HTML5 audio tag: audio streaming doesn't work

[Roman Friesen]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.5

If an audio tag contains the option "controls" and doesn't contain the option "autobuffer", the streaming doesn't work - it stops after a few seconds and nothing happens.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open the reference page http://frolo.de/mku/test.html
2. Try the first test case "With autobuffer:" - the playback works
3. Try the second test case "Without autobuffer:" - the playback doesn't work
Reproducible: Always

Another issue: in cases it works (with autobuffer or locally as a file): if you press
pause (during playback) and then press play again - it doesn't work any more,
only after a page refresh.

Remarks:
- only with ogg tested
- the web server returns the mime type "application/ogg" (reference page)
- if you store the reference page locally and opens as a file, everything works
- Ubuntu: Firefox 3.5.7 in safe mode is affected too
- Ubuntu: Firefox 3.6 latest beta from ppa is affected too
- Windows XP is not affected: Firefox 3.5.7, Gecko/20091221

Upstream bug report: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=537678
But it's probably a Linux/Ubuntu bug as it works on Windows.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
CheckboxSubmission: 32e9bc5e43dee61b33319401ae2d8bcf
CheckboxSystem: bb422ca46d02494cdbc459927a98bc2f
Date: Sat Jan 9 14:53:06 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386 (20091028.5)
Package: firefox-3.5 3.5.7+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.10.1
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-17.54-generic
SourcePackage: firefox-3.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-17-generic i686

[Roman Friesen (krokosjablik)]

Strange: I have updated the ogg file on the reference page (changed size to 124KB) and it worked! Then I have changed it back to 255 KB and it didn't work. After that I added the third test case "without autobuffer and 124KB" and it didn't work any more... Finally I have removed this third test. (I deleted cache in the firefox - no affect)

[Heimen Stoffels (vistaus)]

I can confirm this with both Firefox 3.5.x and Chromium daily build.

A site with lots of HTML5 video's is http://www.twitvid.com/

In some cases the vids do work, but most of the times they do not.

[Roman Friesen (krokosjablik)]

See another not working audio example: http://www.be-jo.net/de/2009/07/spielwiese-fur-den-feuerfuchs-erstellen/

[Roman Friesen (krokosjablik)]

If you are not able to fix this bug for Lucid or believe the priority is low here, please don't forget to write in the Release Notes for 10.04 LTS "Please be aware, Firefox in Lucid doesn't support the new web technologies audio/video"...

[Roman Friesen (krokosjablik)]

I have tested Lucid alpha2 (updated today with Firefox 3.6) right now, both test cases (http://frolo.de/mku/test.html) work - not always, but work... Play/pause/play/etc. sometimes works, sometimes not... In every case it's better than in Ubuntu 9.10 with Firefox 3.5 :)

[Michael Sheldon (michael-sheldon)]

Whether it works or not in 3.6 seems to be dependent on whether enough gets buffered before things start to play or not (testing in released version of Lucid).