Re: Audio output from firefox

[manlyphall%manlymail.net@localhost]

> Sometime recently (in early- to mid-February timeframe), firefox has stopped
> producing any audio output.  Other audio players (such as
> multimedia/gmplayer) work fine, so I don't think it is a problem with the
> kernel or device driver.
> 
> FWIW, I'm currently using an amd64-7.99.59 kernel (from February 15), with
> firefox-52.0, but I'm pretty sure the problem also existed with
> firefox-51.0.1
> 
> 
> +------------------+--------------------------+------------------------+
> | Paul Goyette     | PGP Key fingerprint:     | E-mail addresses:      |
> | (Retired)        | FA29 0E3B 35AF E8AE 6651 | paul at whooppee.com   |
> | Kernel Developer | 0786 F758 55DE 53BA 7731 | pgoyette at netbsd.org |
> +------------------+--------------------------+------------------------+
> 

Have you installed pulseaudio? I have worked around pulseaudio before 
and had audio with Firefox. I've had to do something similar with 
Seamonkey. I can't remember which one needed me to create a custom flag. 
But the flag implemented to build without pulseaudio, in the one, was 
the exact way I implemented it in the other.

If you are installing from a precomiled package, then you will have to 
ensure that pulseaudio is configured correctly. This is because the 
default build is dependent on pulseaudio for audio.

If you are using a mixer of some kind, you need to make sure that it is 
addressing pulseaudio for volume adjustments and mute. Sometimes channel 
configurations create issues too. I think pulseaudio would adjust the OS 
audio system volume, but it might be good not to count on that. Meaning 
that you should make sure the OS audio volume and the pulseaudio volume 
are both not muted and increased to an audible level. 

Soon it won't matter ,if you don't want pulseaudio as a dependency, 
since pulseaudio will be required to build Firefox. If a missing 
pulseaudio is the problem, it should be an easy fix (for now). If you 
don't want pulseaudio, as I do not, you may need to look into finding 
an alternative to Firefox. Seamonkey might not be a future alternative, 
since it may require too much reimplentation the further Firefox 
developes in the direction it does. That is unless it follows the same 
direction. Then it would be just as useless to you.