No sound in VLC when playing a video with sound in Firefox + flash plugin

[Mathieu Gaspard]

Binary package hint: vlc

Ubuntu Hardy
Firefox 2.0.0.10, Flash player 9.0 r115

Play a flash video with sound in Firefox (youtube, dailymotion..), then try to play a video using VLC, no sound and following error message :
jack error: failed to connect to JACK server
oss error: cannot open audio device (/dev/dsp)
main error: couldn't find a filter for the conversion
main error: couldn't create audio output pipeline

Tried with all available output module (alsa, jack, oss..)

Video plays fine with sound using totem

For it to work, I have to close Firefox (probably to "release" /dev/dsp) and then play my video (if I reopen Firefox first and don"t play any video, it works too)

[asubedi (asubedi)]

I confirm this bug. There is no sound in VLC while rhythmbox is playing music.

[Shane (duairc)]

Yeah, same happens here when trying to use VLC with Quod Libet open.

[asdf (asdf123123-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

can confirm this, sound works fine everywhere except in vlc. please fix, this is annoying

[Vojtech Vitek (V-Teq) (v-teq)]

I can confirm this too (Hardy Heron Alpha-6).
Only first-started application (VLC, rhytmbox, Firefox etc.) is able to use sound output. But if I switch to another terminal (mean CTRL+ALT+F[1-6]), the sound is lost. Returning back to GUI, sound start to play again.
The only exception that's always able to play the music (without any conflict) is MOC (music on console player).

[Vojtech Vitek (V-Teq) (v-teq)]

I started VLC as the first program today. Everything about VLC was OK, but all other programs (started from GUI) had "blocked" sound output. MOC (music on console player) had also this problem when started from GUI. It's very annoying and should be fixed as early as possible.

hardy@ubuntu:~$ mocp
Running the server...
Trying JACK...
Trying ALSA...
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:874:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
Trying OSS...

FATAL_ERROR: No valid sound driver
FATAL_ERROR: Server exited

[Jeff Wilson (atlanta800)]

Pretty easy fix. Hardy uses the pulseaudio sound system by default and VLC is trying to use ALSA as the vlc pulseaudio plugin isn't installed by default. Install the package "vlc-plugin-pulse" and VLC will play nice with everything else.

[Mathieu Gaspard (lukeg)]

The pulseaudio plugin just came upstream, I have to give it a try, but it should indeed fix the problem

[Nhorning (neilhorning)]

confirmed fix on my system. Perhaps, VLC should be contacted about default settings for hardy?

[Mathieu Gaspard (lukeg)]

Works on my system too. VLC should definitely default to pulseaudio on hardy

[Mathieu Gaspard (lukeg)]

Use vlc-plugin-pulse to use pulseaudio as sound server instead of alsa

[Brewster Malevich (brews)]

If I start a file with VNC and then attempt flash-player via Firefox, sound in VNC works fine, but no sound in flash.

[Brewster Malevich (brews)]

*CORRECTION: VLC ~not~ VNC; my bad.

I was able to solve this issue by installing vlc-plugin-pulse.

[Fernand Pajot (fernandp)]

Confirmed with Rythmbox and Banshee: when playing a flash video Rhythmbox/Banshee can't play audio and vis versa.

[trax76 (vomitols)]

Problem solved after upgrading to vlc 0.9.0

[William King (quentusrex)]

I have the exact same problem, but I don't think it's with only vlc. If I have last.fm open, I can't play any movies with gstreamer. Even if last.fm isn't playing any music, I still can't get gstreamer to play the video properly, instead it plays at 1/20th of normal pace. Or if I open the movies with vlc, then I get no sound. But if I close last.fm then everything works just fine. Both vlc and gstreamer work.

[Fernand Pajot (fernandp)]

I solved the problem by installing libflashsupport.

[Joachim (joachimrs)]

I am currently on alpha4 of intrepid ibex. The issue is there with Firefox 3.0.2 and standard vlc player.

If I open a flash video in Firefox, VLC will _not_ get any sound. No matter if I close the Tabs with Flash videos in them. I have to quit Firefox completely and restart VLC, then I'll get sound back.

I _did_ install pulseaudio, I did install libflashsupport, I did change the preferences, I even checked a nightly build of a newer vlc (1.0.0-git Goldeneye) for the problem to go away, but to no avail :-( Anyone else?