Linux can be fun sometimes. And frustrating at other times.
This could be problem with Mint or with Cinnamon or both or neither. This is the thing with Linux - it might just work or it may not no matter what you try.
But I'd say there is (almost) always some solution and you found one for your problem. It may have been a bit drastic, but it works.
Myself, I use MATE. I used Gentoo for a looong time and switched to Arch recently. Those are quite knowledge-requirements heavy distros but they do give back. But I stumbled upon some things that worked great on Gentoo but doesn't work on Arch that well. And there are things that work better on Arch...
XFCE has become possibly my favorite DE at this point. I actually use Cinnamon on my desktop at the moment but I use XFCE on nearly everything else, including my laptop and living room PC I use almost exclusively for video playback. I like the more antiquated, info-dense, lightweight types of DEs.
On my daily driver/gaming desktop (Kubuntu) I actually moved from KDE to Cinnamon to solve some weird compositing / video issues that I determined to be tied to a particular version of the compositor and that worked but I still get an occasional quirk here and there- including for instance, FreeTube seems to have frame lag occasionally on Cinnamon during video playback. The video will freeze for a split second. I do not have this issue on FreeTube on XFCE.
Of course, the double-edged sword with Linux is there are so many different configurations and driver versions and how all of it interacts that if I solve a problem by changing DEs, it doesn't really get to the core of why the problem was happening- in other words on Cinnamon on a different PC it's possible the problem would never occur, so it's sort-of like hammering a nail with a sledgehammer.
And I also get that being on an LTS / non-rolling distro certain bugs I run into may not get fixed for a long time and so on. Always a tradeoff somewhere
I had this exact problem on my Mint setup, the only fix was a reboot and then I would get smooth video for a couple days before going back to stuttering. This was on an older PC that I had previously run Windows 7 on until the absolute bitter end. At some point I upgraded to a new PC with much more horsepower and the problem has not resurfaced. I don't think I've rebooted my system for over 6 months now (go Linux!) and video is still smooth. Using Mint Cinnamon and VLC on both setups.
Hmm, that's interesting but not consistent with my own experiences using Cinammon in Mint. I have no issues playing videos in any of the three desktop computers I have, and they vary quite a lot in age, from brand new to one that dates from 2013. That old one is actually in use as a home theater pc, though admittedly in a very limited sense. It's just hooked to my TV and I play from internal hard drives or USB sticks. I don't stream anything.
One difference is that I use VLC to play videos. Nothing else.
That difference in your last sentence is probably the key here, though this issue doesn't affect everyone as I don't encounter it either. I have heard of it though, so it likely has some common elusive trigger.
I agree, and as I said, I do think it's an interesting sort of problem. The fact that it pops up with some hardware combinations and not others makes it a nasty bug. This sort of thing could drive developers nuts trying to track it down.
The original poster didn't mention trying VLC. Don't know if it would have helped or not, but I've rarely had issues of any kind with VLC while using it in Linux. Back in the day, while running Windows 7, I avoided VLC, as it sucked for Blu-ray playback. As far as I am aware, it still doesn't work with Blu-ray menus, but I've moved on to mkv files for the most part.
Pavouk106 | 20 hours ago
Linux can be fun sometimes. And frustrating at other times.
This could be problem with Mint or with Cinnamon or both or neither. This is the thing with Linux - it might just work or it may not no matter what you try.
But I'd say there is (almost) always some solution and you found one for your problem. It may have been a bit drastic, but it works.
Myself, I use MATE. I used Gentoo for a looong time and switched to Arch recently. Those are quite knowledge-requirements heavy distros but they do give back. But I stumbled upon some things that worked great on Gentoo but doesn't work on Arch that well. And there are things that work better on Arch...
It's like neverending cycle :-)
zod000 | 14 hours ago
MATE is my favorite DE, but I am currently using Cinnamon on my primary desktop and thankfully haven't had any issues with video playback.
0x29A | 7 hours ago
XFCE has become possibly my favorite DE at this point. I actually use Cinnamon on my desktop at the moment but I use XFCE on nearly everything else, including my laptop and living room PC I use almost exclusively for video playback. I like the more antiquated, info-dense, lightweight types of DEs.
On my daily driver/gaming desktop (Kubuntu) I actually moved from KDE to Cinnamon to solve some weird compositing / video issues that I determined to be tied to a particular version of the compositor and that worked but I still get an occasional quirk here and there- including for instance, FreeTube seems to have frame lag occasionally on Cinnamon during video playback. The video will freeze for a split second. I do not have this issue on FreeTube on XFCE.
Of course, the double-edged sword with Linux is there are so many different configurations and driver versions and how all of it interacts that if I solve a problem by changing DEs, it doesn't really get to the core of why the problem was happening- in other words on Cinnamon on a different PC it's possible the problem would never occur, so it's sort-of like hammering a nail with a sledgehammer.
And I also get that being on an LTS / non-rolling distro certain bugs I run into may not get fixed for a long time and so on. Always a tradeoff somewhere
plutonic | 8 hours ago
I had this exact problem on my Mint setup, the only fix was a reboot and then I would get smooth video for a couple days before going back to stuttering. This was on an older PC that I had previously run Windows 7 on until the absolute bitter end. At some point I upgraded to a new PC with much more horsepower and the problem has not resurfaced. I don't think I've rebooted my system for over 6 months now (go Linux!) and video is still smooth. Using Mint Cinnamon and VLC on both setups.
Kerry56 | 14 hours ago
Hmm, that's interesting but not consistent with my own experiences using Cinammon in Mint. I have no issues playing videos in any of the three desktop computers I have, and they vary quite a lot in age, from brand new to one that dates from 2013. That old one is actually in use as a home theater pc, though admittedly in a very limited sense. It's just hooked to my TV and I play from internal hard drives or USB sticks. I don't stream anything.
One difference is that I use VLC to play videos. Nothing else.
zod000 | 14 hours ago
That difference in your last sentence is probably the key here, though this issue doesn't affect everyone as I don't encounter it either. I have heard of it though, so it likely has some common elusive trigger.
Kerry56 | 7 minutes ago
I agree, and as I said, I do think it's an interesting sort of problem. The fact that it pops up with some hardware combinations and not others makes it a nasty bug. This sort of thing could drive developers nuts trying to track it down.
The original poster didn't mention trying VLC. Don't know if it would have helped or not, but I've rarely had issues of any kind with VLC while using it in Linux. Back in the day, while running Windows 7, I avoided VLC, as it sucked for Blu-ray playback. As far as I am aware, it still doesn't work with Blu-ray menus, but I've moved on to mkv files for the most part.