Strange, presistent x264 bug?

[Quarkboy]

I've been using x264 for many months now for my anime encodes, and it's always had this problem.... I'm a little embarresed to say it, but x264 does not output anything. By that, I mean text to the screen (it outputs the encode fine). The CLI outputs nothing, and the megui progress bar never moves. The help prints if I run it with no parameters, but even with --progress on I see no output at all.

Truthfully, I've been using task manager and the "I/O Bytes written" column to track progress...

This problem has ALWAYS been around, with all versions of x264... I presume something is wrong with my xp maybe?

Any help is appreciated.

[ChronoCross]

when using extreme settings sometimes the info doesn't show up. it seems to be a normal thing although a bit odd. if your using just basic settings it comes up easily.

[Quarkboy]

when using extreme settings sometimes the info doesn't show up. it seems to be a normal thing although a bit odd. if your using just basic settings it comes up easily.

It's persistent for all settings of any type. And I've experimented with nearly all the settings :).

[Zero1]

Try putting --progress before any filenames, for example:
...--b-rdo --bime --8x8dct --no-fast-pskip --trellis 2 --progress --stats x264.log --output Encode1-pass1.264 Video1.avs

[Quarkboy]

Try putting --progress before any filenames, for example:
...--b-rdo --bime --8x8dct --no-fast-pskip --trellis 2 --progress --stats x264.log --output Encode1-pass1.264 Video1.avs

Nope, no effect.

[Zero1]

Bizzare, the only reason I suggested that is because someone I knew was trying to do as lossless encode and had a similar problem, moving --progress worked for him.

What about your Windows? I wonder if you have your region and language settings as Japanese it would have any effect? It shouldn't do I guess, but I'm just grabbing at straws

[Quarkboy]

Bizzare, the only reason I suggested that is because someone I knew was trying to do as lossless encode and had a similar problem, moving --progress worked for him.

What about your Windows? I wonder if you have your region and language settings as Japanese it would have any effect? It shouldn't do I guess, but I'm just grabbing at straws
Nope, changing back to normal region settings has no effect. Same problem as before.

Might I mention that I don't seem to have any problems with any other command line program?

[Manao]

Can you post a command line that you're using, as an example ? Where did you get x264.exe ?

[Quarkboy]

Can you post a command line that you're using, as an example ? Where did you get x264.exe ?
Sharktooths build, currently using
x264 core:43 svn-399M (built by Sharktooth)

installed off the link on the sticky.

command line (at the moment, though as I explained, it's always been this way for all command lines in all circumstances):

"x264.exe" --pass 3 --progress --stats "F:\Anime\Fansubbing\Ginban\08\stats" --bitrate 697 --nr 200 --ref 8 --mixed-refs --bframes 4 --b-pyramid --subme 7 --b-rdo --bime --weightb --trellis 1 --analyse all --8x8dct --qcomp 0.7 --me umh --no-psnr --output "F:\Anime\Fansubbing\Ginban\08\dvdavs.264" "F:\Anime\Fansubbing\Ginban\08\final.avs"

P.S. Your denoiser is incredible... I used it for Starshipgirl yamamoto yohko episode 10... took 12 hours to filter but man did it kill the awful film grain from the dvd source I had :)

[buzzqw]

--pass3

and the first two ;) ? (try also outputting mp4 or mkv)

BHH

[Quarkboy]

and the first two ;) ? (try also outputting mp4 or mkv)

BHH

Um, as you should know, pass 3 is used for the nth pass... this is actually the 2nd. output format changes nothing. Pass 1 was already completed with a full stats file.

Here's another simple, yet odd test... if I run:

x264.exe --pass 5 -o here.264 myfile.avs

when none of those files exist.... I get NO OUTPUT... no error, no nothing. Just a size zero file called here.264.
I've tried piping stderr to a file, it didn't show anything either.

[lexor]

Um, as you should know, pass 3 is used for the nth pass... this is actually the 2nd. output format changes nothing. Pass 1 was already completed with a full stats file.

Here's another simple, yet odd test... if I run:

x264.exe --pass 5 -o here.264 myfile.avs

when none of those files exist.... I get NO OUTPUT... no error, no nothing. Just a size zero file called here.264.
I've tried piping stderr to a file, it didn't show anything either.
hmmm... to run --pass 5 (5 I don't believe is a valid command line, and thus is ignored) you have to have pass 1 first, what did pass 1 output?

[bond]

--pass 5 is not a valid option in x264

you can only use 1 (for the first pass), 2 (for the last pass without updating the stats file), 3 (for a pass that updates the statsfile)

[Manao]

Hey, guys, read his first post - you'll see that x264.exe does work, it's just that instead of output some text info, it stays silent until he's finished.

Quarkboy : funny issue :) Can you give us some additional info about your windows ( xp, sp #? ) ? Did you try with cygwin ? Did you try to lower the priority of the command line ( before launching it ) ? Did you try without MeGui ?

[Doom9]

there was a series of posts, not so long ago, about the same issue. Turns out it had something to do with Avisynth.. some plugin that interfered.. but the poster never went into more details than that. So clean up avisynth, run with a minimal script, clean out your avisynth plugin directory (except for dgdecode) and try again.

[Quarkboy]

there was a series of posts, not so long ago, about the same issue. Turns out it had something to do with Avisynth.. some plugin that interfered.. but the poster never went into more details than that. So clean up avisynth, run with a minimal script, clean out your avisynth plugin directory (except for dgdecode) and try again.

Aha! Avisynth rears it's annoying head yet again. I will definitely try that... Right after I finish up all the encodes I need to today :(... I'll post specifics about which plugin was borking output if I identify it.

[Quarkboy]

The problem has been fixed. It was a problem the the "Image Sequence" plugin (actually from the Imlib.dll that it requires). Deleting that fixed the problem.

Thank you for your help.