Specific Feature DVDFab x64 12.1.1.5 Does NOT Usually Work with AMD APP Hardware Encoder

[Mauser]

I have reported this problem multiple times over that past few months for Ripper, but nothing has been done to fix it for the AMD Hardware encoder (the same problems with an Intel hardware encoder WAS fixed months ago). I now find that the problem is more than just Ripper - the same thing happens with Converter.

Today I entered a new Feedback issue for this problem. My Feedback ID 242390 Logs were attached.

The specific problem is that when I try to use the A/V Codec Video Encoder AMD APP for either H264 or H265, ANY task that I try to run will SOMETIMES fail to start and run properly. About 50% of the time, those tasks will seem to start and show as active, but they never progress past the 0-5% range; they just sit in the active queue while the remaining time quickly climbs into the multiple hours range.

But here is the really odd part: If I cancel the task queue and then restart it, the same task with NO changes at all will often start and run fine!. Sometimes I must cancel the task queue multiple times and restart it before the same task finally runs, but it always does eventually. If I use the software encoder, I never have any problems at all, but the tasks run for hours instead of minutes.

When a task does start properly using the AMD APP hardware encoder, it almost always runs through to completion without further problems. If I have multiple tasks in the queue, each one may or may not start properly upon the completion of the prior task - no rhyme or reason to that. My only solution when one fails to progress is to cancel the entire queue and then restart the queue.

This problem happens using any and ALL file types as input to Ripper and Converter, so it is not related to the input. And I have replaced BOTH the CPU and GPU on my computer without change, so it is not related to my hardware.

My system does not have a GPU integrated with the processor chip, so I do not know if that has anything to do with the problem (my other computers are Intel based, not AMD).
My CPU is AMD Ryzen 5 5600X (testing with a Ryzen 9 5900X did not solve the problem).
My GPU is AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT ( completely replacing this board did not solve the problem).

[october262]

I have reported this problem multiple times over that past few months for Ripper, but nothing has been done to fix it for the AMD Hardware encoder (the same problems with an Intel hardware encoder WAS fixed months ago). I now find that the problem is more than just Ripper - the same thing happens with Converter.

Today I entered a new Feedback issue for this problem. My Feedback ID 242390 Logs were attached.

The specific problem is that when I try to use the A/V Codec Video Encoder AMD APP for either H264 or H265, ANY task that I try to run will SOMETIMES fail to start and run properly. About 50% of the time, those tasks will seem to start and show as active, but they never progress past the 0-5% range; they just sit in the active queue while the remaining time quickly climbs into the multiple hours range.

But here is the really odd part: If I cancel the task queue and then restart it, the same task with NO changes at all will often start and run fine!. Sometimes I must cancel the task queue multiple times and restart it before the same task finally runs, but it always does eventually. If I use the software encoder, I never have any problems at all, but the tasks run for hours instead of minutes.

When a task does start properly using the AMD APP hardware encoder, it almost always runs through to completion without further problems. If I have multiple tasks in the queue, each one may or may not start properly upon the completion of the prior task - no rhyme or reason to that. My only solution when one fails to progress is to cancel the entire queue and then restart the queue.

This problem happens using any and ALL file types as input to Ripper and Converter, so it is not related to the input. And I have replaced BOTH the CPU and GPU on my computer without change, so it is not related to my hardware.

My system does not have a GPU integrated with the processor chip, so I do not know if that has anything to do with the problem (my other computers are Intel based, not AMD).
My CPU is AMD Ryzen 5 5600X (testing with a Ryzen 9 5900X did not solve the problem).
My GPU is AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT ( completely replacing this board did not solve the problem).

try doing a clean uninstall of dvdfab, restart your computer, and reinstall the latest version dvdfab x64 and
retry the AMD APP and see if you still get the same results.

[Mauser]

try doing a clean uninstall of dvdfab, restart your computer, and reinstall the latest version dvdfab x64 and
retry the AMD APP and see if you still get the same results.

Already done, multiple times, no change.

[Mauser]

Additional information on this problem: All of my recent testing has been using the (MKV.H265) output profile. When I use the (MP4.H265) profile, I still get problems with random tasks, but while some of them just hang or fail to progress like I described above, I also see some of them actually Fail and generate a report to send back to the mother ship.

Just like with the (MKV.H265) profile, when using the (MP4.H265) profile, the failed or canceled tasks will eventually run fine after one or more restarts.

I have not tested with an H264 profile in quite a while, but I do know that I used to see this problem with those too (but perhaps less often).

[Mona]

The QA team will arrange a time to check what you reported.

[Mauser]

The only response I have seen today is the same old tired instructions to uninstall and reinstall the software (which your technicians have told me to do over and over again)!

I did it again today with absolutely NO change to the problem. I first reported these issues trying to use the hardware video encoders way back in March of this year - that is 6 MONTHS AGO!!!!!!. They did fix the problem with the Intel hardware encoder, but despite my repeated testing and complaints, they have done absolutely nothing at all to make the AMD hardware encoder work as advertised. I even went to the personal expense to buy new CPUs and a new very expensive GPU card for my computer to just absolutely verify that the problem was in YOUR software and not my hardware. I reported that to the technicians, and heard nothing further from them.

This has gotten VERY OLD and I am quite angry about it. I spent a LOT of money on this software, and I do expect better from your company.

[Mauser]

It seems as if your technicians do not actually want to listen to the details of this problem, or won't take the time to test it. I have an open support ticket with the same title as this thread, and today they asked me to upload "the source video file".

THERE IS NO SPECIFIC SOURCE VIDEO FILE!!!!!!!!!!

These problems happen with about 50% of ANY AND ALL source files I use as input to the Ripper and Converter programs when I use the AMD APP hardware encoder for output. The (MKV.H265) profile seems to have a few more problems than the (MP4.H265) profile, but BOTH of them have issues ANYTIME I try to use the AMD APP hardware encoder!

I tried several times today to type in a detailed response to the techs on the support ticket, but your system kept refreshing and wiping out everything I typed, so I am going to put it all here:

Over the past four days I have run hundreds of Video Converter tasks using random .mpg files as input and the (MP4.H265) profile for output. Many Many of these conversion tasks have failed to properly start (stalled at 0%), but the same task has always run fine after being cancelled and restarted one or more times. When a task "stalls" like this, it does not cause any error, it just sits forever. HOWEVER, MANY of these MP4 conversion tasks have also actually FAILED and sent a failure report to you (and the same failed task always runs fine the next time the queue is restarted). Don't your technicians actually look at any of those reports?

If those failure reports do not contain the correct information for them to actually diagnose and fix these problems, why don't they provide me with a temporary version of DVDFab modified with new traps to collect the right information? I will be happy to continue doing any and all meaningful tests to get this mess fixed! For example, I would suggest that if they simply modified the program to abort and dump core when a task fails to progress for more than 15 seconds, maybe the actual problem would be obvious when they looked at the dump?

Let me give another example of why there is no specific source video file that I can provide for testing:
Four months ago I ripped all the Big Bang Theory factory DVDs. While every single DVD had some problems with one or more source files, there is no rhyme or reason to which ones. Here are my notes for just one of those discs - Big Bang Theory Season 3, Disc 2. I used an .iso file of the disc created by DVDFab for input to Ripper.

I used Ripper to queue up all 8 episodes on this disc, and I used the (MKV.H265) output profile. When I ran the queued tasks, 5 of the 8 files had problems as follows:

• Title2 (episode 309) ran fine the first time.
• Title3 stalled at 0% FOUR times, then ran fine.
• Title4 stalled at 0% ONCE, then ran fine.
• Title5 stalled at 0% ONCE, then ran fine.
• Title6 stalled at 0% TWICE, then ran fine.
• Title7 stalled at 0% ONCE, then ran fine.
• Title8 (episode 315) ran fine the first time.
• Title9 (episode 316) ran fine the first time.

TODAY I re-ran the rip tasks for this same DVD, using the SAME ORIGINAL .iso file that I did back in May. Here are the results from today:

• Title2 (episode 309) stalled at 0% THREE times, then ran fine in 55 seconds.
• Title3 ran fine the first time. 61 seconds
• Title4 stalled at 0% ONCE, then ran fine. 56 seconds
• Title5 ran fine the first time. 56 seconds
• Title6 ran fine the first time. 58 seconds
• Title7 stalled at 0% ONCE, then ran fine. 54 seconds
• Title8 (episode 315) ran fine the first time. 61 seconds
• Title9 (episode 316) stalled at 0% THREE times, then ran fine in 60 seconds.

I uploaded the system logs to the support ticket at the end of this testing. 2023-09-22 15:15:21

Notice that the tasks that had problems the first time I ripped that DVD are DIFFERENT than the problems I had today. And there is nothing special about this .iso file - EVERY SINGLE DVD with multiple episodes on it has had problems with some of them. And even movie discs with only one file have problems about 50% of the time.

As I have noted before, I have already replaced both my CPU AND MY GPU at my own expense without making any changes to this problem. I have not actually replaced the entire main board, but if you want to provide a different board for testing, I will even do that!

[Beyil]

This is also something that I have / had encountered with green screen frames (up to 90+% approx. of the video), hard crashes (these were mainly nothing responding not even the keyboard lights, or spontaneous reboot, but not a single BSoD) of the entire system, etc. I found that the only settings that would not do those things were either totally disabling the GPU encode/decode or for even faster results with it occasionally stalling out and having to restart the conversion (aka cancel then start again with out changing settings, or reboot / restart the computer) is to turn off the lighting-shrink option, enabling the lightning-record option, then setting the decode to software aka CPU and the encode to the AMD APP... I have had to do this on EVERY restart for DVDFab as it throws out on every shutdown of the program all the settings for which directories to use, and the encoder / decoder settings... Very annoying especially when it keeps insisting on using a very tight space drive when I have it installed and supposed to be set to use a much larger non removable drive.. which DVDFab throws out the window on every restart. This encoding/decoding issue is something that caused me a lot of issues with the AI enhancement functions and why I let that license expire... as DVDFab constantly refused to use the assigned hardware and did its own thing.. as an example with the AI... AMD RX6600 suppose to take 12-16 hours to upscale from 480 to 1080p... at 13 hours it got stuck at 99%.. 36 hours later I canceled the operation... the entire thing was 3 good frames then 21 frames of green screen at 24fps (this was repeated throughout the entire length of the video).. the entire full length was done just with it not "completing" the video (did this 2 times)... my CPU, a AMD Ryzen 5 5600x, could do this entire Video in 30 hours with out fail but every frame was blurry on single pass, or the GTX1050OC would do so in 90 hours with up to 2 min green screen blocks throughout in random places... that GTX1050 was the preferred use no matter what the settings were, even when it was "disabled" and the only way DVDFab would not use it was to physically remove it from the system. (the 1050 has since gone to a new home, and is no longer part of my system)

Converting with the GPU as encoder and decoder both also resulted in many green screen frames throughout the video IF it completed, (was this way mildly with the NVIDIA card as well for a period but then it got straightened out). The tests I've run on UniFab thus far have no green screen frames at all... which tends to say that the issue is resolved there BUT it lacks the support for many of the profiles that 12 has built in, hence I'm mainly using 12 with some niche uses of UniFab atm... Hope this helps. BTW if you are wondering if a lack of available ram was part of the freezing / hanging issue... I Highly doubt that when DVDFab was the main program running with less then 20% in use of the 64Gig of physical ram available.