Netflix via browser

dfs64 · 2020-10-22 14:50:52

I tried watching Netflix via the browser. The picture quality shifts from "medium" to "good". Sometimes the pictures are shifty? Like it is slow or something. I'm not sure how to describe it but the picture is generally sluggish and the pictures get out of shape. How do I fix that?

damo · 2020-10-22 14:58:37

Sounds like a bandwidth/connection issue.

dfs64 · 2020-10-22 15:10:58

I just had this problem. I just made a fresh BL install btw. I was on Windows 10 and then Mageia.

rbh · 2020-10-22 16:51:12

dfs64 wrote:

I just had this problem. I just made a fresh BL install btw. I was on Windows 10 and then Mageia.

That reply came on Damos remark, your problem could be due to limited bandwidth or other connection problems.

Do you mean that playing Netflix in Mageia / Windows 10 worked well and the problem came when you switched to Bunsenlabs?

Changes in your connection may have occurred at the same time you reinstalled. So, if you want to have an solution, it is still good if you examine your connection.
Speedtest-cli, is one tool, available in the repo.

Which browser do you use? Same problem with other browers?
Same problem when playing hi-def videos from other internet sources?

Last edited by rbh (2020-10-22 16:51:42)

nobody · 2020-10-22 17:06:06

dfs64 wrote:

I tried watching Netflix via the browser. The picture quality shifts from "medium" to "good". Sometimes the pictures are shifty? Like it is slow or something. I'm not sure how to describe it but the picture is generally sluggish and the pictures get out of shape. How do I fix that?

- disable compton, the compositor, there should be a menu entry for it, and see if something changes. Otherwise enable fullscreen modus to bypass the compositor, does that work better?

- upgrade firefox to latest firefox 82 from mozilla, not firefox esr. But I suppose this shouldn't change anything. I've been using Netflix on Firefox for years, no problem.

dfs64 · 2020-10-23 02:12:05

rbh wrote:

dfs64 wrote:
I just had this problem. I just made a fresh BL install btw. I was on Windows 10 and then Mageia.
That reply came on Damos remark, your problem could be due to limited bandwidth or other connection problems.
Do you mean that playing Netflix in Mageia / Windows 10 worked well and the problem came when you switched to Bunsenlabs?
Changes in your connection may have occurred at the same time you reinstalled. So, if you want to have an solution, it is still good if you examine your connection.
Speedtest-cli, is one tool, available in the repo.
Which browser do you use? Same problem with other browers?
Same problem when playing hi-def videos from other internet sources?

Yeah, it worked well on said previous OSes. On other devices too. I know for sure it's not speed problem. I'm using 5G on 300Mbps fibre internet without data limit.

I can't describe it properly I don't know how, sorry, it's not like slow or stutter but the image looks like it was sliced and displaced? Stretched? But only very quickly and intermittently. The overall quality is good, not like it's pixelated. Does that makes sense? I will do more test afterwards when I'm back from work.

dfs64 · 2020-10-23 02:15:04

twoion wrote:

dfs64 wrote:
I tried watching Netflix via the browser. The picture quality shifts from "medium" to "good". Sometimes the pictures are shifty? Like it is slow or something. I'm not sure how to describe it but the picture is generally sluggish and the pictures get out of shape. How do I fix that?
- disable compton, the compositor, there should be a menu entry for it, and see if something changes. Otherwise enable fullscreen modus to bypass the compositor, does that work better?
- upgrade firefox to latest firefox 82 from mozilla, not firefox esr. But I suppose this shouldn't change anything. I've been using Netflix on Firefox for years, no problem.

I will try those solutions later after work thanks.

dfs64 · 2020-10-23 10:54:45

I tried all suggested solutions but they made no difference:

Tried Chrome
Tried regular Firefox
Turned off Compositing
Download: 115.2 Mbit/s, Upload: 60.34 Mbit/s

I also noticed another thing. Scrolling in web pages also triggers that effect.

brontosaurusrex · 2020-10-23 13:09:00

Tearing https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ … st+tearing ?

dfs64 · 2020-10-23 17:38:56

brontosaurusrex wrote:

Tearing https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ … st+tearing ?

It looks like that thumbnail! But the testing video didn't reveal that effect. Only sluggish.

Antidentity · 2020-10-24 08:48:38

I get that tearing effect with VLC but not with the browsers. I'm not sure it would help but it might be worth to try... What I did is:
- installed mesa-utils if did not already
- created a xorg directory, in which you add an intel configuration file with an acceleration method (here sna) + tearfree option
- reboot computer

Like that:

su -
apt-get update
apt-get install mesa-utils
mkdir /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/
echo -e 'Section "Device"\n Identifier "Intel Graphics"\n Driver "Intel"\n Option "AccelMethod" "sna"\n Option "TearFree" "true"\nEndSection' | tee /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf

(Sorry for the mistakes, English is not my mother tongue)

Last edited by Antidentity (2020-10-24 08:55:11)

dfs64 · 2020-10-25 05:45:06

Antidentity wrote:

I get that tearing effect with VLC but not with the browsers. I'm not sure it would help but it might be worth to try... What I did is:
- installed mesa-utils if did not already
- created a xorg directory, in which you add an intel configuration file with an acceleration method (here sna) + tearfree option
- reboot computer
Like that:
su -
apt-get update
apt-get install mesa-utils
mkdir /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/
echo -e 'Section "Device"\n Identifier "Intel Graphics"\n Driver "Intel"\n Option "AccelMethod" "sna"\n Option "TearFree" "true"\nEndSection' | tee /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf
(Sorry for the mistakes, English is not my mother tongue)

Hmm... that didn't work. Thanks anyway guys for all the help. Let me try something or get used to it. Lol.

ohnonot · 2020-10-25 08:28:56

Your problem is not well defined.
I will now treat this as if you just asked the Q; sorry if I request info already given.
Please be clear, don't answer "could be" or "maybe" etc., answer in as much detail as possible.

Define the problem. What exactly is happening there? Is the problem with watching video or with the whole desktop? Can you reproduce it? Where? And where not? What does it look like?
Always watch resource consumption: open a terminal, enter 'top'

I think that's enough for the beginning.
To clarify: if the problem is with watching video (but you yourself said it might not be?), don't only watch online video, also watch some local video files. You can download a youtube video with e.g. youtube-dl.
Always try to reproduce the problem with different browsers, different applications, different video etc.

Give us a full report on these actions.

Last edited by ohnonot (2020-10-25 08:29:05)

dfs64 · 2020-10-25 09:29:11

ohnonot wrote:

Your problem is not well defined.
I will now treat this as if you just asked the Q; sorry if I request info already given.
Please be clear, don't answer "could be" or "maybe" etc., answer in as much detail as possible.
Define the problem. What exactly is happening there? Is the problem with watching video or with the whole desktop? Can you reproduce it? Where? And where not? What does it look like?
Always watch resource consumption: open a terminal, enter 'top'
I think that's enough for the beginning.
To clarify: if the problem is with watching video (but you yourself said it might not be?), don't only watch online video, also watch some local video files. You can download a youtube video with e.g. youtube-dl.
Always try to reproduce the problem with different browsers, different applications, different video etc.
Give us a full report on these actions.

Hi, thanks for your interest.

The tearing appears in:

1) Streaming in Netflix
2) Youtube
3) Scrolling webpages
4) Tested on Firefox ESR, regular Firefox & Chrome
5) When I turn on or off the Compositor
6) Basically in web page videos and moving motions on a webpage. Not the desktop as a whole.

Tearing did not appear in:

1) Scrolling long list in the file manager
2) General desktop use
3) Any transitioning effects of the desktop
4) Scrolling long playlist in Spotify (installed via Snap) was fine, no tearing
5) When I record using a screen recorder (SimpleScreenRecorder) and play back the file, the tear won't reproduce.
6) Local videos

Hope that's something for now. Thanks for your help

nobody · 2020-10-25 11:15:43

@OP: If the issue appears with composited as well as non-composited desktops -- what is your exact graphics card, and what driver is it using?

For Intel, the current wisdom is do uninstall the DDX driver for xorg (xf86-video-intel) which provides 2D acceleration and only use the modeset driver.

For AMD, the current wisdom is to use the amdgpu driver for new supported cards and the radeon mesa driver for everything else.

For NVIDIA, the current wisdom is to use the proprietary drivers.

You can provide the output to us by installing and running inxi:

inxi -Gxxx

should output something like

Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics vendor: Lenovo ThinkPad X240 driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           chip ID: 8086:0a16 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: modesetting alternate: fbdev,intel,vesa compositor: kwin_x11 
           resolution: 1920x1200~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 4400 (HSW GT2) v: 4.5 Mesa 20.2.1 compat-v: 3.0 direct render: Yes

which is the should-be configuration for Intel nowadays: in-kernel i915 driver plus display driver "modesetting".

The difference in your experience to previous distros could very well be due to a different driver binding in X11 under Debian/BL when compared to your other distros.

You should take the output above on each distro (alternatively, /var/log/Xorg.0.log should contain the info).

Especially on old Intel models (pre-Haswell, pre-i-Core), the DDX driver could very well work better than the modesetting driver.

ohnonot · 2020-10-25 18:40:47

dfs64 wrote:

The tearing appears in:
1) Streaming in Netflix
2) Youtube
3) Scrolling webpages
4) Tested on Firefox ESR, regular Firefox & Chrome
5) When I turn on or off the Compositor
6) Basically in web page videos and moving motions on a webpage. Not the desktop as a whole.
Tearing did not appear in:
1) Scrolling long list in the file manager
2) General desktop use
3) Any transitioning effects of the desktop
4) Scrolling long playlist in Spotify (installed via Snap) was fine, no tearing
5) When I record using a screen recorder (SimpleScreenRecorder) and play back the file, the tear won't reproduce.
6) Local videos

Did you also check resources, as I asked?
I'm still missing an exact definition of the phenomenon; I have the feeling you just took over the term "Tearing" withoutknowing exactly what it means? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing - Horizontal breaks in the UI of 2 browsers, when things are changing fast? Nowhere else?
I guess in the end it is up to the GPU as @nobody suggests, but also dis/enable (really, test both on and off for each setting) this:
- Smooth scrolling
- Hardware accelaration
in the browsers' preferences.

dfs64 · 2020-10-26 10:40:55

twoion wrote:

@OP: If the issue appears with composited as well as non-composited desktops -- what is your exact graphics card, and what driver is it using?
For Intel, the current wisdom is do uninstall the DDX driver for xorg (xf86-video-intel) which provides 2D acceleration and only use the modeset driver.
For AMD, the current wisdom is to use the amdgpu driver for new supported cards and the radeon mesa driver for everything else.
For NVIDIA, the current wisdom is to use the proprietary drivers.
You can provide the output to us by installing and running inxi:
inxi -Gxxx
should output something like
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics vendor: Lenovo ThinkPad X240 driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           chip ID: 8086:0a16 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: modesetting alternate: fbdev,intel,vesa compositor: kwin_x11 
           resolution: 1920x1200~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 4400 (HSW GT2) v: 4.5 Mesa 20.2.1 compat-v: 3.0 direct render: Yes 
which is the should-be configuration for Intel nowadays: in-kernel i915 driver plus display driver "modesetting".
The difference in your experience to previous distros could very well be due to a different driver binding in X11 under Debian/BL when compared to your other distros.
You should take the output above on each distro (alternatively, /var/log/Xorg.0.log should contain the info).
Especially on old Intel models (pre-Haswell, pre-i-Core), the DDX driver could very well work better than the modesetting driver.

Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA GK107 [GeForce GT 740] vendor: ASUSTeK driver: nouveau v: kernel 
           bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:0fc8 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           compositor: compton v: 0.1~beta2+20150922 resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: NVE7 v: 4.3 Mesa 18.3.6 direct render: Yes

I can't run test on other OSes. I'm fully on BL now What should I do then? Please give me clear instruction as I'm not skilled enough to figure out some instructions.

brontosaurusrex · 2020-10-26 10:55:02

I'd try nvidia blob
https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers
(warning: this can get messy really fast)

edit: your card is supported, nvidia-detect will/should suggest version 450.66
http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/L … chips.html

Last edited by brontosaurusrex (2020-10-26 11:32:28)

dfs64 · 2020-10-26 11:02:01

I've uploaded some videos showing how they look. I recorded samples with my phone. The overall quality is of course poor but watch the bottom areas of the recorded movies, you can see tearing lines. Apparently as I've been trying to collect physical evidence, it is hard to reproduce this effect. It's more obvious in some movies and some may have very little tears. Scrolling tear can't be recorded properly it's very fine but I also attached a sample video of scrolling tear on Netflix' webpage. Hope you can see them!

Uploaded in my Gdrive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ … sp=sharing

Last edited by dfs64 (2020-10-26 11:43:29)

dfs64 · 2020-10-26 11:37:28

brontosaurusrex wrote:

I'd try nvidia blob
https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers
(warning: this can get messy really fast)
edit: your card is supported, nvidia-detect will/should suggest version 450.66
http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/L … chips.html

Installing the driver now. Wish me luck!

#1 2020-10-22 14:50:52

Netflix via browser

#2 2020-10-22 14:58:37

Re: Netflix via browser

#3 2020-10-22 15:10:58

Re: Netflix via browser

#4 2020-10-22 16:51:12

Re: Netflix via browser

#5 2020-10-22 17:06:06

Re: Netflix via browser

#6 2020-10-23 02:12:05

Re: Netflix via browser

#7 2020-10-23 02:15:04

Re: Netflix via browser

#8 2020-10-23 10:54:45

Re: Netflix via browser

#9 2020-10-23 13:09:00

Re: Netflix via browser

#10 2020-10-23 17:38:56

Re: Netflix via browser

#11 2020-10-24 08:48:38

Re: Netflix via browser

#12 2020-10-25 05:45:06

Re: Netflix via browser

#13 2020-10-25 08:28:56

Re: Netflix via browser

#14 2020-10-25 09:29:11

Re: Netflix via browser

#15 2020-10-25 11:15:43

Re: Netflix via browser

#16 2020-10-25 18:40:47

Re: Netflix via browser

#17 2020-10-26 10:40:55

Re: Netflix via browser

#18 2020-10-26 10:55:02

Re: Netflix via browser

#19 2020-10-26 11:02:01

Re: Netflix via browser

#20 2020-10-26 11:37:28

Re: Netflix via browser

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