Videos do not work in all browsers

[antonis]

After an upgrade no browser plays any video (youtube or even local videos). But mpv plays youtube videos fine.

Searching the forum I found that issuing

systemctl --user restart pulseaudio

solves the problem, and browsers work again (although mpv was working anyways). But I found no solution to this issue. I can arrange for this command to execute at each login, but this is not the solution. How to find what is causing this and resolve it?

[scotty65]

A bit hard to provide specific advice due to the lack of system information provided, however in previous topics with similar playback issues, including the one below, installing manjaro-pipewire resolved the issue:

Can't stream videos: firefox, chromium after update

Installing manjaro-pipewire should take care of the legacy PulseAudio stuff. I don’t recall having to subsequently remove anything. sudo pacman -Syu manjaro-pipewire Worth noting I needed to tag helvum to that command. (Try without first; if it complains then add anything it needs). I had an issue with audio late last year; re-installing PipeWire as above fixed it.

The manjaro-pipewire metapackage will install the following packages:

gst-plugin-pipewire pipewire pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulse

replacing these packages:

manjaro-pulse pulseaudio-equalizer pulseaudio-jack pulseaudio-lirc pulseaudio-rtp pulseaudio-zeroconf

You may need to reboot after installation.

pamac info manjaro-pipewire

pamac info manjaro-pipewire 
Name                  : manjaro-pipewire
Version               : 20231009-1
Description           : Manjaro meta package for complete PipeWire support.
URL                   : https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PipeWire
Licenses              : GPL
Repository            : extra
Installed Size        : 1.6 kB
Groups                : --
Depends On            : gst-plugin-pipewire pipewire pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulse
Optional Dependencies : easyeffects: advanced equalizer and effects
                        pipewire-jack: Jack support
                        pipewire-v4l2: V4L2 interceptor
                        pipewire-x11-bell: X11 bell
                        pipewire-zeroconf: Zeroconf support
                        realtime-privileges: Realtime privileges for users
Required By           : --
Optional For          : --
Provides              : --
Replaces              : --
Conflicts With        : manjaro-pulse pulseaudio-equalizer pulseaudio-jack pulseaudio-lirc pulseaudio-rtp
                        pulseaudio-zeroconf
Packager              : Mark Wagie <mark@manjaro.org>
Build Date            : Tue 10 Oct 2023 11:27:33
Install Date          : Fri 17 Nov 2023 16:49:01
Install Reason        : Explicitly installed
Validated By          : Signature
Backup files          : --

[antonis]

What kind of information could I provide? It is a fully updated Manjaro Linux.

In any case, thank you very much. I will follow your advice and report back.

[antonis]

pacman -S manjaro-pipewire
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...
:: manjaro-pipewire-20231009-1 and manjaro-pulse-20240817-1 are in conflict. Remove manjaro-pulse? [y/N] ```

What should I do here?

[scotty65]

You need to select y for everything.

@antonis

What kind of information could I provide? It is a fully updated Manjaro Linux.

The output of inxi -zv8.

[antonis]

inxi -zv8 does not do anything. It stays there with no output.

Answering y in all says

error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
:: removing pulseaudio breaks dependency 'pulseaudio=17.0+r43+g3e2bb8a1e-1' required by pulseaudio-bluetooth

So I guess I need to remove everything like pulseaudio-bluetooth. Correct?

[scotty65]

@antonis

So I guess I need to remove everything like pulseaudio-bluetooth. Correct?

Yes - you should remove pulseaudio-bluetooth and any other conflicting pulseaudio dependencies if they are preventing the installation of manjaro-pipewire.

[antonis]

Oops, how to get out of this loop:

pacman -S manjaro-pipewire
...
error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
:: removing pulseaudio breaks dependency 'pulseaudio=17.0+r43+g3e2bb8a1e-1' required by pulseaudio-bluetooth

and

pacman -R pulseaudio-bluetooth
checking dependencies...
error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
:: removing pulseaudio-bluetooth breaks dependency 'pulseaudio-bluetooth' required by manjaro-pulse

[scotty65]

@antonis

Oops, how to get out of this loop:

Try removing the pulseaudio stuff first before installing pipewire

sudo pacman -R pulseaudio-bluetooth manjaro-pulse

then

sudo pacman -Syu manjaro-pipewire

[antonis]

This worked. Thank you. But before I reboot, do I need any of the optional packages? It says:

Optional dependencies for manjaro-pipewire
    easyeffects: advanced equalizer and effects
    pipewire-jack: Jack support
    pipewire-v4l2: V4L2 interceptor
    pipewire-x11-bell: X11 bell
    pipewire-zeroconf: Zeroconf support
    realtime-privileges: Realtime privileges for users

[scotty65]

@antonis

But before I reboot, do I need any of the optional packages?

No - you don’t need any of them. They’re only optional to add extra features. However, it was mentioned in the other topic I linked to that the helvum package might need to be installed. I don’t have helvum or any of those optional pipewire-pulse dependencies installed on my Plasma system, however it may be different for Gnome systems (I’m not sure which desktop environment you are using).

Maybe see how things are after you reboot before you look at installing anything else.

[antonis]

I do not use KDE/Plasma. I typically use MATE and NsCDE (that is fvwm). OK, I reboot and check how it goes. Will report back.

[antonis]

Great! Videos work again. Thank you very much for the help!
(I marked the solution you provided as “solution”.)