Video hardware decoding (VAAPI) no longer works on Linux after update

[kmod]

Today I got an update for brave browser from 1.30 to 1.31 and hardware acceleration (vaapi) no longer works.

Go to a Youtube video, go to More tools > Developer tools > media > Players and see that hardware video decoding is not available. Likewise intel_gpu_top show 0 % for video.

Before the update hardware decoding was working nicely.

I started brave-browse with the command (which I put in a wrapper script)

LIBAV_DRIVER_NAME=i965 /usr/bin/brave-browser-stable --use-gl=desktop --enable-feature=VaapiVideoDecoder

OS is Ubuntu 20.04. Intel HD graphics 4000 (IVB GT2)

[kmod]

So the issue is caused by Chromium 95 using ozone platform and there is no way to disable it.

However, there is a patch that fixes VAAPI for Linux. https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/a4de986102a45e29c3ef596f22704bdca244c26c

Brave should incorporate the patch in its next release since the feature is very useful for Linux users with weaker machines.,

[kmod]

Just FYI, for the latest release of google-chrome (not chromium) ver 94.0.4606.81

VAAPI works with the command

LIBAV_DRIVER_NAME=i965 /usr/bin/google-chrome-stable
–ignore-gpu-blacklist
–enable-gpu-rasterization --enable-zero-copy
–enable-features=VaapiVideoDecoder
–disable-features=UseOzonePlatform --use-gl=desktop

But this doesn’t work for brave.

[kmod]

Just upgraded Brave to 1.32.106 (based on Chromium 96.04664.45) and VAAPI is working again.