Streaming Failures After Updating

[wink23]

Every time I update PM I lose more audio streaming. This time when updating to Linux installer 0.2.3, PM 27.3.0 I lost several streaming sites including Streema and TuneIn. Streema requires gstreamer packages and if they aren't supported anymore by PM how is it supposed to work? They disappeared from about:config. How do I track down streaming problems in PM under Linux Mint 17?

[Moonchild]

gstreamer has been a terrible headache for a very long time, and it has been dropped in favor of ffmpeg. You may need to install the appropriate ffmpeg packages for support -- a Linux-savvy person will likely be able to help you with this.

[troypulk]

Every time I update PM I lose more audio streaming. This time when updating to Linux installer 0.2.3, PM 27.3.0 I lost several streaming sites including Streema and TuneIn. Streema requires gstreamer packages and if they aren't supported anymore by PM how is it supposed to work? They disappeared from about:config. How do I track down streaming problems in PM under Linux Mint 17?

I went to both TuneIn and Streema and had no problem streaming music.

I have the latest ffmpeg 7:3.2.5-1 and gstreamer1.0-libav 1.12 installed from Debian testing.

I also checked using flash on and off which didn't matter.

The only thing I can think of is to make sure your distro is updated, other then that I'm not sure.

[Night Wing]

I also went to Streema and Tunein and had no problem playing streaming music using 64 bit linux Pale Moon 27.3.0 running in 64 bit Linux Mint 18.1 (Serena).

[stevenpusser]

I think Mint 17 is based on Ubuntu 14.04, so doesn't have the most up-to-date multimedia packages. If you can't get it working with Trusty's libav, from what I have seen from a bit of looking at his work, the maintainer of this PPA knows what he's doing to provide updated versions: https://launchpad.net/~mc3man/+archive/ ... usty-media

[gracious1]

, the maintainer of this PPA knows what he's doing to provide updated versions: https://launchpad.net/~mc3man/+archive/ ... usty-media

Yes, I can attest to that. It is because of this repository that I have been able to defer upgrading to 16.04 thus far, and I am generally OK for streaming.

[wink23]

I added the recommended PPA and after updating nothing changed at all. I don't know what else to try except purging this PPA and installing additional packages from the Linux Mint PPA. This may give me the excuse to go ahead and reinstall to LM 18, 64 bit.

[stevenpusser]

What do you have installed in terms of libav-tools or ffmpeg packages? If you don't have them installed in the first place, any upgrade won't do anything.

[wink23]

After typing each one into Package Manager I got the following installed results.

libav-tools
6:9.20
none others listed

ffmpeg
gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg 0.10.13-5ubur
libpostproc52 6:0.git 201208
big list of packages not installed including ffmpeg by itself (is that the problem?)

[trava90]

Looking at the PPA you need to have the FFmpeg and libav packages installed to get the required components for Pale Moon to use.

[wink23]

Installed ffmpeg - no change
Installed libavdevice53 (the only additional one that looked like it might help) - no change
Installed gecko-mediaplayer - no change
Installed gstreamer updates in Update Manager - no change
Installed Adobe flash update in Update Manager - no change on problem sites

Though I rarely use Firefox I get the same streaming failures as in Pale Moon. I don't know if it was working okay like PM before the PM update. I guess I might as well start over from scratch.

[troypulk]

What versions did you install?

You will need to install the latest versions: ffmpeg 3.2 and gstreamer1.0-libav

Trava90, what's the oldest ffmpeg version that will work for PM?

It's beginning to look like you will have to install these files manually but then if you do you may have problems because your Mint version files might be non-Compatible with the newer ones.

It might be time to upgrade to Mint 18

Take a look at these and see if they will help: https://www.google.com/#q=latest+ffmpeg ... 8742899138

[stevenpusser]

I'm pretty sure that just installing the "real" ffmpeg package from the PPA will pull in the necessary libav* libraries for proper playback, since it depends on quite a few--the 3.2 ffmpeg series will pull in libavcodec57 and quite a few others:

Code: Select all

Depends: libavcodec57 (>= 7:3.2.5) | libavcodec-extra57 (>= 7:3.2.5), libavdevice57 (>= 7:3.2.5), libavfilter6 (>= 7:3.2.5) | libavfilter-extra6 (>= 7:3.2.5), libavformat57 (>= 7:3.2.5), libavresample3 (>= 7:3.2.5), libavutil55 (>= 7:3.2.5), libc6 (>= 2.14), libpostproc54 (>= 7:3.2.5), libsdl2-2.0-0 (>= 2.0.0), libswresample2 (>= 7:3.2.5), libswscale4 (>= 7:3.2.5), libva1 (>= 1.7.2)

At least in Debian packaging--I don't know how that PPA maintainer is managing his dependencies.

(This is for the 3.2.5 ffmpeg build. I haven't built 3.2.6 yet on my own machine, just for Debian 8 and 9 in another OBS repo...)

[wink23]

my ffmpeg version is listed as 7:3.3.1 - that's what it says

gstreamer1.0 libav version 1.2.3-1

some of the gstreamer plugins are listed as 0.10 - some, of many, are not installed

I had already planned to install LM18 on another machine but I guess I'll do it on this one with the SSD drive. Problems like this bug me and I'll fiddle around a little more before giving up. But it seems to me that if the Linux Mint people are going to put out a long life version they ought to maintain it with the proper updates to keep things working. This turns me off LM even though I've been using it since I left WinXP years ago.

Anyway thanks to all for trying to help. If I get it fixed I will post a reply.

[trava90]

Trava90, what's the oldest ffmpeg version that will work for PM?

I don't remember what the exact earliest version number we support is but I know that it is quite old (certainly far enough back to work on Mint 17).

I'm pretty sure that just installing the "real" ffmpeg package from the PPA will pull in the necessary libav* libraries for proper playback, since it depends on quite a few--the 3.2 ffmpeg series will pull in libavcodec57 and quite a few others:

This should be correct (but as Steve mentioned I have not looked at how the maintainer is managing the dependencies).

some of the gstreamer plugins are listed as 0.10 - some, of many, are not installed

Note that Pale Moon no longer uses GStreamer in any way, shape or form.

@wink23 in about:config, try setting the "media.libavcodec.allow-obsolete" option to true.

[wink23]

in about:config, try setting the "media.libavcodec.allow-obsolete" option to true

I tried this first and it worked! Thanks Steve. So my libav codecs must be outdated. But I think I'll leave well enough alone for now.