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When I go to Proximus Live TV on my Ubuntu 23.04 laptop with Firefox 113.0.2 from https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/ubuntu/ppa?field.series_filter=lunar

Just running firefox from the command prompt I get below error message:

[Child 39570, MediaDecoderStateMachine #1] WARNING: Decoder=7f5fe88d6f00 Decode error: NS_ERROR_DOM_MEDIA_FATAL_ERR (0x806e0005) - Error no decoder found for audio/mp4a-latm: file /build/firefox-USz78Y/firefox-113.0.2+build1/dom/media/MediaDecoderStateMachineBase.cpp:164

The problem is that AAC SW is not in following list in about:support

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While in SNAP version of firefox I get the list

enter image description here

I have no idea what causes this difference: the way how firefox is built in SNAP versus .deb ?

[Edited 2023/06/09] This package ubuntu-restricted-extras made AAC SW available in VMware Workstation Guest Ubuntu 23.04.

But I can't get it working on my main Ubuntu 23.04, this package was already installed there. I thought there might be a conflict with nVIDIA driver or CUDA toolkit of my GeForce RTX 2060, but did not find anything on google about it.

Things that don't work in firefox from mozilla PPA on my main Ubuntu 23.04 are:

  • Print to pdf makes file of size zero
  • Save webpage makes file of size zero
  • AAC SW and H264 SW are not present in about:support section Media

There must be some other directory where .deb firefox keeps its settings. I already removed ~/.mozilla and got a brand new firefox, but still suffering from the same.

I read about /usr/lib/mozilla and on my laptop there is something left for the belgian identity card reader.

bert@legion5ubuntu:/usr/lib/mozilla/managed-storage$ ls -al
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  283 Feb 13 16:35 belgiumeid@eid.belgium.be.json

bert@legion5ubuntu:/usr/lib/mozilla/native-messaging-hosts$ ls -al
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  265 Jan  3 21:38 org.gnome.browser_connector.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  266 Jan  3 21:38 org.gnome.chrome_gnome_shell.json


bert@legion5ubuntu:/usr/lib/mozilla/pkcs11-modules$ ls -al
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  209 Feb 13 16:35 beidpkcs11_alt.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  181 Feb 13 16:35 beidpkcs11.json

Would this directory be the root cause of the issues?

I am tired of switching between .deb and snap versions of firefox and would like to have more certainty on success when trying the .deb once more...

Any ideas of other directories where .deb firefox keeps its settings?

BertRAMAerts
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  • I wasted two evenings in trying to figure out what is wrong with this firefox from PPA. I decided to go back to SNAP and of course there audio and video work great ! – BertRAMAerts May 25 '23 at 19:11
  • I am using Firefox 114 from this PPA https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/ubuntu/ppa, and I have all the eleven codecs identical those listed in the snap package. – Archisman Panigrahi Jun 01 '23 at 20:29
  • @ArchismanPanigrahi Do you have special codecs installed that are not in a default Ubuntu installation? – BertRAMAerts Jun 02 '23 at 06:21
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    I had installed the package ubuntu-restrictred-extras from the official repo, but nothing else. – Archisman Panigrahi Jun 02 '23 at 06:30
  • To test this issue further I used VMware Workstation with Ubuntu 23.04 as host AND as guest. In the guest I installed "sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-extras" and now indeed the .deb Firefox has all the codecs and Proximus TV works fine. Still to try this on the main Ubuntu 23.04 because there this ubuntu-restricted-extras was already installed when I tried Firefox 113.0.2 from the PPA. – BertRAMAerts Jun 02 '23 at 07:15
  • It is strange that Firefox 113.0.2 did not work. Can you add the PPA and update to the latest Firefox 114? There is works for me on several computers. – Archisman Panigrahi Jun 02 '23 at 13:06
  • I installed 114 from PPA on my main Ubuntu 23.04. Still no AAC SW available here. But this Ubuntu has been upgraded every 6 months to the latest Ubuntu Release. And it still had old Mozilla data from the time where Firefox was still a .deb package before the SNAP Firefox came. I guess something in this old configuration is blocking AAC SW? I already refreshed (reset add-ons and settings) my firefox. Any ideas? – BertRAMAerts Jun 02 '23 at 13:19
  • Can you try removing the directory .mozilla (you may lose your bookmarks unless signed in to Firefox) and clearing the cache? – Archisman Panigrahi Jun 02 '23 at 13:29
  • Can you also try installing libavcodec59 and gstreamer1.0-libav and ffmpeg? They are suggested here https://askubuntu.com/questions/214421/how-to-install-the-mpeg-4-aac-decoder-and-the-h-264-decoder – Archisman Panigrahi Jun 02 '23 at 13:34
  • I installed libavcodec59 and removed .mozilla. Still same result only 9 codecs instead of 11. – BertRAMAerts Jun 02 '23 at 14:34
  • I don't know what is causing these issues. I use Ubuntu 22.04 with the .deb version of Firefox, and never had any of these issues. – Archisman Panigrahi Jun 10 '23 at 00:46

1 Answers1

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The solution is to install the package ubuntu-restricted-extras.

sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-extras
Archisman Panigrahi
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