Arch Linux

JohnRumsey

Member

Registered: 2015-01-27

Posts: 7

Sound for youtube player in Firefox and Chromium stopped working.

Hi

I recently did a "pacman -Syu" upgrade on my laptop.  Since the upgrade, the youtube player in both Firefox and Chromium no longer produce any sound.

Other programs such as mplayer still produce sound when playing videos.

See below for the list of packages installed by pacman in that upgrade.

Any suggestions for how to fix this will be greatly appreciated.

I'm new to these forums: if there is a more appropriate forum for this type of post, please let me know.

cheers
John Rumsey

binutils-2.25.1-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
chromium-44.0.2403.155-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
evolution-data-server-3.16.5-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
firefox-40.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
flashplugin-11.2.202.508-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
gcc-5.2.0-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
gcc-fortran-5.2.0-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
gcc-libs-5.2.0-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
glibc-2.22-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
gnupg-2.1.7-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
ldns-1.6.17-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
lib32-gcc-libs-5.2.0-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
lib32-glibc-2.22-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
lib32-harfbuzz-1.0.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
lib32-libcups-2.0.4-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
libabw-0.1.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
libe-book-0.1.2-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
libmwaw-0.3.5-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
libpagemaker-0.0.2-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
libreoffice-still-4.4.5-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
libreoffice-still-en-GB-4.4.5-2-any.pkg.tar.xz
libreoffice-still-sdk-4.4.5-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
linux-api-headers-4.1.4-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
pacman-mirrorlist-20150811-1-any.pkg.tar.xz
ppp-2.4.7-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
subversion-1.9.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz

Goresome

Member

From: Russia

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 67

Re: Sound for youtube player in Firefox and Chromium stopped working.

Do you have pulse installed? Do you see audio streams when flash is playing (in pavucontrol for example).
If you dont have pulse try testing ALSA, its likely that your default device has changed to HDMI or something.
mplayer being able to produce sound doesn't tell much, because we don't know how you configured its audio output backend.

JohnRumsey

Member

Registered: 2015-01-27

Posts: 7

Re: Sound for youtube player in Firefox and Chromium stopped working.

Do you have pulse installed?
      Yes

Do you see audio streams when flash is playing (in pavucontrol for example).
      I don't have pavucontrol installed: I use alsamixer to control volume.
      Does youtube still use flash? I thought it switched to HTML5 (which may be the problem...)

If you don't have pulse try testing ALSA, its likely that your default device has changed to HDMI or something.
      Checked ALSA - default device is correct.  If it had changed I would have expected all sound to have stopped working.

mplayer being able to produce sound doesn't tell much, because we don't know how you configured its audio output backend.

Further testing shows that sound still works properly for everything I've tried, except youtube.

My main questions are: what changed in the software updates I listed that could cause this problem, and what do I do to resolve it?

Questions that may help track this down:

Which release of Firefox switched from flash to HTML5 for youtube?
Which audio subsystem did Firefox use for Youtube playing prior to release 40.0-1?
Which audio subsystem does Firefox use for Youtube playing from release 40.0-1 onwards?
Which release of Chromium switched from flash to HTML5 for youtube?
Which audio subsystem did Chromium use for Youtube playing prior to release 44.0.2403.155-1?
Which audio subsystem does Chromium use for Youtube playing from release 44.0.2403.155-1 onwards?

Are there any other media players using HTML5 that I could test, to see if they work?

Lord_Sunday123

Member

Registered: 2014-08-04

Posts: 37

Re: Sound for youtube player in Firefox and Chromium stopped working.

Install Pavucontrol and check all the sources and such? Generally best to use the PulseAudio Controls to control Pulse

circleface

Member

Registered: 2012-05-26

Posts: 639

Re: Sound for youtube player in Firefox and Chromium stopped working.

Possibly a dumb question, but did you check the volume on the youtube applet?  It's possible the volume on your computer can be fine, but the volume on youtube has been muted for some reason.

Edit: I didn't mean it to sound like your question was dumb, I meant mine.

Last edited by circleface (2015-08-23 03:41:34)

JohnRumsey

Member

Registered: 2015-01-27

Posts: 7

Re: Sound for youtube player in Firefox and Chromium stopped working.

Lord_Sunday123: OK I'll give it a go.  Do you know that Firefox and Chromium are (trying to) use pulseaudio, or is that something I still have to find out elsewhere?  If the issue is a switch from flash to HTML5, a change from what flashplugin did to what Firefox/Chromium (are trying to) do could be the cause of the problem

Circleface: Youtube applet muting and volume were the first things I checked.

Thank you both for helping.

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 2,004

Re: Sound for youtube player in Firefox and Chromium stopped working.

Since you are using Pulse Audio make sure you have "pulseaudio-alsa" installed so it has an ALSA input.  Which Flash uses for audio.

JohnRumsey

Member

Registered: 2015-01-27

Posts: 7

Re: Sound for youtube player in Firefox and Chromium stopped working.

Today 18:53:05

headkase: pulseaudio-alsa is installed.

ooo

Member

Registered: 2013-04-10

Posts: 1,638

Re: Sound for youtube player in Firefox and Chromium stopped working.

Is it the flash based youtube player or the html5 one? You can check that by right clicking the player.

afaik, legacy flash player and both firefox and chromium use ALSA, no pulseaudio.
I think youtube decides whether it uses the html5 player or falls back to the flash based one based on the browser version you use. I don't have flash player installed on my system and youtube works fine with the html5 player on both firefox and chromium.

flashplugin is the only package on that list that I could imagine causing this issue, but it shouldn't matter if the html5 player is being used.

Please use quote tags when quoting text from other users, and code tags when pasting console output. It makes your posts nicer to read. welcome to the forums :)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,435

Re: Sound for youtube player in Firefox and Chromium stopped working.

give the output of

pacmd list-sink-inputs
pacmd list-cards

in code-Tags while trying to play something.  Note that you are seriously working against yourself if you won't use pulseaudio with its tools, pulseaudio does more than just "volume control" you won't be able to adequately control it by simply using alsamixer. Also, sanity check: you sure that you havent simply muted the yt player in its interface?

Last edited by V1del (2015-08-23 10:31:57)

Goresome

Member

From: Russia

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 67

Re: Sound for youtube player in Firefox and Chromium stopped working.

Lord_Sunday123: OK I'll give it a go.  Do you know that Firefox and Chromium are (trying to) use pulseaudio, or is that something I still have to find out elsewhere?  If the issue is a switch from flash to HTML5, a change from what flashplugin did to what Firefox/Chromium (are trying to) do could be the cause of the problem

Circleface: Youtube applet muting and volume were the first things I checked.

Thank you both for helping.

Every alsa app will use PA anyway if you have pulseaudio-alsa installed, because PA hijacks alsa device.
If you don't have pavucontrol installed then you have to, otherwise we are blindly trying to diagnose something, and you may have webbrowser stream volume set to zero (by reasons) in PA, thus no sound.
So while browser is playing something check its output stream in pavucontrol, or with commands provided above.

JohnRumsey

Member

Registered: 2015-01-27

Posts: 7

Re: Sound for youtube player in Firefox and Chromium stopped working.

ooo wrote:
> Is it the flash based youtube player or the html5 one? You can check that by right clicking the player.

Right clicking on the player in both Firefox and Chromium gives a pop-up including "About the HTML5 player".

Right clicking on the player for other videos (from slashdot, not youtube) where sound is produced, gives a pop-up including "About Adobe Flash Player"

I'm going to install some of the pulseaudio tools mentioned above and see if they can help diagnose/resolve the problem.

I don't like pulseaudio.  If you don't like a currently available tool, the right ways to deal with the problem are:
1) Add the new features you want to the existing tool, or
2) write a replacement tool that does EVERYTHING the tool you are replacing does, plus your new features.
Pulseaudio did neither of those: it adds new features but relies on ALSA for some functionality, and hijacks the interface to ALSA which interferes with applications trying to use it.  This is a selfish and arrogant approach to the issue, not least because it causes as many problems as it solves.

JohnRumsey

Member

Registered: 2015-01-27

Posts: 7

Re: Sound for youtube player in Firefox and Chromium stopped working.

I installed and ran pavucontrol, which showed audio output to the HDMI interface rather than the local speakers.  I used its configuration menu to disable and re-enable the HDMI interface.

The first results of this were that the HTML5 player started producing sound, but the flash player stopped producing sound!

Further attempts at testing both players on both FIrefox and Chromium resulted in all the players refusing to play video at all.

I rebooted my laptop, which restored sane behaviour, and I'm now getting sound from everything I expect to get sound from.

This experience hasn't improved my opinion of pulseaudio at all.  If anything it's given me more reasons to dislike it.

Thank you all for your help.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,435

Re: Sound for youtube player in Firefox and Chromium stopped working.

Nobody's forcing you to use pulseaudio and it provides valid features over plain ALSA that may not be of use to you but are to others. Unless you have defined it like that default cards switching can  and will happen on plain ALSA too. And part (the majority?) of the issue coming from you using pulseaudio but using plain alsa tools in an attempt to administer it, which will lead to failure because ALSA tools can't and won't expose the features pulseaudio provides.

Last edited by V1del (2015-08-25 16:38:02)

JohnRumsey

Member

Registered: 2015-01-27

Posts: 7

Re: Sound for youtube player in Firefox and Chromium stopped working.

V1del wrote:
> Nobody's forcing you to use pulseaudio

The only reason I have pulseaudio installed is that it is a dependency for at least one software package I want to use.  I have a choice of living with pulseaudio or living without packages that depend on it.

> using pulseaudio but using plain alsa tools in an attempt to administer it, which will lead to failure.

True, but that isn't what I was trying to do.  All the previous problems I have had with sound on this computer have been resolved using the ALSA tools, and I turned to those first to try to identify/resolve this problem.  I have no experience with managing pulseaudio, so the suggestions made by yourself and others regarding pulseaudio tools were the key to solving this problem.

Some packages require ALSA, some require pulseaudio, requiring one to run both and to go to two different places to resolve sound problems.  This is a very unsatisfactory situation.  I would happily adopt pulseaudio if I didn't have to run ALSA as well to get everything to work.  Pulseaudio in its current form creates more problems than it solves.