VDPAU failing to initialize without DamageEvents

[Michal Varga]

While trying to track down roots of VDPAU not working on some of my recent Arch Linux installations, I found out that VDPAU fails to initialize with both MPlayer and MPlayer2 (multiple branches, incl. a custom build), using either GT 240 or a GTX 560 Ti, running Arch Linux x86_64 3.3.1-1-ARCH, xorg-server 1.12.0.901-1, NVIDIA driver 295.33 and libvdpau 0.4.1-2, when DamageEvents are disabled for NVIDIA xorg driver (DamageEvents = False in custom xorg configuration).

The relevant output from MPlayer2 (same with Mplayer) with VDPAU_NVIDIA_DEBUG=3 and VDPAU_TRACE looks like this:

==========================================================================
Forced video codec: ffh264vdpau
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffh264vdpau] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264 (VDPAU))
==========================================================================
Audio: no sound
Starting playback...
Movie-Aspect is 1.78:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [vdpau] 1920x1080 => 1920x1080 H.264 VDPAU acceleration  [zoom]
vdp_decoder_create(1, 8, 1920, 1080, 2, -)
    -> 0, 2
vdp_presentation_queue_target_create_x11(1, 67108865, -)
    -> 0, 3
vdp_presentation_queue_create(1, 3, -)
VDPAU nvidia: Version: NVIDIA VDPAU Driver Shared Library  295.33  Sat Mar 17 15:20:42 PDT 2012
VDPAU nvidia: Error detected 1 747 
VDPAU nvidia: Backtrace:
--: /usr/lib/vdpau/libvdpau_nvidia.so.1 [0x7fb386d0e000] DSO load base
00: /usr/lib/vdpau/libvdpau_nvidia.so.1 [0x7fb386d29298] 
01: /usr/lib/vdpau/libvdpau_nvidia.so.1 [0x7fb386d234d4] 
02: /usr/lib/vdpau/libvdpau_nvidia.so.1 [0x7fb386d18f0b] 
VDPAU nvidia: Version: NVIDIA VDPAU Driver Shared Library  295.33  Sat Mar 17 15:20:42 PDT 2012
VDPAU nvidia: Error detected 0 6165 
VDPAU nvidia: Backtrace:
--: /usr/lib/vdpau/libvdpau_nvidia.so.1 [0x7fb386d0e000] DSO load base
00: /usr/lib/vdpau/libvdpau_nvidia.so.1 [0x7fb386d18fd6] 
    -> 25
vdp_get_error_string(25)
    -> 'A catch-all error, used when no other error code applies.'
[vdpau] Error when calling vdp_presentation_queue_create: A catch-all error, used when no other error code applies.
FATAL: Cannot initialize video driver.
[h264_vdpau @ 0xbeb480]decoding to PIX_FMT_NONE is not supported.
[h264_vdpau @ 0xbeb480]ff_MPV_common_init() failed.
[h264_vdpau @ 0xbeb480]decode_slice_header error
[h264_vdpau @ 0xbeb480]no frame!
Error while decoding frame!

FATAL: Could not initialize video filters (-vf) or video output (-vo).

vdp_decoder_destroy(2)
    -> 0
vdp_presentation_queue_destroy(4)
VDPAU nvidia: Version: NVIDIA VDPAU Driver Shared Library  295.33  Sat Mar 17 15:20:42 PDT 2012
VDPAU nvidia: Error detected 0 533 
VDPAU nvidia: Backtrace:
--: /usr/lib/vdpau/libvdpau_nvidia.so.1 [0x7fb386d0e000] DSO load base
00: /usr/lib/vdpau/libvdpau_nvidia.so.1 [0x7fb386d18dae] 
    -> 3
vdp_get_error_string(3)
    -> 'An invalid handle value was provided.'
[   vdpau] Error when calling vdp_presentation_queue_destroy: An invalid handle value was provided.
vdp_presentation_queue_target_destroy(3)
    -> 0
vdp_device_destroy(1)
    -> 0

Exiting... (End of file)

The failure is not dependent on any particular video file as it's the video output that fails to initialize in the first place.

Turning DamageEvents on makes VDPAU working again, and properly, for all tested cases.

Is this an expected behavior?

What do error codes 1 747 and 0 6165 mean?