Arch Linux

mhd

Member

Registered: 2008-02-06

Posts: 21

Firefox freezes, probably related to audio issues

I've got a problem that doesn't seem to be all that uncommon, yet none of the fixes posted here or on other distribution's sites has helped me this far.

I'm using mpd for playback, configured to use ALSA's dmix. So far it all seems to work out fine, I can stream multiple audio files using any combination of mpd, moc, mpg321 and alsaplayer. Yet firefox itself often freezes during flash playback. With the current setup, it doesn't happen from the start, but e.g. after changing to another video in youtube, the whole browser freezes up when it's trying to load that video. If I un-pause my mpd, it can't connect, so it seems that firefox is having some problems with the audio devices. Once I kill firefox, playback resumes.

The packages are:
firefox 2.0.0.12-2
flashplugin 9.0.115.0-2
mpd 0.13.1-2

and the rest is generally synchronized with the Arch repository. Starting firefox with "aoss firefox" doesn't help either.

asound.conf looks like this:

# ~/.asoundrc:

pcm.dsp0 {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "dmix"
}

ctl.mixer0 {
    type hw
    card 0
}

pcm.!default {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "dmix"

Any tips on how to resolve this?

kumico

Member

Registered: 2007-09-28

Posts: 224

Website

Re: Firefox freezes, probably related to audio issues

sounds like fx/flash is trying to lock on to the device.
try installing libflashsupport, it worked for me in the past.
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php

mhd

Member

Registered: 2008-02-06

Posts: 21

Re: Firefox freezes, probably related to audio issues

Nope, just installing the package doesn't help, and creating a whole pulseaudio setup seems a bit like overkill. Anyway, the latest Firefox release haven't been the most stable in my experience (nevermind whether it's Windows, Mac or Linux), so I might try as well some other browsers while I'm at it. Up 'til now I haven't been able to provoke Kazehakase into freezing, although it uses the same engine and plugins...

Bob-Hur

Member

Registered: 2007-12-09

Posts: 43

Re: Firefox freezes, probably related to audio issues

I got some good ideas from this discussion, thanks! I commented out the MPD daemon, restarted and tested, and no more lockup of Firefox. I'll just use Banshee, it isn't as light and slick as sonata+mpd, but it will do fine for what I need.

Thanks guys!

Damnshock

Member

From: Barcelona

Registered: 2006-09-13

Posts: 414

Re: Firefox freezes, probably related to audio issues

This really helped, thanks guys.

Damnshock

---

My blog: blog.marcdeop.com
Jabber ID: damnshock@jabber.org