Recorder breaks synth

[walterbender]

Fedora 29
FireFox 65.0.1
Suddenly stopped playing sounds. No idea why. Tone.js examples make sound, so it is something in MB itself.

[walterbender]

Work fine in Chromium.

[digitaldybbuk]

Works on Safari (OSX and iPhone)
I also cannot hear sound in Firefox (65.0.1 64-bit - Mac OS X 10.13.6)
Could not hear sound on 65.0.2 (64-bit) on i3 (Windows 7 64-bit)
Could not hear sound on 64.0.2 (64 bit) on i3 (Windows 7 64-bit)
Unfortunately it looks like Tone.js v12 brings back the sound for firefox and still works on chrome but then its not audible on Safari(OSX,iphone)... (current version we are using is v13)

[digitaldybbuk]

However it does seem as though it is something in MB since Tone.js examples using older versions work on Firefox as well as Safari - but that is not the case with MB

[walterbender]

I will try testing some older versions to see if they work.

v2.0 runs fine.
v2.6 runs fine
v2.7 runs fine

so...

[walterbender]

When I used the new Tone.js with the v2.7, it no longer played sounds. So somehow the combination of the new Tone.js and the new Firefox triggers a problem with the MB code. Both versions work fine with Chromium.

The latest code with the old Tone.js works fine in Firefox.

[sum2it]

Seems like the issue was reproduced, finally. One step forward in bug discovery!
#1733

[pikurasa]

If this issue lingers for long, it would be helpful for me if we had a separate branch with our latest code, but a version of tone.js that works with FF. The reason is, for many of my classes we are running FF and Chromium is not installed. Therefore, I cannot provide the class with latest bits (nor have the class help test them).

[walterbender]

A branch is easy enough, But we'll have to keep it up to date.

[walterbender]

https://github.com/sugarlabs/musicblocks/tree/FireFox-tonejs-regression should work on FF

[pikurasa]

https://github.com/sugarlabs/musicblocks/tree/FireFox-tonejs-regression should work on FF

Yes, it works.

Thanks!

[im-gozmit]

Hello @walterbender,
While I was testing MB on:

1. Browser: Firefox 66.0.2 (64-bit)
   OS: Microsoft Windows 10.
2. Browser: Firefox 66.0.2 (64-bit)
   OS: Ubuntu 18.04.2 amd-64.

Sound is not playing while block gets executed.

[walterbender]

You can add Fedora 29 to the list.
But the simple example below plays. Must be something we are doing wrong.

simpleHtml.html.gz

[im-gozmit]

@walterbender Thanks,
I will test on other OS and browsers as well and currently I am understanding the code base of MB to get the solution of the problem.

[pikurasa]

@im-gozmit I recommend viewing the recent changes made in wrt tone.js

For example, we recently 1) upgraded and 2) changed from minified code to un-minified. Perhaps something bubbled up due to these changes.

[walterbender]

Just did a little experiment:
First I added all the scripts (mostly imports) from head of index.html to the simpleHtml script and the tone still played. Then I added the init() and that broke it. So something we are doing in init is the culprit.

[walterbender]

I have isolated it to synthutils.js. But no idea what the problem is there.

[walterbender]

I have isolated the problem to one line:
this.recorder = new Recorder(Tone.Master);

If we don't create the Recorder, FF works!!!

Now to figure out why the Recorder breaks things.

[walterbender]

A simple test case:

simpleHtml.html.gz

Adding the Recorder line break it in FF but not Chrome.

[walterbender]

I think we should replace lib/recorder.js rather than try to fix it because it doesn't seem to have a license. @eohomegrownapps where did you get this module from?

[walterbender]

https://tonejs.github.io/docs/r13/Tone#offline-static might offer a better approach to rendering audio for recording purposes.

https://tonejs.github.io/examples/offline.html <<---- example of how to use it.

[euanong]

@walterbender The module I used was https://github.com/mattdiamond/Recorderjs - it captures the output of a web audio node and allows it to be exported as WAV (for more information see logo.js, L8914). A licenced alternative could be https://github.com/Jam3/audiobuffer-to-wav (MIT licence); I might look into this if I have time later today.

[pikurasa]

I think it is also worth it (whatever we decide) to notify the developer of the lack of license.

[walterbender]

I put a test in for FF and don't enable saveWAV when FF is the browser as a temporary work-around until we get around to fixing this.

9475184

[walterbender]

The most recent version of Tone.js breaks Chrome too... we need a new approach.

[pikurasa]

This works for me...

(I didn`t know that we had save as wav again...)

[pikurasa]

Just FYI, it records as "ogg" although it says "save as wav"