Edited title to change 'scopes to Waveform Monitor 12/08/2017

I just installed AppImage 17.08.3 in Linux Mint 17.3 with Cinnamon UI and all seems to be running stable but Waveform Monitor, Histogram, RGB Parade and Vectorscope are misbehaving. They worked fine in previous installation of Kdenlive 0.9.10 but current version exhibits odd behavior on DV and HDV source clips. I deleted my source clip out of Kdenlive and the four scopes still exhibit odd behavior, just pressing the Right-Arrow key!

I shutdown Kdenlive and re-opened the EMPTY but named project and the Waveform Monitor exhibits full-scale luminance and randomly flickers! Weird! Photo located here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HATDCJXrhDmLPb1Sivh5fgBdqO_8AriI

-=Ken=-

On further checking I find I can Render to mp4 and the files look and play normally. I even tried the Curves filter and pushed things rather dark and the mp4 files looked as they should. I can just start Kdenlive, add the Waveform Monitor, move the Right-arrow key twice - and the Monitor screen has a full-screen hissy-fit.

There must be something about the AppImage and my particular PC configuration. Is there a better place to post this problem instead of Installation?

-=Ken=-

A couple of months ago I got Knoppix 8.1 and installed it on a fast USB 3.0 flash drive. I knew that Kdenlive was part of that distribution so I rebooted into Knoppix and brought up Kdenlive. It identified as 17.08.0 Guess what? All the 'scopes work perfectly!

My conclusion is that my Linux rig is working fine - and Kdenlive 17.08.4 has a problem. I guess it would be good to report a bug.......

-=Ken=-

I downloaded and installed 17.08.2, 17.08.1b and alpha3-17.12 AppImages and the 17.08 versions exhibited the same identical problem. The 17.12 alpha image actually displayed some semblance of a waveform but it wasn't consistent. It also displayed what looked like reasonable Histogram, RGB Parade and Vectorscope images but - they never changed as I ran or advanced the video! Weird.

have you tried the 17.12 Appimage (final release)?
https://files.kde.org/kdenlive/release/ ... 4.AppImage

Thanks bartoloni.

The 17.12 final release hadn't currently made it to the Kdenlive.org download page. I downloaded 17.12 and it had the very same problem although the animation of the various other scopes seemed to now be active. In the beta it looked like the displays were placeholders with no response at all.

So, going further, I also downloaded the AppImage for 17.04.1b which crashed every time I added a clip. And then I downloaded 16.12.2 which was stable but exhibited the very same Waveform Monitor problem.

Maybe I should switch to Knoppix! What is Knoppix doing that allows it to work properly on the very same hardware? A three year old mid-range AMD APU and ASUS MB - nothing esoteric at all. Note, I did not install any special Radeon drivers.

Edit: What a great new feature this AppImage is, especially for Linux! I even tried the "unstable" images - but had the same problem.

-=Ken=-

I think I found the problem.

I created a Live DVD of Linux Mint 18.3 KDE version (beta), booted, ran my existing AppImage of Kdenlive 17.12 and - voila - it worked perfectly!

My conclusion - Kdenlive is not really compatible with the Cinnamon DE. That includes a lot of users.

Yesterday I tried using the Bug reporting system, right from Kdenlive's Help menu and I found it clear as mud. When I tried to leave a screen capture it would only allow tiny photos. I made a 30 second video on my iPhone and put it on my Google Drive - but the Bug reporting system hemorrhaged every time I tried to leave a URL.

So, there you go. Solved my own problem. Next time - next time - install the KDE user interface for great compatibility with Kdenlive.

-=Ken=-

Hey Moderator, bartoloni, this forum seems really slow. Four days and you are the only one to respond. I guess I am used to the Mint forums which have numerous "regulars" who regularly give at least their opinions on what the problem might be. Incidentally, I read that the Mint KDE edition will no longer be offered beyond Mint 17.3. There is a long thread where people are trying to decide what alternate distros to migrate to.

The issue with Kdenlive not working on the Cinnamon DE would impact a lot of users and ought to be seen as a big deal. My Knoppix install I found out has an LXDE interface, so it appears that maybe ONLY Cinnamon is a problem. And Knoppix doesn't seem to like AppImages because it won't run Kdenlive or Shotcut. These AppImages are great because the Mint 17 repositories only have three years old software!

Well, if anyone wants to TALK here - in this lonely forum - I will check in regular. I haven't figured out how to get KDE forums to send me an email report when I get a reply.

-=Ken=-

Not sure the DE is the culprit: switching distro you also have different libraries versions, kernel & drivers, compilation options etc.
That could help to test under KDE from Mint...

Hi vpinion. Thanks for weighing in.

I posted yesterday:

I created a Live DVD of Linux Mint 18.3 KDE version (beta), booted, ran my existing AppImage of Kdenlive 17.12 and - voila - it worked perfectly!

The Shotcut AppImage worked perfectly as well.
My post for today was a lament that Linux Mint 18.3 is the last release where KDE will officially be supported and some people are discussing moving to other distros.

Personal note: I added KDE from the Mint repository for my current 17.3 but now can't figure out how to switch to it - dang!

-=Ken=-

Well, I finally figured out how to switch from Cinnamon to KDE. It looks nice and in the couple hours I used it I noticed no problems with the DE. But, when I brought up Kdenlive I also brought up System Monitor with its very handy CPU waveform display and noticed that Kdenlive drove all four of my AMD cores to average around 60 percent (from a base of ~20 percent) with nothing loaded in. Then, when I added the Waveform Monitor into Kdenlive the cpu utilization went up to ~80 percent! Apparently just adding KDE to Mint 17.3 with Cinnamon still loaded does not provide the same benefit as a KDE only distro in Mint.

I had not payed attention to CPU utilization of Kdenlive on Cinnamon DE and when I switched back to Cinnamon and checked - it too displayed a ~60 percent utilization just by loading Kdenlive. Loading the Shotcut video editor AppImage does not boost the static cpu utilization.

I would appreciate it users here would try first loading System Monitor to show Resources/CPU History, then loading Kdenlive and tell us what the static CPU utilization is. If your stays under 20 percent then something else here is amiss. Thanks.

-=Ken=-

I just installed KDE Neon for a shakedown on an older Core2 Duo system and - Kdenlive works completely as advertised. It looks like I will be migrating to KDE Neon on my main system in a few weeks.

-=Ken=-