Hi Roman, password244,
Roman Riabenko via <[email protected]> writes:
У чт, 2025-10-09 у 21:14 +0300, Roman Riabenko via пише:
У ср, 2025-10-01 у 19:06 +0000, password244 via пише:
> I installed Icecat with guix on my Debian 13. It works fine
> but
> about:support page says H264 decoding is unsupported even
> though
> VP8,
> VP9, AV1 is supported. That's why I can't watch videos on
> nitter or
> invidious. I can only watch videos on youtube! Is the problem
> on my
> side? Do I need to install a package?
I have just installed Debian 13 in a virtual machine, installed
guix,
and icecat. I assume that you also customized the pre-installed
extensions in some way. Otherwise, YouTube is being redirected
to
something else.
I couldn't find anything about h264 in about:support
page. Instead,
it
seems to list a few codecs which are hardware accelerated.
When I visit nitter or invidious, videos do not play out of the
box.
However, when I customize the pre-installed extensions'
settings, the
videos do play. So, there seem to be no lack of a codec
support.
I have finally upgraded guix and icecat on this test Debian 13
installation. I have also installed icecat on the host Guix
System. I
can reproduce your issue on the Guix System and partially on the
Debian
13 virtual machine now. After upgrading, there are codecs listed
on
about:support, including H264, but the support differs.
In case of Debian 13, I can play h264 but without sound. That
may be
the same issue as was previously reported here:
https://codeberg.org/guix/guix/issues/2444 In my case, it looks
like
the aac codec fails to load. Specifically, icecat complains
"Error no
decoder for audio/mp4-latm". H264 is indicated as supported in
software
on about:support. I tested on videos from NASA and CERN websites
because INVIDIOUS and nitter do not play anyway, even with the
browser
extensions disabled. Probably, the issue with them is different
from
the codec.
However, on my guix system, H264 is indicated as not supported
in both
software and hardware on about:support. I cannot play h264
videos on it
at all. They are reported as corrupt instead.
The difference hints that there is something not fully
configured and
probably affected by the distribution. Though, I am yet unsure
how to
investigate further.
To test whether the h264 is supported, I downloaded the file,
checked
its codecs in totem video player, and tried opening with icecat.
$ icecat test.mp4
Sometimes I needed to reload the page for the file to be
recognized.
For reference.
$ LC_ALL=C guix describe
Generation 41 Oct 13 2025 00:21:15 (current)
guix e578aff
repository URL: https://git.guix.gnu.org/guix.git
branch: master
commit: e578aff8029bc6a130675c1503d68345b5fb8fed
$ icecat --version
GNU IceCat 140.3.1esr
I will probably open an issue.
Sounds very similar to an issue with the other Firefoxen browsers
from last year, though I thought this was fixed in icecat already.
https://issues.guix.gnu.org/77559
Alos see commits 064f8810477b10c3699a025cc2c7d75e323ab581 and
ab24e2ebe51720f332215b110c1bb151718d16bd.
Note that, at least on version from late last year, the codec
section of about:support only populates after you attempt to play
some media, so if you launch the browser and immediately go there,
you might not get the full picture.
Upstream Firefox doesn’t seem to be able to notice when hwaccel is
detected, but doesn’t work, so it never falls back to swdec in
this case.
-- Ian
