenefeld]

Hi all,

Recently we encountered an issue when decoding a h.263 file:

FFmpeg will freeze when decoding h.263 video with NVDEC. Turns out this is not directly related to NVDEC but is a problem that shows with several other HW decoders like VDPAU, though the exact kind of error is different (either error messages or freezing[1]). The root cause is that ff_thread_finish_setup() is called twice per frame from ff_h263_decode_frame(). This is not supported by ff_thread_finish_setup() and specifically checked for and warned against in the functions code. The issue is also specific to hw accelerated decoding only as the second call to ff_thread_finish_setup() is only issued when hw acceleration is on. The fix is simple: add a check that the first call is only send when hw acceleration is off, and the second call only when hw acceleration is on (see attached patch). This works fine as far as I was able to test with vdpau and nvdec/nvcuvid hw decoding. The patch also adds NVDEC to the hw config list if available.

I also noticed a secondary issue when browsing through the code which is that, according to documentation, ff_thread_finish_setup() should only be called if the codec implements update_thread_context(), which h263dec does not. The patch does not address this and I'm not sure any action needs to be taken here at all.

Thanks,
Stefan

[1] This is depending on whether or not the hw decoder sets the  HWACCEL_CAPS_ASYNC_SAFE flag

>From 0620ee777a8ba98145bb4781e30a77687c97dbf8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Stefan Schoenefeld <sschoenefeld at nvidia.com>
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2019 10:52:22 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] Fixing HW accelerated decoders hanging or throwing error
messages in h263dec

---
libavcodec/h263dec.c | 5 ++++-
1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/libavcodec/h263dec.c b/libavcodec/h263dec.c
index 6f001f6..8ee844e 100644
--- a/libavcodec/h263dec.c
+++ b/libavcodec/h263dec.c
@@ -614,7 +614,7 @@ retry:
     if ((ret = ff_mpv_frame_start(s, avctx)) < 0)
         return ret;
-    if (!s->divx_packed)
+    if (!s->divx_packed && !avctx->hwaccel)
         ff_thread_finish_setup(avctx);
     if (avctx->hwaccel) {
@@ -747,6 +747,9 @@ const AVCodecHWConfigInternal *ff_h263_hw_config_list[] = {
#if CONFIG_H263_VAAPI_HWACCEL
     HWACCEL_VAAPI(h263),
#endif
+#if CONFIG_MPEG4_NVDEC_HWACCEL
+    HWACCEL_NVDEC(mpeg4),
+#endif
#if CONFIG_MPEG4_VDPAU_HWACCEL
     HWACCEL_VDPAU(mpeg4),
#endif
--
2.7.4


NVIDIA GmbH, Wuerselen, Germany, Amtsgericht Aachen, HRB 8361
Managing Director: Karen Theresa Burns

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