[arch-general] sound problem with chromium

[u34 at net9.ga]

Pascal via arch-general <arch-general at lists.archlinux.org> wrote:

> hi,
> 
> I have an ArchLinux installed on a usb disk (eg. "mobile").
> 
> ~ # uname -r
> 5.15.37-1-lts
> ~ # pacman -Q | egrep 'alsa|chromium|firefox|mplayer'
> alsa-lib 1.2.6.1-1
> alsa-topology-conf 1.2.5.1-1
> alsa-ucm-conf 1.2.6.3-1
> alsa-utils 1.2.6-1
> chromium 101.0.4951.54-1
> firefox 100.0-1
> mplayer 38359-1
> 
> when it runs on my Dell Latitude E5250, Chromium works without any
> difficulty to play a YouTube video for example : the sound is ok (same for
> Firefox or Mplayer).
> 
> on the other hand, when it runs on my Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, Chromium
> has problems with the sound (which is not the case for Firefox or Mplayer
> which both produce sound).
> it happens from time to time in this (hardware) environment that Chromium
> produces sound and the next moment (simple stop/restart of the browser) it
> fails (without anything being done in between) !
> another surprising thing is that if I access a video (zunRcH4nUPI) this way
> "chromium https://www.youtube.com/" (and then click on the desired video) I
> often don't get any sound while if I access it this way "chromium
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zunRcH4nUPI" the sound works !
> 
> I spent a lot of time trying to understand the problem and looking for a
> solution/track on the internet but, having found nothing, I throw a bottle
> in the water...
> 
> regards, lacsaP.

Can you try cutting down the environment by running chromium within a 
dedicated X server? That is, run a 2nd, or just one, Xserver, dedicated to 
chromium. Desirbly, without a desktop environment, and without a window 
manager either. Just chromium, nothing else.

I find chromium very problematic, avoiding it as much as I can. Never the 
less, I do have to use it from time to time. And I do think diversity is a 
must have.

--
u34