Apulse crashes the application if the chosen device doesn't provide required functions (input/output)

[birdie-github]

Mozilla developers have lost their mind and made pulseaudio mandatory in Firefox 52. ALSA support was completely removed.

The test page: https://hpr.dogphilosophy.net/test/

$ apulse firefox
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1029:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
[apulse] [error] do_connect_pcm, snd_pcm_open, No such file or directory
[apulse] [error] do_connect_pcm, snd_pcm_open, No such file or directory
firefox: pcm.c:693: snd_pcm_close: Assertion `pcm' failed.
ExceptionHandler::GenerateDump cloned child 24092
ExceptionHandler::SendContinueSignalToChild sent continue signal to child
ExceptionHandler::WaitForContinueSignal waiting for continue signal...

I'm running the git master release (840792f).
Apulse and Firefox are native x86-64 binaries.
Firefox is from: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/52.0/linux-x86_64-EME-free/en-US/firefox-52.0.tar.bz2
Distro: Fedora 25, 64.

[birdie-github]

This bug is invalid. My Linux distro has all sound cards mixed up, so the default device (a USB mic) cannot actually output audio.

Still, it's a bug in apulse - please check whether the output device is available and die gracefully (or output to /dev/null).

[i-rinat]

BTW, what is the value of security.sandbox.content.level on about:config? If it's 2 or greater, apulse won't work: sandbox code blocks file access, and that's why apulse cannot open an ALSA device.

[i-rinat]

ALSA support was completely removed.

I believe, one can still can create own Firefox build with ALSA support enabled. It's just default builds have no such support anymore.

[birdie-github]

I've already told you that it works just fine. It's just my output devices that were mixed up and apulse crashed while trying to output audio via my USB microphone.

Hopefully you'll create a workaround for that.

[i-rinat]

I think, f09acc0 should prevent crashing. It's merged into master branch.