Bug 783108 – www-client/firefox-87 - JACK audio causes segfault

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED UPSTREAM

[Description Fredrik Lingvall 2021-04-16 08:32:52 UTC]

www-client/firefox-87.0 (and 87.0-r1) segfaults when jack support is enabled.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Build with jack support, for example: ~ # USE=jack emerge www-client/firefox
2. Run firefox: ~ $ firefox
3. For example, watch a Youtube video.
Actual Results:  
~ $ firefox 
Exiting due to channel error.
Exiting due to channel error.
Exiting due to channel error.
Exiting due to channel error.
Exiting due to channel error.
Segmentation fault

Expected Results:  
No crash and sound is playing in the speakers.

[Comment 1 Matthew Smith 2021-04-16 08:58:57 UTC]

For completeness, please could you paste or upload as an attachment the output of 'emerge --info' on your system?

[Comment 2 Fredrik Lingvall 2021-04-16 09:14:02 UTC]

Created attachment 700089 [details]
emerge --info output

[Comment 3 Thomas Deutschmann (RETIRED) 2021-04-16 09:19:27 UTC]

You will probably have to compile with debug symbols and provide a useful backtrace (https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Quality_Assurance/Backtraces).

[Comment 4 Fredrik Lingvall 2021-04-16 09:24:26 UTC]

As a side note: there were jack audio problems in Firefox 86 too, Firefox did not segfault but it did not connect to the default ports:

system:playback_1
system:playback_2

So one needed to manually connect (or using a script etc) to get sound in Firefox 86.

[Comment 5 Ionen Wolkens 2021-04-16 09:58:50 UTC]

Despite being a jack user I've given up on firefox's jack "support" long ago. It was just community-made patch that got merged upstream and suffering from bit rot (it's a tier-3 backend in cubeb[1], not actively maintained/tested -- so this may(?) be broken for everyone and not just Gentoo).

For some sites (not youtube), often had audio/video desync issues with it even if it kinda worked for the rest. Instead currently using a minimal pulseaudio to route audio to jack for applications where it doesn't bother me (using jack primarily for specific things, not to avoid pulse).

That aside, see comment #3 to have something to work with.

[1] https://github.com/mozilla/cubeb/wiki/Backend-Support

[Comment 6 Fredrik Lingvall 2021-04-16 14:34:46 UTC]

Yes I use this:

https://github.com/brummer10/pajackconnect

for Teams etc and I just tested it with Firefox build using:

# USE="-jack pulseaudio" emerge www-client/firefox

and it works fine as a work-around.

[Comment 7 Fredrik Lingvall 2021-04-21 11:20:13 UTC]

FYI I just tested Firefox-88 with the same results as with Firefox-87.

[Comment 8 Joonas Niilola 2023-07-05 07:46:01 UTC]

Does it work now? I fear this has to be fixed upstream, and if it doesn't work, we'll just drop "official" Gentoo support for it.