Artifacts When Playing Videos

Ask Fedora
,
1

Hey there,
When I try to play videos on platforms like YouTube or Netflix, I get artifacts. It’s nearly impossible to watch videos. I don’t know when this began…

Here a screenshot from Netflix.

video_artifacts
video_artifacts2065×828 806 KB

It’s the same on YouTube. It’s also the same when I watch YouTube videos using FreeTube. Browser doesn’t matter either. I tried it on Firefox, Brave, Chrome and Chromium. All the same. I tried to reinstall ffmpeg.

What could be the problem? I don’t know where to start searching for the problem…

I’m using Fedora 44, completely up to date; Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano Gen 1; 11th Gen Intel Core i5-1140G7; Intel Iris Xe Graphics (TGL GT2).

Thanks for help,
Simon

2

That looks like it may be an issue with not using hardware acceleration in the graphics.

Please post info as shown here so we may be able to assist in identifying the issue.
https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/inxi-the-help-to-help-your-selves/180413/5

3

Thanks for the reply!
This is the output of inxi -Fzxx:

System:
  Kernel: 7.1.4-204.fc44.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 16.1.1
  Desktop: GNOME v: 50.3 tk: GTK v: 3.24.52 wm: gnome-shell dm: GDM
    Distro: Fedora Linux 44 (Workstation Edition)
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 20UQS28Q00 v: ThinkPad X1 Nano Gen 1
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: LENOVO model: 20UQS28Q00 v: SDK0J40697 WIN
    serial: <superuser required> part-nu: LENOVO_MT_20UQ_BU_Think_FM_ThinkPad
    X1 Nano Gen 1 Firmware: UEFI vendor: LENOVO v: N2TET90W (1.68 )
    date: 08/25/2025
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 30.7 Wh (74.7%) condition: 41.1/48.2 Wh (85.2%)
    volts: 13.01 min: 11.58 model: Celxpert 5B10W13964 serial: <filter>
    charging: status: charging control: start: 75% end: 80% cycles: 123
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_1 model: Logitech Signature M650 L
    serial: <filter> charge: 90% status: discharging
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: 11th Gen Intel Core i5-1140G7 bits: 64 type: MT MCP
    arch: Tiger Lake rev: 1 cache: L1: 320 KiB L2: 5 MiB L3: 8 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 400 min/max: 400/4200 cores: 1: 400 2: 400 3: 400 4: 400
    5: 400 6: 400 7: 400 8: 400 bogomips: 28876
  Flags-basic: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Tiger Lake-UP4 GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] vendor: Lenovo
    driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Xe ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1, DP-2,
    DP-3, DP-4, HDMI-A-1, HDMI-A-2, HDMI-A-3 bus-ID: 00:02.0
    chip-ID: 8086:9a40
  Device-2: Chicony Integrated Camera driver: uvcvideo type: USB rev: 2.0
    speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 3-4:3 chip-ID: 04f2:b6ea
  Display: wayland server: Xwayland v: 24.1.13 compositor: gnome-shell
    driver: gpu: i915 display-ID: 0
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: ChiMei InnoLux 0x1301 res: 2160x1350 dpi: 196
    diag: 330mm (13")
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 vendor: intel mesa v: 26.1.5 glx-v: 1.4 es-v: 3.2
    direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Intel Iris Xe Graphics (TGL GT2)
    device-ID: 8086:9a40 display-ID: :0.0
  API: EGL Message: EGL data requires eglinfo. Check --recommends.
  Info: Tools: api: glxinfo x11: xdriinfo, xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 500 Series Family On-Package High Definition Audio
    vendor: Lenovo driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl bus-ID: 00:1f.3
    chip-ID: 8086:a0c8
  API: ALSA v: k7.1.4-204.fc44.x86_64 status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.6.8 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse
    status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
    4: pw-jack type: plugin
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel bus-ID: 00:14.3
    chip-ID: 8086:a0f0
  IF: wlp0s20f3 state: up mac: <filter>
  IF-ID-1: wwan0 state: down mac: N/A
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel AX201 Bluetooth driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB rev: 2.0
    speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 3-10:4 chip-ID: 8087:0026
  Report: btmgmt ID: hci0 rfk-id: 2 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 5.2
    lmp-v: 11
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 308.47 GiB (64.7%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Western Digital model: PC SN530
    SDBPMPZ-512G-1001 size: 476.94 GiB speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4
    serial: <filter> temp: 42.9 C
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 474.35 GiB used: 307.93 GiB (64.9%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3
  ID-2: /boot size: 1.9 GiB used: 533.4 MiB (27.4%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
  ID-3: /boot/efi size: 598.8 MiB used: 20 MiB (3.3%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
  ID-4: /home size: 474.35 GiB used: 307.93 GiB (64.9%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 8 GiB used: 1.26 GiB (15.8%) priority: 100
    dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
  Src: /sys System Temperatures: cpu: 42.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (rpm): cpu: 3086
Info:
  Memory: total: 16 GiB note: est. available: 15.32 GiB used: 8 GiB (52.3%)
  Processes: 434 Power: uptime: 13h 8m wakeups: 0 Init: systemd v: 259
    default: graphical
  Packages: pm: rpm pkgs: N/A note: see --rpm pm: flatpak pkgs: 54
    Compilers: gcc: 16.1.1 Shell: Bash v: 5.3.9 running-in: ptyxis-agent
    inxi: 3.3.41
4

Maybe someone else has more suggestions, but that relatively low powered CPU as well as the integrated GPU and no discrete GPU tends to limit graphics performance.

I am not sure what else to suggest except to refer you to the rpmfusion info where there are instructions on how make certain you have all the available codecs so your system is able to handle all the multimedia types you may encounter.

5

I’d try installing the intel-media-driver referenced in the link @computersavvy provided.

6

Low powered CPU? Can’t imagine that. I have here a much older computer and there it works. And on this laptop with the artifacts I can watch videos on other platforms like Peertube. I also can watch 4K Videos from my GoPro. So it’s the CPU and GPU seem to be strong enough. I think there’s a problem with codecs. But which? ffmpeg from RPM Fusion is already installed… :person_shrugging:

7

I just checked on Firefox and Brave, whether hardware acceleration is active. Yes, it is…

Here for Firefox:

2026-07-27_001_HWAcceleration_Firefox
2026-07-27_001_HWAcceleration_Firefox606×225 15 KB

And here for Brave:

2026-07-27_002_HWAcceleration_Brave
2026-07-27_002_HWAcceleration_Brave795×668 86.2 KB

Brave tell’s me that some things are disabled in yellow and red. Video decoding ist hardware accelerated, endocing not. For watching videos I think I only need decoding. I don’t know whether the other disabled options can be a problem when watching videos on the web…

8

Hi Simon,

You might check your network connection … these artifacts also happen when network packets are dropped or arrive late …

9

Hi! Thanks for your reply. I don’t think it’s the network connections as it is flawlessly possible to watch videos for instance on Peertube… :man_shrugging:

10

Do these test videos play correctly in firefox? Try the different codecs AV1 / H.264 / H.265 / VP9

Which available codecs with support for HW decoding are displayed at about:support#media?

Have you tried to disable HW acceleration in firefox?

11

Looks like buggy video decode acceleration to me. Try disabling it in Chrome: chrome://flags/#disable-accelerated-video-decode

12

Hi together,

@anotheruser:
All videos are fine in Firefox and Brave. I tested all four codecs with full hd. Codec support in Firefox as in this screenshot:

2026-07-31_001_HWCodingFirefox
2026-07-31_001_HWCodingFirefox889×404 55.4 KB

I did not try disabling hw decoding in Firefox, but in Brave as mentioned by @yurislnx. I have to try it a bit. First try looks good, but I want to check whether it comes back or not.

Thanks for your support! I’ll come back an report how it worked. :slight_smile:

13

try the following in firefox, install extension ‘enhanced-h264ify’. You can block codecs on the fly ( reload the page ) and see if YT has issues with some of those codecs on your system.

configure the extension to not block any codec. then block AV1, then also VP9 etc. VP8 does not really matter any more.

YT will try to stream AV1 first, then VP9, then AVC / H264
Verify by enabling ‘stats for nerds’ via right mouse button
play something like this

Netflx,or any other commercial streaming service use DRM and video is decoded by cpu via the ’ Widevine’ plugin.

14

Disabling the hardware acceleration helped. Interesting. Not the best solution, but if it works it’s OK for me. Maybe I’ll search for the problem and if I find a solution, I’ll come back to this thread. :slight_smile:

Thanks for the help @all. :+1:

15

I’d rather try disabling only HW video decoding.

pls post output of vainfo

Re-enable hw acceleration in firefox and quit.
Start firefox in a terminal with LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=none firefox,
check in about:support#media that HW decoding is disabled.

Do you still see the video corruption?