Thank you for this

[SoniEx2]

With Firefox 52+ dropping ALSA, thank you so much for this! This might be the only way to still use Firefox with ALSA.

[i-rinat]

This might be the only way to still use Firefox with ALSA.

It should be possible to make own build of Firefox with ALSA support enabled. As far as I know, there are no plans to remove ALSA code from libcubeb library, which is used by Firefox to play audio.

[worldowner]

With Firefox 54 it is no longer possible to turn on ALSA support.

[i-rinat]

With Firefox 54 it is no longer possible to turn on ALSA support.

Just tried to build Firefox 54 from source with the following .mozconfig:

ac_add_options --enable-alsa
ac_add_options --disable-tests

Audio works without PulseAudio, by directly using ALSA. There is no need to disable sandboxing or something like that. In ALSA-enabled builds, paths required by userspace part of ALSA are in exception list already. So, it should work. What are your build options?

[worldowner]

It doesn't work when you have browser.tabs.remote.force-enable = true. There is no sound. When this option is set to false it works.

[i-rinat]

It doesn't work when you have browser.tabs.remote.force-enable = true.

I tested once again, now with this option set. Audio still works. Actually, that option did nothing, since I'm testing on an empty profile, so multiprocess mode is enabled.

@worldowner, how do you build Firefox? Are you sure you have --enable-alsa option set?

[worldowner]

about:support says:
Audio Backend alsa

so yes, I'm sure. I took PKGBUILD from Archlinux's abs, added
ac_add_options --enable-alsa
ac_add_options --disable-tests

and recompilled (makepkg) inside virtual machine (because I have access to powerful servers). I'm running this build on 2 different computers, one Intel based laptop, second AMD based desktop and result is the same. No sound when
browser.tabs.remote.force-enable = true

It's enough to set this to false and restart Firefox to get sound back.

I double checked that just a minte ago.

[SoniEx2]

sets browser.tabs.remote.autostart to false, restarts firefox... nope didn't work... in fact, I can't seem to be able to set that to false, it just creates a new key with .2 at the end, set to true...

sets browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 to false, restarts firefox... CAN HEAR AGAIN

EDIT: don't do this. this technically disables the sandbox. instead, see #55.

[jjdredd]

@i-rinat Thanks for apulse! It's not always possible to build firefox from source, though, so apulse really helps here and with skype.
Спасибо.

[tkas]

Just want to add another thank you. Will give me some time to run away from Firefox.

[mbilker]

Another thank you for this project! I rebuilt Firefox with ALSA support on Gentoo, but it wasn't picking up the audio I/O settings other than the sample rate. apulse allows Firefox to pick-up an output device, though the sample rate is incorrect, which that is corrected with the plug interface.