Many Firefox users on Linux were left without the ability to play sound in their browser after updating to Firefox 52, released last week.
The issue at the heart of this problem is that Mozilla dropped support for ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) and is now requiring Linux users to have installed the PulseAudio library to support audio playback inside Firefox.
ALSA is a software framework included in the Linux kernel that provides an API for sound card drivers. On the other hand, PulseAudio is a more modern sound server that's already supported on most Linux distros, but also on FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and even macOS.
Users on small/old Linux distros affected
Most modern Linux distros come with PulseAudio installed by default, but some minimalistic distros still rely on the built-in ALSA framework.
Users on these distros were left with no sound in Firefox 52, which now requires AudioPulse as a minimum requirement. Users on mainstream distros, but which use older OS versions, are also affected.
In the past ten days, since Firefox 52's release, countless of Linux users have been complaining about the lack of sound in Firefox [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].
Mozilla didn't warn Firefox users about this change
While Mozilla engineers talked about imposing AudioPulse as a minimum requirement for Firefox, this conversation took place on an obscure Google Groups topic back in July 2016.
Firefox 52 Linux users weren't told about this change and had no forewarning. The Firefox 52 release notes didn't mention anything about ALSA or PulseAudio.
Linux users begged Mozilla engineers to continue to support ASLA-only distros, but many were stern in their decision. "That isn't going to happen. Sorry," said one developer named Anthony Jones.
Adam Hunt, a Linux community contributor, has criticized Mozilla for the way it treated Linux users.
Overall this is a fairly minor technical issue that is not that hard to fix, but Mozilla has handled it very poorly and lost the confidence of a portion of its Linux user community over this. They could have communicated this impending change to the users in advance, as well as reached out to main distros that would be affected and let the developers there know. Then they could have also at least put it in the release notes for Firefox 52. These small steps could have mitigated much of the bewilderment and anger expressed and much of the loss of market share Mozilla will probably see, as a result
Following the backlash, Mozilla has now set up a support page detailing the issue and is prompting ALSA-only Linux users via a popup that reads "To play audio, you may need to install the required PulseAudio software."
Downgrade Firefox or switch to another browser
Users on affected Linux distros that don't want to install AudioPulse can revert back to older versions, use Firefox 52 ESR, or use another browser altogether.
As a heads up, Firefox 53, scheduled for release next month, will drop support on Linux editions for processors older than Pentium 4 and AMD Opteron.
Comments
NickAu - 7 years ago
Mike Hoye is getting all upset about all the complaints they are getting
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1345661#c98
Mike by doing this you have spit in the face of several million Linux users, and they are starting to spit back, what goes around comes around.
SuperSapien64 - 7 years ago
Well this stinks. It's a good thing I'm using a KDE distro that has PulseAudio installed. Now what are other Linux users suppose to do?
campuscodi - 7 years ago
Install PulseAudio, Mozilla says.
TheDcoder - 7 years ago
Ain't a easy task for non-technical linux users
TheDcoder - 7 years ago
This is one of the cases where the loss of removing something out-weight the benefits.
DodoIso - 7 years ago
Drop support for older CPUs? That's even worst! Couldn't they simply have a compile switch to use if compiled for these older processors (default=new-cpus). That's an excellent reason for users to switch to a different browser for sure.
Mike_Walsh - 7 years ago
Mozilla always have been self-centred, with their heads up their backsides. They have never been good at communicating anything in advance.....and unfortunately, this re-inforces the public impression that many devs only work on what they WANT to work on.
JohnnyBeeGood - 7 years ago
I first used FF when it was called Firebird and it was version .7
Useful innovation was what turned me away from IE. Tabs. Yes, I was a Windows user.
Evolution brought greater browser security through add ons and a major portion of market share.
'Things change'
Other browsers evolve while FF mires down in arrogance and ( imo ) poor decisions.
Time to start testing/comparing alternative choices before FF becomes a market share single digit %er and innovation a process driven to extinction.
I take this current situation as a wake-up call.
John
TheDcoder - 7 years ago
Oh, that's cool :)
I wonder why Thunderbird wasn't renamed to Thunderfox? ;)
cat1092 - 7 years ago
It's like I've been warning Linux users, and Firefox ones in general, that Mozilla is making Firefox more & more like Google Chrome with every move. Some of the add-ons has been dropped & more are falling with every release.
Even (arguably) the most powerful security extension of any browser in NoScript is on the chopping block, as well as the popular Down Them All download manager, free of charge for anyone to use.
Sadly, today's Firefox isn't what it was when I made to leap in 2009, due to IE8 crippling my notebook, and for nearly 4 years, I happily ran the browser. Then came two Fully buggy releases, not to count the sub-versions, and that's when I made the switch to Google Chrome. It wasn't something I wanted to do, simply needed to regain a fast browser.
Firefox was at one time the #2 most used browser in the World & blew it with these two buggy releases, causing many to hop onto the Google train & not looking back. While I still use Firefox for large downloads, if Down Them All is dropped, will no longer be using the browser.
It's time for major Linux distros to look at another browser other than Firefox as default, before it's too late.
Cat
braselectron - 7 years ago
It's very sad to admit this, but Mozilla / Firefox was abducted by the dark side of the force.
I believe it really should be a lot of pressure from both banks (ie Internet-banking), governments, viral marketing companies and their lawyers, to force these crazy changes in the open-source project that we love so much and with clear objective of being destroyed by these cyborgs and the companies they are representing...take a guess ?
The fox is dead! But Long live for the OSF community because the true goal of this saga has always been to empower all users, not just the lucky ones who can always have the most up-to-date hardware.
LLAP