Black screen between videos on Raspberry Pi 3B using it on Raspberry Pi OS 64 Bit Lite

[1amrishi]

Installed Anthias on my Raspberry pi 3B after installing the latest Rpi OS 64 Bit Lite as i also wanted to use tailscale for remote access but the issue is that after uploading multiple videos compressd using handbrake, as those are the only videos seeming to work on it, there is a black screen of 4-5 Seconds between each video.

is this a know or unsolvable issue, please guide me.

• Raspberry Pi Hardware Version: Raspberry Pi 3B 1GB Ram
• Raspberry Pi Network Setup:built-in WiFi
• Anthias Version: 0.18.6

[Napsty]

Same issue here, even with just one asset active there's an annoying black screen of around 5 second until the video is played again. Also happens on Raspberry Pi 4.

[vpetersson]

Important variables:

• What kind of SD card (anything less than a Class 10 should be avoided)
• How long is the video?

[Napsty]

In my case SD card is a class 10, the video duration is 29s.

[vpetersson]

Does the duration decrease if you use a shorter asset?

[Napsty]

I was unable to test this myself but the person on site confirmed that the black screen duration is always ~5s, doesn't matter which video file was playing and which duration that video had.

[1amrishi]

Important variables:

• What kind of SD card (anything less than a Class 10 should be avoided)
• How long is the video?

I am also using a sandisk 32gb class 10 i have multiple videos of 30sec- 1 min

[1amrishi]

Does the duration decrease if you use a shorter asset?

no

[Napsty]

Just installed a new Anthias using the script installation on a separate device (Raspberry Pi 3b+) and there's 7-8 seconds black screen between playing the assets.

By the way, this also happens when manually triggering the "Next Asset" in the UI.

I also tried to use older Anthias images (tried with tag 4170486-pi3) but same result.

Note: the black screen seems to be the console output of the Raspberry Pi

[Napsty]

Re-installed the whole thing, using a Raspbian Legacy (Bullseye) 64 bit this time (was Bookworm before). Same thing happens; roughly 8s black screen between videos playing.

[pacmac]

Same thing with fresh install. Class 10 card, 29 second long video, blank screen for about 3 seconds at the end / beginning

I am using the raspberry Pi 3 image: https://github.com/Screenly/Anthias/releases/download/v0.18.6/2023-03-06-raspberrypi3.zip

I only have one asset uploaded.

[pacmac]

I did another install:

https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_lite_arm64/images/raspios_lite_arm64-2022-09-26/2022-09-22-raspios-bullseye-arm64-lite.img.xz

bash <(curl -sL https://install-anthias.srly.io)

./screenly/bin/upgrade_containers.sh

That has a delay of 8 seconds between videos as opposed to 3 seconds from the previous.

I tried forcing the player to OMX in viewer.py but it made no difference.

[ShubhamGhait]

Same for my case black screen problem while playing video 0f 18 sec duration. I have Raspberry pi compute module 4 with master@21d1a41, and I installed R-Pi OS legacy 64 bit. I also query related to Anthias web setup regarding boot up time and time between two asset can we adjust , screen resolution setup ?

[nicomiguelino]

@ShubhamGhait

• As of now, setup/customization of screen resolution is not supported.
• How long is the black screen in your device when playing videos?

[gram11111111]

I still get a black screen between videos it's around 4 seconds, installed on a Pi 3B+ if it has been running for a bit the transitions get even longer

[nicomiguelino]

@gram11111111, thanks for sharing your findings.

• Video assets were played using OMX Player.
• I'm still assessing and trying out alternatives to OMX Player, like VLC and Qt (via QMediaPlayer).

[gram11111111]

Thank you for all your contribution, really hope you'll be able to fix it

[ShubhamGhait]

@ShubhamGhait

• As of now, setup/customization of screen resolution is not supported.
• How long is the black screen in your device when playing videos? @nicomiguelino Sorry for the wait for the response.

1. There is a black screen for about four to five seconds every video. Should you possess the ability to resolve the aforementioned issue, please offer a remedy.

[nicomiguelino]

@ShubhamGhait, I'm still on the phase of making the playback work with using Qt (instead of OMX) for playing videos. Based on testing the changes (still a work in progress), the black screen between videos seems to disappear, but there's the risk of cross-play (where one video plays where the other video is still playing).

If there's no progress in this one, I'll be proceeding with trying out things VLC again.

[Nezzu-bit]

@nicomiguelino

Whats the progress till now? i got the same issue. Blackscreen of 6-8 seconds between every video on my Pi 4b. Doesnt matter which video format im using ( .mov, .mp4, .avi, .mkv... ). Are there any fixes of that?

[nicomiguelino]

@Nezzu-bit, changes (migration from OMX to VLC) were aleady merged and the deployment is underway.

[Chrisong81]

I use a COM4 (Compute Module 4) with 2GB RAM and a 32GB Class 10 memory card. I installed Screenly Anthias, and it plays images, but when switching to video, the screen goes blank before showing the IP address page. Does anyone know the problem?

[nicomiguelino]

@Chrisong81, I'd like to ask for the following details:

• Anthias Version
• OS (Raspberry Pi OS Lite or BalenaOS)
• Viewer logs, which can be retrieved by running the following:

  cd ~/screenly
  docker compose logs -ft anthias-viewer
  

Thanks!

[alissonjcguedes]

@nicomiguelino hello!

@Chrisong81, I'd like to ask for the following details:

• Anthias Version
• OS (Raspberry Pi OS Lite or BalenaOS)
• Viewer logs, which can be retrieved by running the following: cd ~/screenly docker compose logs -ft anthias-viewer

Thanks!

Device Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Rev 1.2

Anthias [master@02da7f6]

OS [balenaOS 6.1.24+rev2]

Log anthias-viewer Generating asset-list... anthias-viewer Showing asset Huga Anuncie Aqui (1920 x 1080 px) - Corrigido.mp4 (video) anthias-viewer Current url is null anthias-viewer Fontconfig error: No writable cache directories anthias-viewer Fontconfig error: No writable cache directories anthias-viewer Fontconfig error: No writable cache directories anthias-viewer Fontconfig error: No writable cache directories anthias-viewer Fontconfig error: No writable cache directories anthias-viewer Fontconfig error: No writable cache directories anthias-viewer error: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is invalid or not set in the environment. anthias-viewer error: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is invalid or not set in the environment. anthias-viewer [73204ad0] gles2 generic error: parent window not available anthias-viewer [73204ad0] xcb generic error: window not available anthias-viewer [7325d768] gles2 vout display error: parent window not available anthias-viewer [7325d768] gl vout display error: parent window not available anthias-viewer [7325d768] xcb vout display error: window not available anthias-viewer [7325d768] drm_vout vout display: <<< OpenDrmVout: DPV0 1920x1080(1920x1080 @ 0,0 0/0), cfg.display: 1920x1080, source: 1920x1080(1920x1080 @ 0,0 1/1) anthias-viewer [7325d768] drm_vout vout display error: Failed to get xlease

[nathansensi]

Same issues, error log shows the same

hias-viewer-1 | 2025-04-23T17:47:38.392552216Z error: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is invalid or not set in the environment. anthias-viewer-1 | 2025-04-23T17:47:38.392890117Z error: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is invalid or not set in the environment. anthias-viewer-1 | 2025-04-23T17:47:38.402927178Z [014801d0] gles2 generic error: parent window not available anthias-viewer-1 | 2025-04-23T17:47:38.403837903Z [0148e2a8] xcb generic error: window not available anthias-viewer-1 | 2025-04-23T17:47:38.403874661Z [014ac9a0] gles2 vout display error: parent window not available anthias-viewer-1 | 2025-04-23T17:47:38.404395911Z [014ac9a0] gl vout display error: parent window not available anthias-viewer-1 | 2025-04-23T17:47:38.405349153Z [014ac9a0] xcb vout display error: window not available anthias-viewer-1 | 2025-04-23T17:47:38.406290618Z [014ac9a0] drm_vout vout display: <<< OpenDrmVout: DPV0 1920x1080(1920x1080 @ 0,0 0/0), cfg.display: 1920x1080, source: 1920x1080(1920x1080 @ 0,0 1/1) anthias-viewer-1 | 2025-04-23T17:47:38.406333450Z [014ac9a0] drm_vout vout display error: Failed to get xlease anthias-viewer-1 | 2025-04-23T17:47:38.406347098Z [014ac9a0] drm_vout vout display error: Failed to set atomic cap anthias-viewer-1 | 2025-04-23T17:47:38.421670546Z [014ac9a0] drm_vout vout display error: Failed to find output : Invalid argument

[Onltor]

Dear developers and users,

I would like to draw your attention to one important detail that no one has mentioned: before each video starts, the player (or the procedure calling it) inexplicably reinitializes the HDMI mode, even though it always sets the same mode.

This leads to the following issues:

1. The output device also reinitializes its display mode, showing notifications about the change (only professional media screens more or less smooth out these initializations and suppress the mode-change messages).
2. It's not possible to use Anthias on matrix displays, because every HDMI initialization forces matrix building process to restart.
3. The “black gap” may be caused precisely by that interruption for HDMI initialization.Before the v0.19.6 release, the black gap also appeared between still images — was HDMI being reinitialized before each image back then?

Not a single well-known commercial or freemium software or hardware (built-in in TVs/monitors) content player resets the HDMI mode before every video: they do it only once at startup!

Please review the code of player procedure in Anthias first — I hope this remark will help the community identify and fix the problem more quickly.

Thanks to everyone involved in the project!

[nicomiguelino]

@Onltor, thank you for sharing your observations. You could check my similar comment here.

[JerJetta]

I even tested it on a Dell Optiplex 3070 PC with Debian Bookworm installed. There, too, there's a black screen for about four seconds before the video starts.