[SOLVED] Firefox video playback not working

samirnassar · 2022-03-29 08:48:33

SOLVED

The problem was misconfigured sound. Firefox will apparently not play back video if audio is not configured correctly.

# pactl info
Connection failure: Connection refused

I fixed this with:

# pacman -S pipewire-zeroconf extra/pipewire-v4l2 extra/pipewire-pulse extra/pipewire-alsa wireplumber pipewire

then:

$ systemctl start --user pipewire
$ systemctl start --user pipewire-pulse

Then tried pactl again:

$ pactl info
Server String: /run/user/1000/pulse/native
Library Protocol Version: 35
Server Protocol Version: 35
Is Local: yes
Client Index: 154
Tile Size: 65472
User Name: sn
Host Name: darklight
Server Name: PulseAudio (on PipeWire 0.3.48)
Server Version: 15.0.0
Default Sample Specification: float32le 2ch 48000Hz
Default Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Default Sink: alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo
Default Source: alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo
Cookie: 8c6b:87a8

After that video worked fine.

Original post

I have a fresh install and am trying to get Firefox to play videos. Examples are youtube and netflix.

Hardware video acceleration is a bonus, but to be honest this laptop does two things: play videos and run things like konsole, packer, terraform, etc. so I have CPU cycles to spare for software decoding.

What the problem looks like:

On youtube, but also on https://peach.blender.org/trailer-page/, when I go to watch a video I can get individual frames, but the movie does not play: https://download.blender.org/peach/trai … r_720p.mov

I am running firefox on Plasma (Wayland)

Some info from "about:support"

Features

Compositing    WebRender (Software)
WebGL 1 Driver Renderer    Intel Open Source Technology Center -- Mesa DRI Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000 (IVB GT2)
WebGL 1 Driver Version    3.0 Mesa 21.3.7
WebGL 2 Driver Renderer    Intel Open Source Technology Center -- Mesa DRI Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000 (IVB GT2)
WebGL 2 Driver Version    4.2 (Core Profile) Mesa 21.3.7
Window Protocol    wayland
Desktop Environment    kde
Target Frame Rate    60
GPU #1
Active    Yes
Description    Mesa DRI Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000 (IVB GT2)
Vendor ID    0x8086
Device ID    0x0166
Driver Vendor    mesa/i965
Driver Version    21.3.7.0
RAM    0

Decision Log

HW_COMPOSITING    
available by default
disabled by user: Disabled by layers.acceleration.disabled=true
OPENGL_COMPOSITING    
unavailable by default: Hardware compositing is disabled
WEBRENDER    
available by default
force_enabled by user: Force enabled by pref
unavailable-no-hw-compositing by runtime: Hardware compositing is disabled
WEBRENDER_QUALIFIED    
available by default
WEBRENDER_COMPOSITOR    
disabled by default: Disabled by default
blocklisted by env: Blocklisted by gfxInfo
WEBRENDER_PARTIAL    
available by default
WEBRENDER_SHADER_CACHE    
disabled by default: Disabled by default
unavailable by runtime: WebRender disabled
WEBRENDER_OPTIMIZED_SHADERS    
available by default
unavailable by runtime: WebRender disabled
WEBRENDER_ANGLE    
available by default
unavailable by env: OS not supported
WEBRENDER_DCOMP_PRESENT    
available by default
disabled by user: User disabled via pref
unavailable by env: Requires Windows 10 or later
unavailable by runtime: Requires ANGLE
WEBRENDER_SOFTWARE    
available by default
WEBGPU    
disabled by default: Disabled by default
blocked by runtime: WebGPU can only be enabled in nightly
X11_EGL    
available by default
DMABUF    
available by default

Environment Variables

Name     Value
GDK_DPI_SCALE    1
MOZ_DISABLE_RDD_SANDBOX    1
DISPLAY    :1
MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND    1
GDK_SCALE    1
MOZ_ASSUME_USER_NS    1

# lshw
laptop                   
    description: Notebook
    product: 2352CTO (LENOVO_MT_2352)
    vendor: LENOVO
    version: ThinkPad T430s
    serial: R9VZ806
    width: 64 bits
    capabilities: smbios-2.7 dmi-2.7 smp vsyscall32

$ vainfo
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.13 (libva 2.14.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel i965 driver for Intel(R) Ivybridge Mobile - 2.4.1
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264StereoHigh         : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Simple              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Main                : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Advanced            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileNone                   : VAEntrypointVideoProc
      VAProfileJPEGBaseline           : VAEntrypointVLD

Last edited by samirnassar (2022-03-29 10:02:56)

V1del · 2022-03-29 09:10:55

Firefox is not using VDPAU, so if this is your stated goal then this will have no relevance. Not sure VDPAU ever worked well on intel, but just from this output the old compat layer tries to use the wrong dri driver, and I'd generally assume the article is in general outdated here, in pure theory with the new iris GL gallium drivers intel cards should™ just be supported by the standard mesa-vdpau . There are in any case very little usecases outside of nvidia cards that require or have any relevance for VDPAU.

Since this is not your problem, what is your actual problem? How does "firefox playing videos" not work properly? HW acceleration is in fact not enabled by default, and should not have any inherent relevance. What I'm assuming to be more likely is that your audio device is blocked by some tool and that prevents playback, what's your output for

sudo fuser -v /dev/snd/*
pactl list sinks
pactl list sink-inputs

during "not working video"?

IF you actually want to enable hardware decoded video, have you seen: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Firefo … celeration ?

Last edited by V1del (2022-03-29 09:21:07)

samirnassar · 2022-03-29 09:20:39

I am just trying to debug the firefox problem I am having and thought misconfigured hardware acceleration is the problem.

I will edit the the post to reflect the actual problem I have and am trying to solve.

samirnassar · 2022-03-29 09:37:50

Ah lovely. Today I learned that blocked audio stops video from playing.

V1del · 2022-03-29 09:49:20

Please wrap those firefox diagnostics in code tags as well.

Were you able to fix this with the hint in regards to the audio device? FWIW firefox in particular has some very strange logistics and dependencies on the audio device that I'm not entirely sure as to why they are even implemented that way.

If you were able to fix this, then please mark as [SOLVED] by editing the title in your first post.

samirnassar · 2022-03-29 10:08:31

Thanks for your help V1del. I think this seems to be a newer thing with Firefox. In the past I remember being able to play video on Firefox without sound configured at which point I would have noticed non-working sound and fixed this. I will leave a note in the wiki too.

Arch Linux

#1 2022-03-29 08:48:33