driver stops working in firefox after some time (ff profile gets altered somehow)

[POMATu]

Hello, this driver works great when it works. But I am having very strange issue with it. I configure fresh firefox profile do all about:config tweaks (all environment variables are in /etc/environment) and I can see it working both in console log and in nvidia-settings as Video Engine utilization. Then I use firefox for a bit and it stops working. I thought maybe its some addon, but nah I installed all my addons to fresh profile and its working. Disabling addons in borked profile doesnt help either. Happened to me 3 times already, once in firefox profile, another time in waterfox and in librewolf too.

Whats even more mindfucking here that when I tried tweaking about:config in old waterfox profile that I was using for a month even before I inserted nvidia card to my PC - it didnt worked straight away, but in fresh waterfox profile it worked and then died. While on some old firefox profile that exists for few years already its working after the tweaks but I think it will die too.

I assume firefox writes something to profile (which is NOT the options from howto because they are fine) that makes it not use this vaapi driver anymore. What it can be? I tried comparing two about:config pages of working and non-working profile and havent found anything useful. Ironically vaapi was blacklisted in some old working profile which i tweaked recently (probably from old times when I had no vaapi). So i realized there is no way I can parse it or find the option that makes it broken.

I will test more but right now I think i have to use firefox for youtube only and do other business in chromium because i am utterly tired creating new profiles and loggin in everywhere. Kindly elaborate any ideas what can possibly cause this.

Linux desktop 5.4.0-144-generic #161-Ubuntu SMP Fri Feb 3 14:49:04 UTC 2023 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux Mozilla Firefox 110.0.1 ubuntu 20.04 nvidia RTX 1080 nvidia-driver-515

[reliant8307]

Here Firefox stopped using nvidia-vaapi-driver because it couldn't find the DRM device, so I solved it by forcing Firefox to use the Nvidia card:

MOZ_DRM_DEVICE=/dev/dri/renderD129

maybe it could help in your case?

[POMATu]

MOZ_DRM_DEVICE=/dev/dri/renderD128

I tried that, and now it shows logs from the plugin, but my Video Engline still not utilized

libva info: User environment variable requested driver 'nvidia'
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/nvidia_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_0
ATTENTION: default value of option mesa_glthread overridden by environment.
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
libEGL warning: DRI2: failed to create dri screen
ATTENTION: default value of option mesa_glthread overridden by environment.
libva info: VA-API version 1.17.0
libva info: User environment variable requested driver 'nvidia'
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/nvidia_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_0
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
libva info: VA-API version 1.17.0
libva info: User environment variable requested driver 'nvidia'
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/nvidia_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_0
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0

On top of that another profile of firefox broke ffs

ooh

libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
[Child 266340: Main Thread]: D/Dmabuf Using DRM device /dev/dri/renderD128
[Child 266340: Main Thread]: D/Dmabuf Failed to open drm render node /dev/dri/renderD128 error Permission denied

I did chmod 777 on it still permission denied. Also added myself to groups render and video - didnt helped.

[POMATu]

So when i switched up to working profile of firefox it also has those Permission denied messages but it works I believe the only problem is that firefox somehow shits into itself and profile becomes broken

On what condition it shits into itself? Good question, maybe will try using MOZ_DRM_DEVICE option always on maybe it blacklists something when cant find the card and then profile is dead hopefully with this flag profiles wont die anymore.

When I force the flag MOZ_DRM_DEVICE onto dead profile it still logs vaapi library but its not working

I execute this line for debugging

LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia MOZ_DISABLE_RDD_SANDBOX=1 MOZ_LOG="Dmabuf:5" MOZ_DRM_DEVICE=/dev/dri/renderD128 firefox -P

basically on dead profile there is no activity of dmabuff, it looks like its not starting, while its like waterfall on alive/fresh profiles of firefox

So yes i think firefox is the problem here but idk how to trace what option it sets when it dies

[Fxzzi]

so I solved it by forcing Firefox to use the Nvidia card:

MOZ_DRM_DEVICE=/dev/dri/renderD129

This seemed to fix it for me! I set mine to /dev/dri/renderD128 and it's working

[POMATu]

so I solved it by forcing Firefox to use the Nvidia card: MOZ_DRM_DEVICE=/dev/dri/renderD129

This seemed to fix it for me! I set mine to /dev/dri/renderD128 and it's working

I can confirm when I set it in /etc/environment my profiles dont die anymore. But didnt helped with old ones apparently firefox blacklisted something somewhere. So i think this is mandatory option from now on, it should be marked as required.

Another hint README.MD might have is advice to create new profile if something doesnt work due to my issue and experience with it. Because on broken profiles I still get "driver returned 0" log but no video engine utilization and no activity seen with MOZ_LOG="Dmabuf:5" flag

[shadywack]

Tried everything here, and I still get the permission denied error on renderD128. renderD129 doesn't exist.

Agreed that this seems like a Firefox problem, but it stops this from working. Currently broken.

Edit: on the new profile I forgot to re-enable vaapi support in the about:config flags. That said, I also have the same need to maintain MOZ_DRM_DEVICE=/dev/dri/renderD128 in my environment variables for it to continue working.

[elFarto]

I believe this has all been caused by a change the FireFox team made to block DMA-BUF from operating on certain NVIDIA driver versions. See this comment for more details.

[POMATu]

I believe this has all been caused by a change the FireFox team made to block DMA-BUF from operating on certain NVIDIA driver versions. See this comment for more details.

widget.dmabuf.force-enabled=true didnt helped me on dead profile. But it was enabled on working profile. Maybe thats the reason its still working beside everything else. I dont know why I enabled this or when but it was already enabled on working profile.

Those soydevs and oversmart software driving me nuts. What do i need to install to see KISS again?