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rizzo
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2002 5:59 pm    Post subject: Mozilla waits for XMMS to finish with Flash websites Reply with quote

The evidence:
Gentoo 1.1a with updated portage et al.
XFree 4.20-r12
Mozilla 1.1 alpha
XMMS 1.2.7

The crime:
When I'm playing tunes in XMMS and surf around the "internet" on Mozilla, I sometimes get troubles. When Mozilla goes to a page with flash (I assume it's flash), notably http://espn.com , Mozilla will freeze. When I hit stop on XMMS or if the track finishes and stops on it's own, then Mozilla will regain consciousness and load the page up. This happens reliably on interactive pages with Flash I've noticed so far. Kind of frustrating to have to stop a song. Pausing the song will not set Mozilla free. I'm assuming that maybe Mozilla is trying to grab the sound device or something, but I really know nothing of those affairs.
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n0n
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2002 7:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is actually a problem with the Flash plugin. Macromedia's current plugin for Linux wants to open up /dev/dsp (I believe) for exclusive access, and does so in a way that it blocks out the entire process until it can get that exclusive lock. The fix would be to simply change the open() call to allow it to fail if it can't get the lock, and then just do without sound, but unfortunately Flash is closed source, so we can't do that. Also, evidentally the two open() calls generate different opcode lengths, so we can't even create a binary patch to the plugin. There's been a staggering amount of discussion about the matter at Mozilla's Bugzilla if you're interested.

A robust solution would obviously be for Mozilla to spawn off plugins in their own threads so the whole browser isn't affected, but that's a fairly major bit of work to undertake. Another workaround is to find a previous version of flash (ie: Flash 4 instead of Flash 5), which didn't have this problem.
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n0n
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2002 7:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh, and also evidentally if you play some games with ESD or aRts you can get things to work better. But then you've gotta worry about sound latency in some cases, which can be a pain depending on what you're doing. Like I said, there's lots of info in that Bugzilla link.
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rizzo
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2002 8:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Great reply!

Disappointing to see that this bug has been around since at least January of 2001 and is still in the mix.

I don't know much about linux sound, so I don't know if I'm ESD or OSS or what. I don't use KDE so I'm assuming I'm not using artsd. How can I tell exactly what my setup is and how I should proceed?

On the upside I did re-emerge Mozilla 1.1a this morning and truetype fonts look nicer than last time for some reason.
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n0n
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2002 8:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, if you're using ESD you'll have "esd" somewhere in your process list. "artsd" for aRts. Probably you're just using OSS, or ALSA. I've never bothered to set either up for more than a few minutes at a time, so I'm at a loss as to how to get 'em working. I think that Bugzilla thread goes into more detail . . .
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rizzo
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2002 8:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have none of those in my process list (ps auwwwwx). I look with xmms playing, and looked with xmms playing and mozilla hung on a flash page. None show up my ps list.

I'm assuming I'm using ALSA since that is what is in the Desktop Config Guide, although I don't explicitly remember setting it up.

Man these fonts look nice.
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n0n
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2002 8:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Probably ALSA then. You'd probably know for sure if you see stuff inside /lib/modules/<version>/kernel/sound/acore. If it's there, you've got ALSA, otherwise OSS.
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rizzo
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2002 8:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't have a sound directory under my kernel directory. Only drivers/net and some NIC drivers.

I have an /etc/modules.d/alsa file. Should I assume alsa?
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n0n
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2002 8:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What's the output of "lsmod" like?
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rizzo
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2002 8:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Code:

[root@orthanc ~]# lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by    Tainted: PF
vmnet                  18048   4
vmmon                  19220   0
3c59x                  25352   1
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n0n
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2002 8:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hm. Well, I'm *pretty* sure that ALSA has to be loaded as modules; won't let itself get compiled into the kernel. So you're probably using regular ol' OSS.
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rizzo
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2002 9:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes tonight's episode of The n0n and rizzo Show. Tune in tomorrow when n0n discovers rizzo's true feelings about galeon.
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n0n
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2002 9:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And remember, folks, we'll be here all week. You've been great! Peace out!
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Zu`
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 24, 2002 6:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

rofl :roll:
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mindows
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 29, 2002 7:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i just noticed that problem last night. i didn't make that xmms-mozilla connection until i read the posts here.
that really sucks that i can't browse the internet and listen to the music at the same time. maybe i'll just turn off flash plug-in :?
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rizzo
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 29, 2002 7:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No one is saying you can't browse. You just have to hit "stop" on the music when you get to a flash page.

Blame macromedia.
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n0n
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 29, 2002 8:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, hititng "stop" really bites, though. Yeah, it works, but then you've gotta find out where you were in your song, etc. I eventually decided to just uninstall flash.

"Blame Macromedia" is right. The fix would require one different argument to open(). Cursed closed-source things, this could have been fixed ages ago by practically anyone. Oh, well.
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mindows
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 30, 2002 12:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

rizzo wrote:
No one is saying you can't browse. You just have to hit "stop" on the music when you get to a flash page.

Blame macromedia.


to me, it's as bad as "you can't have snacks while you are watching tv". i visited the bugzilla page, fetched 4.0r12 flash plug-in, and replaced my libflashplayer.so in mozilla's plugin directory. it certainly works well, and now i can browse and listen to music at the same time :)
if you go to macromedia.com, it says that you need flash player version 6 to view the page correct, but it still displays just fine. i guess i'll be missing the latest + greatest flash v.6 features. oh well.
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rizzo
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 30, 2002 12:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not saying it isn't bad. I agree that not being able to listen to beats is bad, and having to stop in the middle of a song just because you clicked on a link to some story and the page has flash is EXTREMELY annoying.

It is very frustrating that this bug is still there and Macromedia has done very little to address it.
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pilla
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 30, 2002 1:17 am    Post subject: it can be worse... believe me Reply with quote

I had to uninstall flash plugins in my Red Hat box, because it usually sunk my galleon 8)

rizzo wrote:
I'm not saying it isn't bad. I agree that not being able to listen to beats is bad, and having to stop in the middle of a song just because you clicked on a link to some story and the page has flash is EXTREMELY annoying.

It is very frustrating that this bug is still there and Macromedia has done very little to address it.
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ShiVa
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 20, 2002 5:41 pm    Post subject: freezing when scrolling Reply with quote

my problem is somewhat different.....
when i just scroll, page doesn't need to have flas, cpu goes up to 90% on a 1,3 ghz athlon....
i don't thin that's right, any ideas?
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n0n
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 21, 2002 3:11 am    Post subject: Re: freezing when scrolling Reply with quote

ShiVa wrote:
my problem is somewhat different.....
when i just scroll, page doesn't need to have flas, cpu goes up to 90% on a 1,3 ghz athlon....
i don't thin that's right, any ideas?


No, that's certainly not right - Mozilla runs acceptably well on my old 233MHz system, and perfectly well on my 450Mhz P2. Search around the forums for a bit to see if someone else has brought it up, try re-emerging mozilla, and if all that fails, then post your question as its own topic, you'll get better responses that way.
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rizzo
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 21, 2002 4:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

New posts on the mozilla bugzilla state that a new public beta of flash will be available in mid-October of 2002. Also a statement that macromedia "will make sure this kind of situation doesn't happen again", regarding their VERY lengthy delay in fixing this VERY critical bug.

Let's hope so.
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pjp
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 21, 2002 4:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

:lol: I just removed the crap; problem solved. I've yet to see something in Flash that I wanted to see.

Now... to find how to stop the annying 'plugin' window.
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rizzo
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2002 2:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

New posts on mozilla's bug have indicated that the latest flash 6 beta for linux has the fix for the problem.

I have verified this on gentoo with mozilla 1.2a. Oh, joyous day!
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