va_openDriver() returns -1 in Firefox

[billzhonggz]

Hi, I am using RTX 4090 with Ubuntu 23.04 and NVIDIA driver 530. I installed nvidia-vaapi-driver from master branch. I am using X11, direct back end, and everything is up-to-date.

The output of NVD_LOG=1 vainfo looks normal.

$ NVD_LOG=1 vainfo
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
      1057.861263864 [13287-13287] ../src/vabackend.c:2171       __vaDriverInit_1_0 Initialising NVIDIA VA-API Driver: 10
      1057.861268707 [13287-13287] ../src/vabackend.c:2180       __vaDriverInit_1_0 Now have 0 (0 max) instances
      1057.861270828 [13287-13287] ../src/vabackend.c:2206       __vaDriverInit_1_0 Selecting Direct backend
      1057.864235230 [13287-13287] ../src/direct/direct-export-buf.c:  85      direct_initExporter Found NVIDIA GPU 0 at /dev/dri/renderD128
      1057.864239029 [13287-13287] ../src/direct/nv-driver.c: 223            init_nvdriver Initing nvdriver...
      1057.864241139 [13287-13287] ../src/direct/nv-driver.c: 228            init_nvdriver Got dev info: 100 1 2 6
      1057.864254918 [13287-13287] ../src/direct/nv-driver.c: 246            init_nvdriver NVIDIA kernel driver version: 530.41.03, major version: 530
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.17 (libva 2.12.0)
vainfo: Driver version: VA-API NVDEC driver [direct backend]
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Simple              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Main                : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Advanced            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileHEVCMain               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVP8Version0_3          : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVP9Profile0            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileAV1Profile0            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileHEVCMain10             : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileHEVCMain12             : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVP9Profile2            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileHEVCMain444            : VAEntrypointVLD
      1057.910796947 [13287-13287] ../src/vabackend.c:2081              nvTerminate Terminating 0x5638eeef1060
      1057.910823059 [13287-13287] ../src/vabackend.c:2095              nvTerminate Now have 0 (0 max) instances

But I got this output from Firefox and the hardware decode is not working when watching Youtube (AV1 codec). CPU rate is high and no compute task shows in nvidia-smi.

$ NVD_LOG=1 firefox
ATTENTION: default value of option mesa_glthread overridden by environment.
ATTENTION: default value of option mesa_glthread overridden by environment.
ATTENTION: default value of option mesa_glthread overridden by environment.
libva info: VA-API version 1.14.0
libva info: User environment variable requested driver 'nvidia'
libva info: Trying to open /snap/firefox/2517/gnome-platform/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/nvidia_drv_video.so
libva info: va_openDriver() returns -1

Can anyone helps?

[elFarto]

You're using the Snap version of Firefox, but have the driver installed outside of it, which it is unable to access.

[mikemocha]

I have this issue as well and can't figure out where the problem is. I am also using X11. There's a couple of links about this in various places:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1766517 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/1947115 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1751363

There's a few more threads on Reddit. I'm searching for words like "snap firefox vaapi nvidia"

It's still not clear to me if this is a snap bug. Changing environment variables to point to the location of the nvidia_drv_video.so doesn't change the behavior. I'm not sure what to do about this.

[billzhonggz]

You're using the Snap version of Firefox, but have the driver installed outside of it, which it is unable to access.

Thanks for the reply! I uninstalled the Firefox that come with Ubuntu and manually installed from the tar.bz downloaded from Firefox website. The problem is solved now.

The default Firefox on Ubuntu is a snap version anyway, include the one from apt.

[philipl]

I'd recommend the ppa to get packages: https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/ubuntu/ppa