So Firefox normally works fine for audio with ALSA. I play audio on a number of websites in various formats. Periodically, Firefox will just forget how to play audio but only for some websites. Right now, you tube will play audio fine, but for whatever reason jellyfin will not. Moves on the jellyfin server play audio without issue, but any music will not produce sound. If I switch to chrome, everything works as expected. I have tried restarting the browser and I have also tried incognito and neither had any effect. There are no obvious errors in the developer console and it appears to be requesting and receiving data form the server. Nothing is muted. This only happens with firefox, everything else plays audio. I have even gone as far as testing their audio backend (cubeb-coreaudio-rs) locally and it works as expected. The only thing that fixes the issue is rebooting...
Does anyone have any ideas why this suddenly stops working?
Firefox forgets how to play alsa audio
Message
Silly question: does it happen with youtube tabs open?KWhat wrote:Right now, you tube will play audio fine, but for whatever reason jellyfin will not
(Sound may not work in different tabs with ALSA; try to close youtube tabs)
A wife asks her husband, a programmer:
- Could you please go shopping for me and buy one carton of milk, and if they have eggs, get 6?
He comes back with 6 cartons of milk.
- Why did you buy 6 cartons of milk?
- They had eggs.
- Could you please go shopping for me and buy one carton of milk, and if they have eggs, get 6?
He comes back with 6 cartons of milk.
- Why did you buy 6 cartons of milk?
- They had eggs.
I don't have any ideas, but I confirm it happens.
I pretty much only use ff for lichess, so can't say much about other websites, but audio output has like 50% failure rate there. I mean, once it works, it works, but sometimes I need to restart ff a few times before it finally connects to pipewire.
Other ALSA apps don't have this problem.
Unfortunately, FF'S JACK interface is only smart enough to be annoying, so it's hardly an option. Seriously, just accept system's default policy instead of inventing your own
I pretty much only use ff for lichess, so can't say much about other websites, but audio output has like 50% failure rate there. I mean, once it works, it works, but sometimes I need to restart ff a few times before it finally connects to pipewire.
Other ALSA apps don't have this problem.
Unfortunately, FF'S JACK interface is only smart enough to be annoying, so it's hardly an option. Seriously, just accept system's default policy instead of inventing your own
Also happened to me, Firefox randomly stays silent, for me usually with html5 webgames, on a pure ALSA system.
But then, I also remember Mozilla dropped alsa support in firefox ages ago, in favor of pulseaudio. Alsa output still works when compiled from source, but you can't expect any support about it.
But then, I also remember Mozilla dropped alsa support in firefox ages ago, in favor of pulseaudio. Alsa output still works when compiled from source, but you can't expect any support about it.
Not the first time seen issues like this with specific sites, alsa is still kinda supported but is a low class citizen in Firefox (similarly to jack and sndio) and is only ever enabled for custom builds -- afaik alsa support also requires to disable pulseaudio to be usable, so you'll see this used almost only on Gentoo as almost no prebuilt distros would do that. tl;dr it's not very tested in the wild.
Ideally needs improvement in firefox but, as a workaround if want to stay pure alsa, may have better luck by installing media-sound/apulse with USE=sdk and then enabling USE=pulseaudio on firefox (it won't pull pulseaudio if apulse[sdk] is installed).
For the record, firefox-bin is built without alsa support but the ebuild does support using apulse instead too if interesting in no longer having to build it.
Ideally needs improvement in firefox but, as a workaround if want to stay pure alsa, may have better luck by installing media-sound/apulse with USE=sdk and then enabling USE=pulseaudio on firefox (it won't pull pulseaudio if apulse[sdk] is installed).
For the record, firefox-bin is built without alsa support but the ebuild does support using apulse instead too if interesting in no longer having to build it.
Notes:
Pure alsa Firefox worked fine for years.
Now it is buggy: Only one window of youtube in browser fine, open another youtube tab -> no sound.
Workaround: When no longer audio playing, close all tabs that may use audio, reload page and sound plays again in that one tab.
Observed on a rather new (hardware) system, with Firefox 139 and Kernel 6.15.
NOT reproduced (so far) on other systems - some have newest Firefox, different kernels (6.12 to 6.15), different audio chips.
I think I hit an unlucky combination where it does not work - a Firefox and audio multiplex in kernel driver bug in 6.15?
Pure alsa Firefox worked fine for years.
Now it is buggy: Only one window of youtube in browser fine, open another youtube tab -> no sound.
Workaround: When no longer audio playing, close all tabs that may use audio, reload page and sound plays again in that one tab.
Observed on a rather new (hardware) system, with Firefox 139 and Kernel 6.15.
NOT reproduced (so far) on other systems - some have newest Firefox, different kernels (6.12 to 6.15), different audio chips.
I think I hit an unlucky combination where it does not work - a Firefox and audio multiplex in kernel driver bug in 6.15?
- Dominique_71
- Veteran
- Posts: 1957
- Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2005 1:01 pm
- Location: Switzerland (Romandie)
no problem here using firefox with jack :
Sometime the audio stop with a lot of open tabs, but it's just to close and restart firefox to get it started again. If I remember well, to get alsa support, if the ebuild didn't changed in regard to audio, itŝ: firefox[-jack -pulseaudio]. Upstream, pa is the default, alsa and jack are optional and both pa and jack must be disabled to get alsa. Long ago I didn't played with alsa, always jack here. [jack -pulseaudio] should work with pipewire too. Into about:config, the jack boolean in on +.
Code: Select all
$ emerge -vp firefox
* Last emerge --sync was dim 09 fév 2025 16:10:00.
These are the packages that would be merged, in order:
Calculating dependencies... done!
Dependency resolution took 5.40 s (backtrack: 0/20).
[ebuild R ] www-client/firefox-135.0:rapid::gentoo USE="X clang dbus gmp-autoupdate jack jumbo-build system-av1 system-harfbuzz system-icu system-jpeg system-libevent system-libvpx system-webp telemetry -debug -eme-free -gnome-shell -hardened -hwaccel -libproxy -openh264 -pgo -pulseaudio (-selinux) -sndio -system-png (-valgrind) -wasm-sandbox -wayland -wifi""Confirm You are a robot." - the singularity
This sounds like a classic case of Mozilla Firefox audio backend getting stuck or desynced with ALSA, especially if it works fine on other sites and other browsers. Since rebooting temporarily fixes it, the problem is likely in how Firefox is holding or releasing the audio device.
A few things you can try to narrow it down:
Force ALSA to release the device properly
Run:
fuser -v /dev/snd/*
If Firefox still has a handle on the audio device after playback stops, kill the process or restart it with:
killall firefox
Disable “exclusive” access in ALSA or Firefox
Sometimes certain sites (e.g., YouTube) use different audio formats than others (like Jellyfin), and Firefox’s cubeb backend can hang when switching formats.
Check about:config for:
media.cubeb.backend
If it’s set to alsa, try clearing it (default) or explicitly set to pulse if you have PulseAudio.
Reset the ALSA state without rebooting
sudo alsa force-reload
This often brings the sound back instantly.
Check Firefox audio sandboxing
In some cases, sandboxed audio threads hang. Temporarily disable sandboxing:
security.sandbox.content.level
Set to 0 as a test (don’t leave it like this permanently). If audio works, you’ve found the culprit.
Try starting Firefox with a fresh profile
firefox --ProfileManager
Some extensions or cached settings can break audio playback for specific MIME types.
Since Chrome works, it’s not the system’s sound stack itself — it’s most likely Firefox’s handling of specific audio formats or how it negotiates ALSA access.
Pro tip: If you don’t want to reboot every time, restarting ALSA or killing Firefox usually brings it back much faster.
A few things you can try to narrow it down:
Force ALSA to release the device properly
Run:
fuser -v /dev/snd/*
If Firefox still has a handle on the audio device after playback stops, kill the process or restart it with:
killall firefox
Disable “exclusive” access in ALSA or Firefox
Sometimes certain sites (e.g., YouTube) use different audio formats than others (like Jellyfin), and Firefox’s cubeb backend can hang when switching formats.
Check about:config for:
media.cubeb.backend
If it’s set to alsa, try clearing it (default) or explicitly set to pulse if you have PulseAudio.
Reset the ALSA state without rebooting
sudo alsa force-reload
This often brings the sound back instantly.
Check Firefox audio sandboxing
In some cases, sandboxed audio threads hang. Temporarily disable sandboxing:
security.sandbox.content.level
Set to 0 as a test (don’t leave it like this permanently). If audio works, you’ve found the culprit.
Try starting Firefox with a fresh profile
firefox --ProfileManager
Some extensions or cached settings can break audio playback for specific MIME types.
Since Chrome works, it’s not the system’s sound stack itself — it’s most likely Firefox’s handling of specific audio formats or how it negotiates ALSA access.
Pro tip: If you don’t want to reboot every time, restarting ALSA or killing Firefox usually brings it back much faster.