Video splash screen plays audio with black screen

[Tramadoluser]

I have a fresh install of Retropie on Pi4 and when I set the splash screen to play an mp4 video I can hear audio when I boot up but I don't see any video. I can see in /opt/retropie/supplementary/splashscreen/asplashscreen.sh "vlc" is used so I've tried changing some of the command line options like disabling hw acceleration with no luck. I've also tried different videos that other people have used but I get the same result.

Anyone seen this behavior before? I have been struggling to get this to work for a couple of days now.

Model: Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.2
Retropie Version: 4.8.9
Built From: Pre-made SD
OS: Linux retropie 5.10.103-v7l+ #1529 SMP Tue Mar 8 12:24:00 GMT 2022 armv7l GNU/Linux
VLC Version: VLC media player 3.0.17.4 Vetinari (revision 3.0.13-8-g41878ff4f2)
Output/Monitor: Connected to a 10 year old Samsung TV (not sure if that makes any difference)

[mitu]

Does this happen with every video file or just one/some ? What kind of video codec is the video using ? Does the same video works when playing it with omxplayer ?

[Tramadoluser]

@mitu The behavior is happening with every video I've downloaded. I tried taking one of the mp4's and converted it to MKV but still getting sound with blank video.

Codec = H.264

I'm not sure how to test these videos using omxplayer. Any idea how I would run omxplayer from the command line to test this? The thought had crossed my mind to try changing vlc to omxplayer in the asplashscreen.sh script as a workaround.

[mitu]

Codec = H.264

That's not saying much, since some encoding profiles for Mpeg4/H254 are not supported by the HW decoder of the Raspberry Pi and thus also not supported by omxplayer/vlc.

Any idea how I would run omxplayer from the command line to test this?

Just exit EmulationStation and run

omxplayer /path/to/video_file.mp4
omxplayer /path/to/video_file.mkv

The thought had crossed my mind to try changing vlc to omxplayer in the asplashscreen.sh script as a workaround.

While that would be possible, the change is not a simple replacement of the program name in the file, they have different arguments. Since vlc has recently replaced omxplayer as the video player for splashscreen, you can probably test this theory by using a new installation using a RetroPie 4.8 image, but without updating it after installation.

[BuZz]

Thanks, I will look into this.

[Tramadoluser]

@BuZz @mitu

[MITIGATED / WORKAROUND]

Thanks for checking guys.

When I run vlc from command line I'm getting a lot of errors

pi@retropie:~ $ vlc --intf dummy RetroPie/splashscreens/Retropie\ Joystick.mp4 
VLC media player 3.0.17.4 Vetinari (revision 3.0.13-8-g41878ff4f2)
[01486608] vlcpulse audio output error: PulseAudio server connection failure: Connection refused
[0148e8c8] dbus interface error: Failed to connect to the D-Bus session daemon: Unable to autolaunch a dbus-daemon without a $DISPLAY for X11
[0148e8c8] main interface error: no suitable interface module
[01405b58] main libvlc error: interface "dbus,none" initialization failed
[014990f8] main interface error: no suitable interface module
[01405b58] main libvlc error: interface "globalhotkeys,none" initialization failed
[014990f8] dummy interface: using the dummy interface module...
[b2732a90] mmal_codec decoder: VCSM init succeeded: CMA
[b2732a90] main decoder error: buffer deadlock prevented
[014a0188] gles2 generic error: parent window not available
[01499598] mmal_xsplitter vout display error: Failed to open Xsplitter:opengles2 module
[014a0188] xcb generic error: window not available
[01499598] mmal_xsplitter vout display error: Failed to open Xsplitter:xcb_x11 module

dbus is running

pi@retropie:~ $ ps aux | grep dbus-daemon
pi         354  0.0  0.0   6412  1676 ?        Ss   10:13   0:00 dbus-daemon --fork --print-address 5 --print-pid 6 --session
message+   393  0.0  0.0   6556  3008 ?        Ss   10:13   0:00 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --system --address=systemd: --nofork --nopidfile --systemd-activation --syslog-only
pi        1124  0.0  0.0   7476   528 pts/0    S+   10:30   0:00 grep --color=auto dbus-daemon

Running omxplayer worked so I made a backup of the asplashscreen.sh and I am now using that and everything is working as expected. I realize that omxplayer is getting phased out due to lack of support on Pi5 but this is doable for me on my Pi4 at the moment

Current asplashscreen.sh

pi@retropie:~ $ cat /opt/retropie/supplementary/splashscreen/asplashscreen.sh
#!/bin/sh
 
/usr/bin/omxplayer -o alsa /home/pi/RetroPie/splashscreens/Retropie\ Custom.mp4

[mitu]

@Tramadoluser said in Video splash screen plays audio with black screen:

When I run vlc from command line I'm getting a lot of errors

That's ok, since vlc tries a different number of display options and they're not available. Can you run

dpkg -l | grep vlc

and post the output ?

[Tramadoluser]

That's ok, since vlc tries a different number of display options and they're not available. Can you run

dpkg -l | grep vlc

and post the output ?

pi@retropie:~ $ dpkg -l | grep vlc
ii libvlc-bin:armhf 3.0.17.4-0+deb10u2+rpt1 armhf tools for VLC's base library
ii libvlc-dev:armhf 3.0.17.4-0+deb10u2+rpt1 armhf development files for libvlc
ii libvlc5:armhf 3.0.17.4-0+deb10u2+rpt1 armhf multimedia player and streamer library
ii libvlccore-dev:armhf 3.0.17.4-0+deb10u2+rpt1 armhf development files for libvlccore
ii libvlccore9:armhf 3.0.17.4-0+deb10u2+rpt1 armhf base library for VLC and its modules
ii vlc 3.0.17.4-0+deb10u2+rpt1 armhf multimedia player and streamer
ii vlc-bin 3.0.17.4-0+deb10u2+rpt1 armhf binaries from VLC
ii vlc-data 3.0.17.4-0+deb10u2+rpt1 all common data for VLC
ii vlc-plugin-base:armhf 3.0.17.4-0+deb10u2+rpt1 armhf multimedia player and streamer (base plugins)
ii vlc-plugin-qt:armhf 3.0.17.4-0+deb10u2+rpt1 armhf multimedia player and streamer (Qt plugin)
ii vlc-plugin-video-output:armhf 3.0.17.4-0+deb10u2+rpt1 armhf multimedia player and streamer (video output plugins)