No sound output on i386 starting with version 79

[guest271314]

Steps to reproduce the problem:
1. Play sounds (video, audio, speech synthesis)
2.
3.

What is the expected behavior?
1. Sound should be output to headphones or speakers

What went wrong?
1. No sound is output to headphones or speakers

DOMException: Could not start audio source

Did this work before? Yes 79.0.3921.0

Does this work in other browsers? Yes

Chrome version: 79.0.3941.4 Channel: n/a

ALSA lib pcm_direct.c:1722:(snd1_pcm_direct_parse_open_conf) The field ipc_gid must be a valid group (create group audio)
[32691:32691:1027/165318.863140:ERROR:alsa_util.cc(204)] PcmOpen: default,Invalid argument

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1018580

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: chromium-browser 79.0.3941.4-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 [origin: LP-PPA-chromium-team-dev]
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-20.21-lowlatency 4.15.17
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-20-lowlatency i686
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7
Architecture: i386
CasperVersion: 1.394
CrashDB: ubuntu
CurrentDesktop: XFCE
DRM.card0-DP-1:
 enabled: disabled
 dpms: Off
 status: disconnected
 edid-base64:
 modes:
DRM.card0-HDMI-A-1:
 enabled: disabled
 dpms: Off
 status: disconnected
 edid-base64:
 modes:
DRM.card0-HDMI-A-2:
 enabled: disabled
 dpms: Off
 status: disconnected
 edid-base64:
 modes:
DRM.card0-eDP-1:
 enabled: enabled
 dpms: On
 status: connected
 edid-base64: AP///////wAGrz0RAAAAABEXAQSVHxF4AoflpFZQniYNUFQAAAABAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBFDeAuHA4JEAQED4ANa0QAAAaFDeAuHA4JEAQED4ANa0QAAAaAAAA/gBYVFJZOYBCMTQwSEFOAAAAAAAAQQKeAAAAAAoBCiAgAHg=
 modes: 1920x1080
Date: Sun Oct 27 17:45:32 2019
Desktop-Session:
 'ubuntustudio'
 '/etc/xdg/xdg-ubuntustudio:/etc/xdg:/etc/xdg'
 '/usr/share/ubuntustudio:/usr/share/xfce4:/usr/local/share:/usr/share:/var/lib/snapd/desktop:/usr/share'
DetectedPlugins:

Env:
 'None'
 'None'
InstalledPlugins:

LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu-Studio 18.04 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release i386 (20180426)
Load-Avg-1min: 0.47
Load-Processes-Running-Percent: 0.1%
MachineType: Dell Inc. Latitude E7440
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=C.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: noprompt cdrom-detect/try-usb=true file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntustudio.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash --- BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz
SourcePackage: chromium-browser
ThirdParty: True
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 05/01/2014
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A09
dmi.board.name: 03HFCG
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A00
dmi.chassis.type: 9
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA09:bd05/01/2014:svnDellInc.:pnLatitudeE7440:pvr01:rvnDellInc.:rn03HFCG:rvrA00:cvnDellInc.:ct9:cvr:
dmi.product.name: Latitude E7440
dmi.product.version: 01
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.
modified.conffile..etc.default.chromium-browser: [deleted]

[guest271314 (guest271314)]

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1018580#c18

None of the following specific Audio<feature> flags prefixed with --enable-features=

AudioServiceLaunchOnStartup
AudioServiceAudioStreams
AudioServiceOutOfProcess

have any affect.

Launching Chromium with

--no-sandbox

is the only means that have tried so far which results in audio being output at Chromium 79.0.3941.4.

Is that the expected result of the design and implementation of audio now?

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

I just tested chromium-browser 80.0.3955.4-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 from the dev PPA in an amd64 virtual machine, and sound output just works.

I then tested the same version (80.0.3955.4-0ubuntu0.18.04.1) in an i386 VM, and I can confirm sound output doesn't work. Both the debian packages and the snap are affected. Version 79.0.3945.16 in the beta channel is also affected. Version 78.0.3904.70 from the stable channel isn't.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

The upstream bug was marked Fixed, and I verified that the i386 builds for 79.0.3945.79 (debs and snap) indeed work.

[guest271314 (guest271314)]

Note, see https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1032949#c7

> @guest271314: thanks for attempting to verify. The verification, however, requires --enable-features=AudioServiceSandbox; also the latest fix in #c5, which addresses only one of the issues uncovered recently, is not yet in canary.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

In my tests, I didn't have to enable any specific features, sound output worked out of the box with the stock packages, no configuration needed.