1514062 - Widevine CDM 4.10.1196.0 causes performance issues for Windows users with multiple displays

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Audio/Video: Playback, defect, P1)

Description

[Bryce Seager van Dyk [:bryce] (he/him) - Not reading bugmail]

There are multiple reports on reddit[0][1] of performance issues with CDM version 4.10.1196.0. This appears to be linked to multiple displays -- with current reports indicating 3 or more being problematic.

I will reach out to Widevine and provide more details here as I become aware of them.

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/a5qsjw/netflix_on_version_64_was_making_my_machine_lag/
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/a5xdyo/widevine_drm_causing_whole_pc_mouse_stutter/

Comment 1

[Bryce Seager van Dyk [:bryce] (he/him) - Not reading bugmail]

Failed to mention in comment #0: users are reporting that reverting to 1.4.9.1088 fixes this. If you're encountering the issue it would be also be useful to know if reverting to 4.10.1146.0 fixes it (this CDM has a Mac specific crash that shouldn't impact Windows users). To revert your CDM:

- Locate your profile directory (you can find this in about:support in the Profile Folder entry).
- In that directory there should be a `gmp-widevinecdm` dir, inside that there should be a `4.10.1196.0` directory, inside that dir there should be 5 files, a license, a manifest, and 3 widevine files. These files are the CDM.
- Download the old CDM from https://redirector.gvt1.com/edgedl/widevine-cdm/1.4.9.1088-win-x64.zip or https://redirector.gvt1.com/edgedl/widevine-cdm/4.10.1146.0-win-x64.zip
- Close Firefox.
- Backup the files in the `4.10.1196.0` directory by copying them somewhere else, we're going to want to restore them later.
- Extract the files from the `1.4.9.1088-win-x64.zip` or `4.10.1146.0-win-x64.zip` downloaded above over those in the `4.10.1196.0` directory.
- Start Firefox (with the profile we've changed the CDM for).
- Check if this fixes the issue.
- Close Firefox.
- (Optional since this appears to cause issues) Restore the old files to `4.10.1196.0` that we backed up earlier. If something goes wrong with the backup, the files can also be downloaded from https://redirector.gvt1.com/edgedl/widevine-cdm/4.10.1196.0-win-x64.zip

Comment 2

[IcePanther]

Can confirm that it works when reverting the CDM to 4.9.1088 or 4.10.1146.0.
I only have two monitors, but do experience the problem. (2* 1920x1080 @ 60Hz)

See attached about:support files.
(they show the netflix-1808p extension, but the problem still exists when disabling it, this has of course been my first test; also the fact that swapping CDM versions as per :bryce's post worked seemed to point to the latter as the culprit)

Comment 3

[IcePanther]

Attachment: About:support from affected system (text)

Comment 4

[IcePanther]

Attachment: about:support from affected system (raw/json)

Comment 5

[Andrew Overholt [:overholt]]

Seems like this needs a Widevine fix and I'm not sure we'd update 64 for that. RyanVM told me we're also not serving this version so I'll mark it 'disabled' for 64,

Comment 6

[Bryce Seager van Dyk [:bryce] (he/him) - Not reading bugmail]

We've moved to serve the old version of the CDM on Windows (bug 1514206) while we wait to hear back from Widevine regarding this. The fallback downloader has not yet been adjusted, in hopes that the roll back is a temporary solution.

Comment 7

[Bryce Seager van Dyk [:bryce] (he/him) - Not reading bugmail]

Ice, we've updated to a newer version of Widevine on Windows. Can you confirm that you haven't seen this issues happen again?

Comment 8

[IcePanther]

The problem seems solved for me.

Just to be sure, I just did a quick test on two different VOD services that use Widevine on Firefox, and the playback is similar to Edge (EdgeHTML, which uses Microsoft's own DRM IIRC, and not Edge Chromium) in terms of quality.
I didn't encounter mouse stutter, timestamp not updating, or video stutter, as far as I can tell.

FYI, the versions are as follows :
Os : Windows 10 x64
Firefox: 70.0.1
Widevine : 4.10.1440.19

Comment 9

[Bryce Seager van Dyk [:bryce] (he/him) - Not reading bugmail]

Thanks for confirming. It sounds like the issue is unique to Widevine 4.10.1196.0.

Comment 10

[nanaya]

I'm still having stutter problem on Amazon Video Japan. Disconnecting non-primary displays and reloading the page fixes it.

My system has three displays.

OS: Windows 8.1 (build 9600)
Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Win64; x64; rv:80.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/80.0
Widevine: 4.10.1582.2
GPU: nvidia GTX950

Issue #1544108 is probably the same problem.