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

[Daniel Campbell]

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.
> ...
>>>>>> If jackd is to do with alsa, then it could be the following.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 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
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hmmm...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Is there any fix for that?
>>>>>> Not familiar with jackd. But as far as alsa (which I stick to, like
>>>>>> other discontented users), I don't have sound since months ago.  The
>>>>>> only way to get it would be to compile alsa myself, I'm afraid.
>>>>>>
> ...
>>>> In that thred on alsa-user archive that I linked to, I got this link:
>>>>
>>>> [linuxaudio.org] html5 in ff through jack
>>>> http://lists.linuxaudio.org/pipermail/linux-audio-user/2016-June/thread.html#105188
> ...
>> So it's only this, probably (and I had given links that, indirectly,
>> mislead another Gentoo user...):
> ( No, it's not only this: )
>>> Generally if you run into this problem, it's one of two things:
> I've looked all options of my alsamixer, and it doesn't appear to me
> that is's muted. I can play anything with MPlayer, and I can play an
> HTML video by giving the url to Vlc...
>>> 1. `alsamixer` hasn't been used to unmute the levels. After configuring
>>> it, be sure to run 'alsactl store' as root and make sure the 'alsasound'
>>> service is in the default run-level (`rc-update add alsasound default`
>>> as root), or...
>>> 2. Try adding these to your user's ~/.asoundrc file:
>
> Also:
>>> defaults.ctl.card x;
>>> defaults.pcm.card x;
> 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 '^#'
>
> pcm.!default { type hw card 1 }
> ctl.!default { type hw card 1 }
>
> and sometimes I need to set it to 0, sometimes to 1 (depending of the
> update of the system and where the old Hauppauge HVR3000's audio, or the
> MBO's Intel HD Audio end up...
>
> So this below is what I somehow practice since long:
>>> Replace 'x' with the numeric index of your card (which you can view in
>>> alsamixer using F6).
> That does give the option to choose the card. But it's only one of the
> two, the Hauppauge or the Intel HD...
>
> Starting alsamixer and hitting F3 should be where to look for. And I
> don't see anything the changing of which gives me audio to work in
> Firefox...
>>> If the order of your cards changes on boot, you'll
>>> need to tell the module controlling your sound (snd_hda_intel is common)
>>> to set its index in a file like /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf, with
>>> lines like `options snd_hda_intel index=1` or something similar.
> I have all built in the kernel. I do have audio, such as with MPlayer or
> with Vlc, just I don't have audio in Firefox.
>
>>> Others have done a far better job explaining this than me. Our own guide
>>> on our wiki [0] and Arch's wiki [1] should be adequate to get you going
>>> fairly quickly. Just Ctrl+F "default" to find what you need. Assuming
>>> you don't have exotic hardware, this can be fixed in 15 minutes or less.
>>>
>>> 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:

ALSA_CARD="Onboard" firefox

in a terminal, go to Youtube, and check stdout in the terminal.

You can check for your card names with this pipeline:

aplay -l | awk '/^card/{print$3}' | sort | uniq

For me, my primary card is "SB", which is onboard Intel HDA.

If you can get $ALSA_CARD to work, then we know firefox itself can play
sound, but somehow isn't defaulting to the device you want it to. Back
when I used ALSA + apulse (and intend to do so again some time in the
future...), I used $ALSA_CARD for some programs that misbehaved and
things were okay.

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