Packman codecs do not solve Internet browser audio issue

English Multimedia
#1

I have four machines running Leap 15.3 and two running Leap 15.2. All of them are able to play audio through VLC, I gather because VLC has its own dedicated codecs. Audio from the browser (Firefox, Chrome, etc.) does not work on the 15.3 platforms.

I have followed the multimedia guide on this forum (Welcome to multimedia sub-area), the short guide (posted 08/22/21), the openSuSE Wiki, opensuse-guide.org (1-click, command line, YaST, including package switching), and suggestions in posts by frequent posters to the forums - nothing works. Moreover, I ran into multiple conflicts that required choices - perhaps I made wrong ones. Ironically, neither of the 15.2 machines are using codecs from the Packman repository - just the openSuSE main and update OSS repositories.

Here are links to the alsa script results:

Machine 6 - 15.3 - alsa1: https://susepaste.org/61893707

Machine 9 - 15.3 - alsa2: https://susepaste.org/42724282

Machine 7 - 15.3 - alsa5: https://susepaste.org/80817585

Machine 5 - 15.2 - alsa3: https://susepaste.org/63496802

Machine 8 - 15.2 - alsa4: https://susepaste.org/7637330

I welcome your comments and advice.

#2

Might be pipewire - I had to remove pipewire to get sound in 15.3.

#3

Vlc needs gstreamer Codecs, firefox needs ffmpeg, so do you switch to Packman Codecs:

zypper dup --from PACKMAN --allow-vendor-change

Replace PACKMAN with the name or URL of the Packman Repo.

#4

Thanks for the replies. I did switch to Packman - in YaST and command line - as instructed in numerous places as part of the codec install. No audio.

Is 15.3 different from 15.2 to the extent that the main repository codecs fail to work on 15.3?

larryr - I see that pipewire is installed on at least one 15.2 platform and two of the 15.3 platforms. Other than the description I read in various places, it’s not clear to me whether it is running (systemctl does not so indicate). I could uninstall the packages in YaSt, but I’m not sure what that would accomplish. Please advise.

#5

Audio with vlc is working?

Do you use pavucontrol for controlling the audio?

#6

As stated in my initial post, VLC works on all of the platforms (15.2 & 15.3); VLC has its own dedicated codecs (see them in YaST - search for “vlc”).

I use kmix. Moreover, pulseaudio is shown as running on only one of the platforms (machine 6 - 15.3; see the alsa script report).

#7

Run

pactl info

That will show whether pulseaudio is running natively or via pipewire.

#8

deano -

I already ran pactl info - connection refused:

linux-9:~ # pactl info
Connection failure: Connection refused
pa_context_connect() failed: Connection refused
linux-9:~ #

Pulseaudio is running on only one of the 15.3 machines (see the first listed alsa script); it’s not running on the two 15.2 machines. But I have full sound on the 15.2 platforms.

At least two earlier posts in this forum state that the op had sound with 15.2 but not 15.3. Perhaps this issue will resolve itself as a result of a future patch. For the moment, I will keep my two 15.2 installations unless I can generate sound other than VLC on the 15.3 platforms. Nevertheless, I’m appreciative of and remain open to suggestions.

Joel

#9

There are at least three bug reports involving 15.3; I recognize that they may not be relevant to my issue.

https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1187246

https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1188166

https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1187699

#10

Post:

zypper se -si libavcodec
#11

Which desktop environments are you using? It might only be triggered on demand in your environments. For KDE and Gnome users it is started upon user login…
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Pulseaudio

PulseAudio is enabled by default in openSUSE installations. The daemon is automatically started if an application tries to use pulseaudio. Logging in to KDE or Gnome desktop environments will trigger it to start for example.

It may not be related to your issue anyway.

#12

Sauerland - here are the reports for one 15.3 platform and one 15.2 platform, confirming what is stated in the initial post - the 15.2 platforms provide audio with codecs from the main/update openSuSE repos.

for machine 6 - leap 15.3:

linux-6:~ # zypper se -si libavcodec
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...

S  | Name             | Type    | Version         | Arch   | Repository
---+------------------+---------+-----------------+--------+-----------
i+ | libavcodec57     | package | 3.4.8-pm153.5.4 | x86_64 | Packman
i+ | libavcodec58_134 | package | 4.4-pm153.2.6   | x86_64 | Packman
linux-6:~ # 

* * * 

for machine 5 - leap 15.2:

linux-5:~ # zypper se -si libavcodec
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...

S  | Name         | Type    | Version           | Arch   | Repository
---+--------------+---------+-------------------+--------+-----------------------
i+ | libavcodec57 | package | 3.4.4-lp152.3.7   | x86_64 | Main Repository
i+ | libavcodec58 | package | 4.2.1-lp152.2.6.1 | x86_64 | Main Update Repository
linux-5:~ #
#13 
for machine 5 - leap 15.2:

linux-5:~ # zypper se -si libavcodec
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...

S  | Name         | Type    | Version           | Arch   | Repository
---+--------------+---------+-------------------+--------+-----------------------
i+ | libavcodec57 | package | 3.4.4-lp152.3.7   | x86_64 | Main Repository
i+ | libavcodec58 | package | 4.2.1-lp152.2.6.1 | x86_64 | Main Update Repository

Firefox needs the libavcodec from Packman to play all sort of videos…

So your

zypper dup --from PACKMAN

was not successfull…

#14

deano -

Here are the details from Kinfocenter:

for machine 6 - leap 15.3:

Operating System: openSUSE Leap 15.3
KDE Plasma Version: 5.18.6
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.76.0
Qt Version: 5.12.7
Kernel Version: 5.3.18-59.19-preempt
OS Type: 64-bit
Processors: 4 × AMD Phenom™ II X4 840T Processor
Memory: 5.6 GiB of RAM

for machine 5 - leap 15.2:

Operating System: openSUSE Leap 15.2
KDE Plasma Version: 5.18.6
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.71.0
Qt Version: 5.12.7
Kernel Version: 5.3.18-lp152.92-preempt
OS Type: 64-bit
Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i7 CPU 960 @ 3.20GHz
Memory: 11.7 GiB of RAM
The versions of KDE Plasma are both 5.18.6.

#15

Perhaps my initial post was not clear. The 15.2 machines have always played audio and video from VLC and the Internet browsers with the codecs from the openSuSE repos - NOT Packman. Moreover, they are not using pulseaudio. I cannot explain why this is the case, only that it works. And it ain’t broke [sic].

#16

The guide that instructs you to install opi codecs? It doesn’t include all the codecs that this page does. Check this one out.

https://opensuse-guide.org/codecs.php

#17

Please re-read my initial post - I specifically mention the guide.