pulseaudio locks up firefox, won't play sound

[AndreK]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.5

This is unlike other bugreports here, because it don't stop other audio output from working.
Once firefox can't play audio no more, restarting firefox fixes the problem. - but it needs to be killed, because this problem makes firefox fail to end properly. (process remains after the window closes)

Here's why I know firefox-alsa-plugin is to blame:

-start "PulseAudio device chooser" (install if needed)
-click it's icon on the panel, and choose "Manager"
-click "statistics" button
-press "refresh" and observe "All allocated memory blocks allocated during deamon Lifetime"
--if no there is no audio output from any application, observe that the number does not increase.
--if some application play audio, the value increases until paused or stopped - then it stops as well.

Now: firefox-alsa-plugin:
if you play ANY sound in firefox, the "All allocated memory blocks allocated during deamon Lifetime" will increase forever !
you may close the playing tab and the plugin will keep streaming audio.

I am sure it's te be blamed, it behaves unlike any other application.. pumping out data whole time.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Dec 17 08:58:47 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/firefox-3.5.5/firefox
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: firefox-3.5 3.5.5+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.10.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-16.53-generic
SourcePackage: firefox-3.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-16-generic i686

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

Thank you for reporting this to Ubuntu. We don't have a firefox-alsa-plugin. This is most likely a bug in pulseaudio. The workaround is to killall pulseaudio
I'll have to see if I can find a master bug for this.

[Oren Laadan (orenl)]

I am experiencing a similar problem:

Listened to pandora.com and after some time sound from the website stopped. Went to youtube, and didn't get sound either. However, sound from other sources, like skype and ryhtmbox is fine.

The system is Ubuntu 9.10 (upgraded from 9.04), with all patches as of today. Firefox is 3.5.7.

I suspect it may be related to the flash player, because sound is still fine when the browser is receiving a stream from some web-radio (non-flash based).

I also supsect that this is a relatively recent regression due to an upgrade less than 2 months old, because I started having this problem (randomly, but repeatedly) recently, but not before.

Will be happy to provide more information or test work-arounds.

Thanks !

[Endre Stølsvik (stolsvik)]

I have nearly the exact same problem as Oren - but I have yet to experience it happen /while sound is playing/. Only when pandora.com is paused for some time, and I then try to unpause it, does it happen: It seems to play just fine, as do other tabs I open e.g. in youtube - only there is no sound anymore from any flash on that browser.

I have some observations: If pandora.com is the sole open tab having flash running, the problem is fixed by reloading that tab. I believe the entire flash engine is reloaded then (see later). Also (quite obviously if the logic about restarting flash holds) killall npviewer.bin and then reload of tab fixes it.

Killall pulseaudio does not fix the problem - on the contrary, I then have to killall npviewer.bin (or reload that frame) to get it to hook up again. Thus, npviewer/flash does not try to reconnect the audio in any way - it does not even seem to notice at all that its sound output is gone - which means that if I use two browsers (firefox and chrome), killall pulseaudio kills audio for both browsers' flash, independently so to speak: Reloading the tab in firefox does not fix the sound for flash in Chrome (yes, the browsers very obviously have one instance of npviewer.bin each).

Furthermore, when this happens, watching the Application tab in Sound Preferences, found by System->Preferences->Sound, I can still see the "ALSA plug-in [npviewer.bin]" application that corresponds to the pandora sound, as if nothing was a problem, but there is no sound (If there are several npviewer.bins there, I do known which is which by keeping track of them when they work by using the Mute checkbox (or volume slider), hearing which control which).

When I reload the tab, the one line representing that instance of npviewer.bin disappears (but if Chrome has loaded flash with sound, there was two, and then there is just one). It loads up the pandora.com interface (all flash) again, but the line doesn't reappear until the sound actually starts to play.

There are several Pulseaudio/ALSA problems in this tracker; I am also affected by the Wine problem at bug 371897, might these be somehow correlated?

[Endre Stølsvik (stolsvik)]

One more observation, which gets me thinking that what me and Oren describes is maybe not quite the same as the original poster AndreK describes.

When I do as he says - bringing up the statistics - I get that it continuously increase that number "All Allocated Memory Blocks During Daemon Lifetime" even after killall npviewer.bin, and the Sound Preferences' Applications tab show no sources (no entries). But the "Currently Allocated Memory Blocks" number is small, 3 to 4. This number instantly goes up to 45-47 when the sounds starts playing (thus npviewer.bin has started to send sound, and the Applications-tab shows the Alsa plug-in). That number doubles again up to ~90 if I also start a youtube video in Chrome (thus getting a new entry in the Applications-tab), but not if I start a youtube video in Firefox (which already runs Pandora).

So maybe this should be split into two bugs? I don't know.