[gentoo-user] html5 no longer working in firefox

[gentoo-user] html5 no longer working in firefox

[covici]

Hi.  I have found since my latest update that html5 is getting no audio
in firefox.  I am not sure what libraries are involved in this -- I
downgraded firefox to 31.3.0, compiled with debug, but no error
messages.  It worked in early November so it must have been some update,
but I can't figure out which -- how can I even troubleshoot such a
thing.  I am using gnome 3.14.x, so I have the gnome overlay and the
"unstable" version of gentoo.  I compile with a use flag of -pulseaudio,
so its mostly Alsa unless gnome says otherwise.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

         John Covici
         covici@ccs.covici.com

Re: [gentoo-user] html5 no longer working in firefox

[Marc Joliet]

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Am Tue, 16 Dec 2014 15:09:14 -0500
schrieb covici@ccs.covici.com:

> Hi.  I have found since my latest update that html5 is getting no audio
> in firefox.  I am not sure what libraries are involved in this -- I
> downgraded firefox to 31.3.0, compiled with debug, but no error
> messages.  It worked in early November so it must have been some update,
> but I can't figure out which -- how can I even troubleshoot such a
> thing.  I am using gnome 3.14.x, so I have the gnome overlay and the
> "unstable" version of gentoo.  I compile with a use flag of -pulseaudio,
> so its mostly Alsa unless gnome says otherwise.
> 
> Any ideas would be appreciated.

I don't know what exactly you mean with "no audio", but I had problems with
MP3 files not decoding anymore around the same time as you did, despite
installing Firefox with USE=gstreamer. I finally decided to debug it again
today, and had success after installing gst-plugins-mad (although I would be
surprised if gst-plugins-lame did not work, either). Now SoundCloud works again!

For the future, regarding how to debug these issues, you can try the following:

- Start Firefox from a terminal to see the log.

- Use the debug console (Ctrl-Shift-i) to see site-specific (and plug-in
  related!) error messages.

In my case I was getting gstreamer related assertion failures in the terminal,
and the debug console showed many decoding errors. That made it pretty clear
that the issue must have something to do with GStreamer.

HTH
-- 
Marc Joliet
--
"People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup

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Re: [gentoo-user] html5 no longer working in firefox

[covici]

Marc Joliet <marcec@gmx.de> wrote:

> Am Tue, 16 Dec 2014 15:09:14 -0500
> schrieb covici@ccs.covici.com:
> 
> > Hi.  I have found since my latest update that html5 is getting no audio
> > in firefox.  I am not sure what libraries are involved in this -- I
> > downgraded firefox to 31.3.0, compiled with debug, but no error
> > messages.  It worked in early November so it must have been some update,
> > but I can't figure out which -- how can I even troubleshoot such a
> > thing.  I am using gnome 3.14.x, so I have the gnome overlay and the
> > "unstable" version of gentoo.  I compile with a use flag of -pulseaudio,
> > so its mostly Alsa unless gnome says otherwise.
> > 
> > Any ideas would be appreciated.
> 
> I don't know what exactly you mean with "no audio", but I had problems with
> MP3 files not decoding anymore around the same time as you did, despite
> installing Firefox with USE=gstreamer. I finally decided to debug it again
> today, and had success after installing gst-plugins-mad (although I would be
> surprised if gst-plugins-lame did not work, either). Now SoundCloud works again!
> 
> For the future, regarding how to debug these issues, you can try the following:
> 
> - Start Firefox from a terminal to see the log.
> 
> - Use the debug console (Ctrl-Shift-i) to see site-specific (and plug-in
>   related!) error messages.
> 
> In my case I was getting gstreamer related assertion failures in the terminal,
> and the debug console showed many decoding errors. That made it pretty clear
> that the issue must have something to do with GStreamer.

By mo audio I mean that when I loaded the player (for plural site) I
heard no sound as I did before that update and was told that the player
used html5.  I will try the control-shift-i -- does firefox have to be
compiled with debug to do this?

Thanks.

-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

         John Covici
         covici@ccs.covici.com

Re: [gentoo-user] html5 no longer working in firefox

[Marc Joliet]

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Am Tue, 13 Jan 2015 15:30:12 -0500
schrieb covici@ccs.covici.com:

> Marc Joliet <marcec@gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> > Am Tue, 16 Dec 2014 15:09:14 -0500
> > schrieb covici@ccs.covici.com:
> > 
> > > Hi.  I have found since my latest update that html5 is getting no audio
> > > in firefox.  I am not sure what libraries are involved in this -- I
> > > downgraded firefox to 31.3.0, compiled with debug, but no error
> > > messages.  It worked in early November so it must have been some update,
> > > but I can't figure out which -- how can I even troubleshoot such a
> > > thing.  I am using gnome 3.14.x, so I have the gnome overlay and the
> > > "unstable" version of gentoo.  I compile with a use flag of -pulseaudio,
> > > so its mostly Alsa unless gnome says otherwise.
> > > 
> > > Any ideas would be appreciated.
> > 
> > I don't know what exactly you mean with "no audio", but I had problems with
> > MP3 files not decoding anymore around the same time as you did, despite
> > installing Firefox with USE=gstreamer. I finally decided to debug it again
> > today, and had success after installing gst-plugins-mad (although I would be
> > surprised if gst-plugins-lame did not work, either). Now SoundCloud works again!
> > 
> > For the future, regarding how to debug these issues, you can try the following:
> > 
> > - Start Firefox from a terminal to see the log.
> > 
> > - Use the debug console (Ctrl-Shift-i) to see site-specific (and plug-in
> >   related!) error messages.
> > 
> > In my case I was getting gstreamer related assertion failures in the terminal,
> > and the debug console showed many decoding errors. That made it pretty clear
> > that the issue must have something to do with GStreamer.
> 
> By mo audio I mean that when I loaded the player (for plural site) I
> heard no sound as I did before that update and was told that the player
> used html5.

That still sounds too vague to me, as I cannot tell whether you mean that the
file does not play at all, or that it plays, but you can't hear anything, or
maybe even that it's not possible to tell what exactly is going wrong.

> I will try the control-shift-i -- does firefox have to be
> compiled with debug to do this?

No, you don't need to install firefox with FEATURES=debug.  The debug console
is part of Firefox's built-in set of web developer tools.

HTH
-- 
Marc Joliet
--
"People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup

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Re: [gentoo-user] html5 no longer working in firefox

[covici]

Marc Joliet <marcec@gmx.de> wrote:

> Am Tue, 13 Jan 2015 15:30:12 -0500
> schrieb covici@ccs.covici.com:
> 
> > Marc Joliet <marcec@gmx.de> wrote:
> > 
> > > Am Tue, 16 Dec 2014 15:09:14 -0500
> > > schrieb covici@ccs.covici.com:
> > > 
> > > > Hi.  I have found since my latest update that html5 is getting no audio
> > > > in firefox.  I am not sure what libraries are involved in this -- I
> > > > downgraded firefox to 31.3.0, compiled with debug, but no error
> > > > messages.  It worked in early November so it must have been some update,
> > > > but I can't figure out which -- how can I even troubleshoot such a
> > > > thing.  I am using gnome 3.14.x, so I have the gnome overlay and the
> > > > "unstable" version of gentoo.  I compile with a use flag of -pulseaudio,
> > > > so its mostly Alsa unless gnome says otherwise.
> > > > 
> > > > Any ideas would be appreciated.
> > > 
> > > I don't know what exactly you mean with "no audio", but I had problems with
> > > MP3 files not decoding anymore around the same time as you did, despite
> > > installing Firefox with USE=gstreamer. I finally decided to debug it again
> > > today, and had success after installing gst-plugins-mad (although I would be
> > > surprised if gst-plugins-lame did not work, either). Now SoundCloud works again!
> > > 
> > > For the future, regarding how to debug these issues, you can try the following:
> > > 
> > > - Start Firefox from a terminal to see the log.
> > > 
> > > - Use the debug console (Ctrl-Shift-i) to see site-specific (and plug-in
> > >   related!) error messages.
> > > 
> > > In my case I was getting gstreamer related assertion failures in the terminal,
> > > and the debug console showed many decoding errors. That made it pretty clear
> > > that the issue must have something to do with GStreamer.
> > 
> > By mo audio I mean that when I loaded the player (for plural site) I
> > heard no sound as I did before that update and was told that the player
> > used html5.
> 
> That still sounds too vague to me, as I cannot tell whether you mean that the
> file does not play at all, or that it plays, but you can't hear anything, or
> maybe even that it's not possible to tell what exactly is going wrong.
> 
> > I will try the control-shift-i -- does firefox have to be
> > compiled with debug to do this?
> 
> No, you don't need to install firefox with FEATURES=debug.  The debug console
> is part of Firefox's built-in set of web developer tools.

hmmm, for the moment, I am assuming that the video is visible, but no
sound, as I am "visually impaired" this is an assumption.  But the
player loads and the time of the video keeps moving so this assumption
may be correct.


-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

         John Covici
         covici@ccs.covici.com

Re: [gentoo-user] html5 no longer working in firefox

[Marc Joliet]

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Am Tue, 13 Jan 2015 17:25:36 -0500
schrieb covici@ccs.covici.com:

> Marc Joliet <marcec@gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> > Am Tue, 13 Jan 2015 15:30:12 -0500
> > schrieb covici@ccs.covici.com:
> > 
> > > Marc Joliet <marcec@gmx.de> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Am Tue, 16 Dec 2014 15:09:14 -0500
> > > > schrieb covici@ccs.covici.com:
> > > > 
> > > > > Hi.  I have found since my latest update that html5 is getting no audio
> > > > > in firefox.  I am not sure what libraries are involved in this -- I
> > > > > downgraded firefox to 31.3.0, compiled with debug, but no error
> > > > > messages.  It worked in early November so it must have been some update,
> > > > > but I can't figure out which -- how can I even troubleshoot such a
> > > > > thing.  I am using gnome 3.14.x, so I have the gnome overlay and the
> > > > > "unstable" version of gentoo.  I compile with a use flag of -pulseaudio,
> > > > > so its mostly Alsa unless gnome says otherwise.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Any ideas would be appreciated.
> > > > 
> > > > I don't know what exactly you mean with "no audio", but I had problems with
> > > > MP3 files not decoding anymore around the same time as you did, despite
> > > > installing Firefox with USE=gstreamer. I finally decided to debug it again
> > > > today, and had success after installing gst-plugins-mad (although I would be
> > > > surprised if gst-plugins-lame did not work, either). Now SoundCloud works again!

Just for the record, since you use Firefox 31.3.0, I don't think this is it,
because it depends on gst-plugins-meta, which pulls in all relevant gstreamer
plug-ins depending on your USE flags.  The problem I was referring to above is
limited to Firefox 35.0.

[...]
> > > I will try the control-shift-i -- does firefox have to be
> > > compiled with debug to do this?
> > 
> > No, you don't need to install firefox with FEATURES=debug.  The debug console
> > is part of Firefox's built-in set of web developer tools.
> 
> hmmm, for the moment, I am assuming that the video is visible, but no
> sound, as I am "visually impaired" this is an assumption.  But the
> player loads and the time of the video keeps moving so this assumption
> may be correct.

That's the sort of thing I was thinking of :) .  From what you say, I agree
with your assumption that playback itself works.  Although, I vaguely recall
that Firefox can play videos without sound if only the audio codec is
unsupported (or maybe I'm thinking about playback without soundcard access,
like when I have JACK running), so it could *potentially* still be a codec
problem, despite what I wrote above. You should be able to verify that with the
debug console that I already mentioned.

Now as to why you don't here anything, I can only, at best, make educated
guesses.  Alas, I use pulseaudio, so I don't have any experience with Firefox
with USE=-pulseaudio. My only ideas at the moment are:

- Verify that sound in other applications works, if you haven't already.

- Double-check the volume settings.

- Verify that Firefox can actually access the soundcard (though this should not
  be a problem if you use the ALSA dmix plug-in, which is the default, I think).

- In the event that it might be a codec problem after all, verify your USE flags
  (e.g., check for mp3, ogg, or whatever is failing).

I don't think that there are any audio settings in Firefox itself, though I
could be mistaken (I did look in about:config, but still couldn't find
anything).

HTH
-- 
Marc Joliet
--
"People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup

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Re: [gentoo-user] html5 no longer working in firefox

[covici]

Marc Joliet <marcec@gmx.de> wrote:

> Am Tue, 13 Jan 2015 17:25:36 -0500
> schrieb covici@ccs.covici.com:
> 
> > Marc Joliet <marcec@gmx.de> wrote:
> > 
> > > Am Tue, 13 Jan 2015 15:30:12 -0500
> > > schrieb covici@ccs.covici.com:
> > > 
> > > > Marc Joliet <marcec@gmx.de> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > Am Tue, 16 Dec 2014 15:09:14 -0500
> > > > > schrieb covici@ccs.covici.com:
> > > > > 
> > > > > > Hi.  I have found since my latest update that html5 is getting no audio
> > > > > > in firefox.  I am not sure what libraries are involved in this -- I
> > > > > > downgraded firefox to 31.3.0, compiled with debug, but no error
> > > > > > messages.  It worked in early November so it must have been some update,
> > > > > > but I can't figure out which -- how can I even troubleshoot such a
> > > > > > thing.  I am using gnome 3.14.x, so I have the gnome overlay and the
> > > > > > "unstable" version of gentoo.  I compile with a use flag of -pulseaudio,
> > > > > > so its mostly Alsa unless gnome says otherwise.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Any ideas would be appreciated.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I don't know what exactly you mean with "no audio", but I had problems with
> > > > > MP3 files not decoding anymore around the same time as you did, despite
> > > > > installing Firefox with USE=gstreamer. I finally decided to debug it again
> > > > > today, and had success after installing gst-plugins-mad (although I would be
> > > > > surprised if gst-plugins-lame did not work, either). Now SoundCloud works again!
> 
> Just for the record, since you use Firefox 31.3.0, I don't think this is it,
> because it depends on gst-plugins-meta, which pulls in all relevant gstreamer
> plug-ins depending on your USE flags.  The problem I was referring to above is
> limited to Firefox 35.0.
> 
> [...]
> > > > I will try the control-shift-i -- does firefox have to be
> > > > compiled with debug to do this?
> > > 
> > > No, you don't need to install firefox with FEATURES=debug.  The debug console
> > > is part of Firefox's built-in set of web developer tools.
> > 
> > hmmm, for the moment, I am assuming that the video is visible, but no
> > sound, as I am "visually impaired" this is an assumption.  But the
> > player loads and the time of the video keeps moving so this assumption
> > may be correct.
> 
> That's the sort of thing I was thinking of :) .  From what you say, I agree
> with your assumption that playback itself works.  Although, I vaguely recall
> that Firefox can play videos without sound if only the audio codec is
> unsupported (or maybe I'm thinking about playback without soundcard access,
> like when I have JACK running), so it could *potentially* still be a codec
> problem, despite what I wrote above. You should be able to verify that with the
> debug console that I already mentioned.
> 
> Now as to why you don't here anything, I can only, at best, make educated
> guesses.  Alas, I use pulseaudio, so I don't have any experience with Firefox
> with USE=-pulseaudio. My only ideas at the moment are:
> 
> - Verify that sound in other applications works, if you haven't already.
> 
> - Double-check the volume settings.
> 
> - Verify that Firefox can actually access the soundcard (though this should not
>   be a problem if you use the ALSA dmix plug-in, which is the default, I think).
> 
> - In the event that it might be a codec problem after all, verify your USE flags
>   (e.g., check for mp3, ogg, or whatever is failing).
> 
> I don't think that there are any audio settings in Firefox itself, though I
> could be mistaken (I did look in about:config, but still couldn't find
> anything).

Funny thing is it used to work fine, early November and then some update
broke the thing, but I will definitely try the debug console and see if
it tells me anything.

Thanks.


-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

         John Covici
         covici@ccs.covici.com

Re: [gentoo-user] html5 no longer working in firefox

[Walter Dnes]

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 05:06:55PM -0500, covici@ccs.covici.com wrote

> Funny thing is it used to work fine, early November and then some update
> broke the thing, but I will definitely try the debug console and see if
> it tells me anything.

  Try creating a new Firefox profile and see if sound works.  If it
works then the problem is with your mimeTypes.rdf file (long story).
We'll worry about fixing that later if necessary.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] html5 no longer working in firefox

[covici]

Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 05:06:55PM -0500, covici@ccs.covici.com wrote
> 
> > Funny thing is it used to work fine, early November and then some update
> > broke the thing, but I will definitely try the debug console and see if
> > it tells me anything.
> 
>   Try creating a new Firefox profile and see if sound works.  If it
> works then the problem is with your mimeTypes.rdf file (long story).
> We'll worry about fixing that later if necessary.

What I got out of the control-shift-i console is specified type
attribute of "" not supported load of media resource failed.
All  candidate resources failed to load media load paused.
Now, getting a new profile made things work, I will have to set all the
settings again -- I hope things don't break, but now I wonder what
happened because I lost all the bookmarks, etc.  I renamed the old
profile, so its still there so maybe something can be figured out.

I appreciate all the help so far on this.

-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

         John Covici
         covici@ccs.covici.com

[gentoo-user] Re: html5 no longer working in firefox

[»Q«]

On Thu, 15 Jan 2015 07:43:24 -0500
covici@ccs.covici.com wrote:

> I will have to set all the  settings again -- I hope things don't
> break, but now I wonder what happened because I lost all the
> bookmarks, etc.  I renamed the old profile, so its still there so
> maybe something can be figured out.

<https://support.mozilla.org/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile>

I'm sorry I can't help with the sound problem in the original profile,
but that should help you carry on with at least your bookmarks.

Before copying over any foo.sqlite files, remove all foo.sqlite.* files
from the target profile directory.  (I don't think the page mentions
those files -- on other platforms, they seem to be cleared on exit, but
just lately on Linux they are hanging around.)

Re: [gentoo-user] html5 no longer working in firefox

[Walter Dnes]

On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 07:43:24AM -0500, covici@ccs.covici.com wrote

> What I got out of the control-shift-i console is specified type
> attribute of "" not supported load of media resource failed.
> All  candidate resources failed to load media load paused.
> Now, getting a new profile made things work, I will have to set all the
> settings again -- I hope things don't break, but now I wonder what
> happened because I lost all the bookmarks, etc.  I renamed the old
> profile, so its still there so maybe something can be figured out.

  You can copy stuff from your old profile.  The important stuff is in
addons.sqlite
content-prefs.sqlite
cookies.sqlite
extensions.sqlite
formhistory.sqlite
permissions.sqlite
places.sqlite
signons.sqlite
webappsstore.sqlite

  E.g. places. sqlite is a combination of bookmarks and history.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] html5 no longer working in firefox

[covici]

Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 07:43:24AM -0500, covici@ccs.covici.com wrote
> 
> > What I got out of the control-shift-i console is specified type
> > attribute of "" not supported load of media resource failed.
> > All  candidate resources failed to load media load paused.
> > Now, getting a new profile made things work, I will have to set all the
> > settings again -- I hope things don't break, but now I wonder what
> > happened because I lost all the bookmarks, etc.  I renamed the old
> > profile, so its still there so maybe something can be figured out.
> 
>   You can copy stuff from your old profile.  The important stuff is in
> addons.sqlite
> content-prefs.sqlite
> cookies.sqlite
> extensions.sqlite
> formhistory.sqlite
> permissions.sqlite
> places.sqlite
> signons.sqlite
> webappsstore.sqlite
> 
>   E.g. places. sqlite is a combination of bookmarks and history.


Thanks, I will try that.  I wonder why it went bad, it was very
frustrating.  I think I will just copy that one file and not try to get
it all since some of it may be corrupted.


-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

         John Covici
         covici@ccs.covici.com

Re: [gentoo-user] html5 no longer working in firefox

[Marc Joliet]

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Am Thu, 15 Jan 2015 07:43:24 -0500
schrieb covici@ccs.covici.com:

> Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 05:06:55PM -0500, covici@ccs.covici.com wrote
> > 
> > > Funny thing is it used to work fine, early November and then some update
> > > broke the thing, but I will definitely try the debug console and see if
> > > it tells me anything.
> > 
> >   Try creating a new Firefox profile and see if sound works.  If it
> > works then the problem is with your mimeTypes.rdf file (long story).
> > We'll worry about fixing that later if necessary.
> 
> What I got out of the control-shift-i console is specified type
> attribute of "" not supported load of media resource failed.
> All  candidate resources failed to load media load paused.
> Now, getting a new profile made things work, I will have to set all the
> settings again -- I hope things don't break, but now I wonder what
> happened because I lost all the bookmarks, etc.  I renamed the old
> profile, so its still there so maybe something can be figured out.
> 
> I appreciate all the help so far on this.

A late reply, but regardless: I'm glad you got things working again!

-- 
Marc Joliet
--
"People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup

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