Re: [gentoo-user] Firefox 49.0 & Youtube....Video: Yes - Audio: No...

[Daniel Campbell <zlg@gentoo.org>]

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On 11/28/2016 08:30 AM, Miroslav Rovis wrote:
> I just got Firefox to play HTML5 pages (and likely other stuff as well),
> with audio working, my system.
> 
> But let me first vent my frustration for why it was so hard...
> 
> On 161120-20:46+0100, Miroslav Rovis wrote:
>> Hi Daniel!
>>
> ...
>> On 161120-00:10-0800, Daniel Campbell wrote:
>>> On 11/19/2016 01:59 AM, Miroslav Rovis wrote:
>>>> On 161119-10:22+0100, Miroslav Rovis wrote:
> ...
> 
> It took me such long time, well, yes, because ALSA had advanced and I
> kept the old config, simply because it worked with all apps (but not the
> Firefox, more below...)...
> 
> What other conclusion could a not very advanced user get but this one
> below?:
>> Just in the meantime, a (hopefully) easier question: doesn't this bug
>> below mean harder to get non-pulse audio to work with Firefox:
>>>>>>>>> Mozilla went pulse all the way:
>>>>>>>>>  Require PulseAudio on Linux
>>>>>>>>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1247056
>>>>>>>>> See also:
>>>>>>>>> Firefox nightly requires Pulse Audio
>>>>>>>>> http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=130028
>> and if the other info that the dev at alsa-user gave me:
>> http://www.mail-archive.com/alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net/msg31929.html
>> where he gave the link to:
>> html5 in ff through jack
>> http://lists.linuxaudio.org/pipermail/linux-audio-user/2016-June/105188.html
> 
> And I've just delivered on this promise of mine:
>> if that means the info in that bug page is incomplte in the sense it is
>> misleading to users who want to stick with sans-pulse alsa... then once
>> I figure out how to do it, I'll post there for other users to know...
> Pls. read my comment of just some half hour ago:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1247056#c171
> 
>> [ I'll try all of your suggestions ... as I'm confident again there must
>> be a way to fix audio in FF without pulse... ] just as the other dev
>> said, that it is there, only for Archlinux, at:
>> http://www.mail-archive.com/alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net/msg31927.html
> How on Earth would a non-advanced user know after reading that Mozilla
> bug, that she/he don't need to get that another layer for suspicious
> purposes onto their fine ALSA?
> 
> Now I'll explain what was the reason it did not work (because I promised
> I would ;-) and you were kind to offer help)...
> 
> On 161120-00:10-0800, Daniel Campbell wrote:
>> On 11/19/2016 01:59 AM, Miroslav Rovis wrote:
>>> On 161119-10:22+0100, Miroslav Rovis wrote:
>>>> On 161119-00:33-0800, Daniel Campbell wrote:
>>> ...
>>>>>> And there is a question/query/my-asking-for-advice further below.
>>> ...
> ...
> No, jack was not needed, but according to:
> https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/ALSA#JACK_audio_connection_kit
> is far superior to pulseaudio, just to make clear. The below wasn't
> needed for me to solve my issue. 
>>>>>> [linuxaudio.org] html5 in ff through jack
>>>>>> http://lists.linuxaudio.org/pipermail/linux-audio-user/2016-June/thread.html#105188
>>> ...
> 
> This was one of two issues that needed to be fixed/put in place/corrected:
>>> Also:
>>>>> defaults.ctl.card x;
>>>>> defaults.pcm.card x;
> 
> Yeah! And what I had, the below...:
>>> I every do often change my default card... I have only these two lines
>>> (if I grep out all that is commented out) in my:
>>> $ cat ~/.asoundrc | grep -v '^#'  
> This:
>>> pcm.!default { type hw card 1 }
>>> ctl.!default { type hw card 1 }
> was wrong!
> (that's old config, maybe 2-3 or more years old. It just worked all the
> time, who cared... MPlayer, Vlc, the old cinch cables --the RCA IIRC--
> could get the recordings from old/new equipment... So who cared...)
> 
> So one of my two issues was exactly this one (and the change to make):
> https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/ALSA#Firefox_and_YouTube_have_no_audio_with_custom_.asoundrc_but_other_apps_do
> 
> And after making the other change first, which is simply what Gentoo Firefox
> Wiki says at:
> https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Firefox#Lack_of_sound
> so after:
> # emerge gst-plugins-meta:1.0
> 
> and changing my ~/.asoundrc to:
> 
> defaults.ctl.card 0
> defaults.pcm.card 0
> 
> (or it will be
> 
> defaults.ctl.card 1
> defaults.pcm.card 1
> 
> sometimes, in my case)
> 
> only then did Firefox finally start to play both video and audio when I
> opened HTML5 pages.
> 
> A quick test was this page (but on my offline Apache, saying it because
> I need to propagate the change to this clone that I access online with,
> I did the changes on my maste machine, so if all keeps well when into
> clone, I won't need to inform of some functionality still not there)
> (doing the one-liner below worked):
> 
> $ firefox
> http://www.CroatiaFidelis.hr/foss/cenz/iskon-t-com-miro-rovis/150320-17h_T-com_davi_ugovorima.webm
> 
> (that's actually a one-liner, only wrapped in mail)
> 
>>>>> Hope this helps.
>>>>>
>>>>> [0]: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/ALSA#Configuration
>>>>> [1]:
>>>>> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Advanced_Linux_Sound_Architecture#Set_the_default_sound_card
>>> It appears to be basically the same info as in your kind explanation...
>>>
>>> But this is now getting way more than 15 minutes... I will try to find
>>> more time, still, but not hours, for this issue...
>>>
>>>> I don't think I even need to be back to report here if this just works
>>> No, it doesn't. And the issue is not solved yet...
>>>
>>> Regards!
>>>
>> Hmm, that's strange... Your config looks sane to me (though specifying
>> something as 'type hw' can interfere with mixing sometimes; an empty or
>> non-existent ~/.asoundrc should default to dmix internally. I doubt this
>> is your problem though since it works on everything else)
>>
>> Here's an idea: try using the ALSA_CARD environment variable and run
>> Firefox with it. All you'll need is the name of your card. So if your
>> card is named "Onboard", you'd issue this:
> 
> This didn't help in my case:
>> ALSA_CARD="Onboard" firefox
> 
> No need to file a bug:
>> If this persists as a problem for you, it might be worth opening a bug
>> for it, as what I've shared is as far as my personal experience goes and
>> other people may be experiencing the same issue. You'll need to provide
>> 'emerge --info' and possibly 'emerge -pv firefox' output if you choose
>> to report a bug.
>>
>> Let me know how it goes.
> I just did ;-) !
> 
> Thanks again for caring! I like our devs, I feel fine using Gentoo. Can
> live without systemd, can even live without dbus! That's not what you
> get easily at all in all the distros!
> 
It's my pleasure. I only run PA and dbus for OBS Studio. One day this
system will be back to vanilla ALSA with apulse to fill in any gaps. :)

I'm glad you were able to find a solution. Audio is one of those things
that's almost unique to every system and problems in one system (even
with the same hardware) may not match the other, so I chose to give you
a handful of options to try, since it's not always clear which solution
is best.

If you ever get sick of manually updating the card numbers, you could
probably write a script for it.

Happy browsing,

~zlg
-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
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