web based media has no sound in Opera
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john-phd last edited byI purused the threads and found a lot of questions, but no answers. I am using Opera, it works well, but if I should open a news video, or for that matter, anything that has audio, there is no sound. Chrome and TOR work fine, but Opera has some features I like, but it seems to be at the expense of being only partially functional.
The usual: Yes, it's updated to the most recent version, yes I updated Adobe (but if I wait 15 minute, there will be more updates), I don't game, I'm using a work laptop (Dell) Windows 10 with any current updates (no choice). No, there are no software conflicts, if there are I'm running Microsoft products, and some higher end scientific software but no media applications or games. This is a problem on my home computer also (Windows 7 Ultimate SP1) which has a completely different hardware and software config than my work laptop. No games though.
This seems browser specicific and there are no answers I can find. I found one answer online that was 4 years old, and not applicable to newer revisions of Opera. This is applicable to YouTube, any videos on Facebook, or VK, or streaming from news websites etc.
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john-phd last edited by
So... no answers, just a link to instructions how to post. Ok, let me address the bullet points:
The usual: Yes, it's updated to the most recent version (71.0.3770.198 at home, I assume work is the same), yes I updated Adobe (but if I wait 15 minute, there will be more updates), This should matter, adobe is out of date about every 60 minutes.
I'm using a work laptop (Dell) Windows 10 with all updates as of any work day, as required by my company.) with a typical microsoft office package, and some high end scientific software applications.
Home computer also (Windows 7 Ultimate SP1) with most updates. Opera previously worked here. I will update this to see what happens.
I do not use anti virus, firewall, or anti malware at home (protected at the router by Pi with necessary software), and at work I cannot disable it as it is controlled by the domain.
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leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by
@john-phd For people to try to give you some answer, you need to provide information.
Adobe Flash? You can uninstall it.
Now, what about the missing information? What are the steps to try to reproduce the problem? Where are some examples of pages where the problems happens? How other Chromium based browsers other than Chrome behaves?
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burnout426 Volunteer last edited by
What does https://html5test.com/ say for h.264 and aac support?
Example link?
After trying to play the audio, goto the URL
opera://media-internalsand expand the section for the player in question. There it should show what errors there are (if any).On the pages in question, click the badge at the left of the address field and goto site settings. There, explicitly enable sound and refresh the page. If that doesn't help, go back to the site settings for the pages and enable secure content to see if that helps. Revert things back to automatic if they don't help.
Can you play the type of audio file in Windows Media Player Windows or does it fail there too? Note that Chrome has built-in codecs for some media types where other browsers (even most Chromium-based ones) don't and use the Windows Media Foundation. This is why you should try Vivaldi too for example.
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john-phd last edited by leocg
What do you mean "player in question". If you refer to my post, in my opera browser, any video has no sound, from any source I have tried online. I cannot speak to the software that is used, as it is likely a very wide range of embedded code. But, using the provided URL, I attached a snap of that. The list of players means absolutely nothing to me. If I were to explicitely (I think that is what you meant) enable sound for each individual website, I would rather pour honey on myself and take a nap on an anthill. I have no time for that sort of nonsense. It's not that important. There are so many websites, so many videos that I could simple go visit and not listen to because of no sound. Changing the setting for each one (aye, there's the rub!! I have not found any information how to do this!) is actually quite stupid. The computer works for me, not the other way around.
opera://media-internals - well, this is fun. It shows that my sound is disabled but there seems to be no options to change or edit this feature. I saw a popup that sends me back to "Experiments" which I did look into a week or so ago. It's a huge list of stuff that I don't care about, and I was not able to find anything dealing with sound while I mucked around in there.
I'm very happy my browser has a high score based on someone else's opinion, and I'm ecstatic that I was correct all along that the sound is disabled.
So I have to ask, is this going anywhere? I just want the sound to work. Is there a way to fix this? I may have insinuated this orginally but for a gentle reminder, I'm asking it again.
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john-phd last edited by john-phd
@leocg I realize I can uninstall adobe flash. I can uninstall it, but I don't see how that will make media work, when media is dependant on flash sometimes depending on the code. As far as that is concerned, I have little interest in digging around to find the many different video sources that may exist, whether or not they use flash. However, I digress, videos do in fact work in my other browsers so there is that.
Now about the steps to reproduce the problem. I may have already addressed this, but here it is:
I open a video online. It can be in facebook, a news site, or a professional site, it doesn't seem to discriminate where it is sourced. I have no sound. This is every single day, any time I mistakenly open a video using Opera instead of another browser. This is quite a pain if I am attending a meeting online and someone shares something. I open it and remember "oh, damn, I need to open another browser, and log in all over again then click on the link to watch this presentation" when I should be able to do so in the browser I am currently using. As I like Opera better than Chrome or MSIE for the most part, I tend to be forgetful of this little detail at the least opportune moment.
But to any past or future "answers" what missing information? What do you need? Browser, check. OS, check. Websites, check, settings, check. This was all addressed already.
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donq last edited by
@john-phd said in web based media has no sound in Opera:
I open a video online. It can be in facebook, a news site, or a professional site, it doesn't seem to discriminate where it is sourced. I have no sound.
But to any past or future "answers" what missing information? What do you need?
A bit offtopic first.
I'm a developer (not Opera one) and when some error report arrives with content like "action X doesn't work anywhere" or "action W causes error everywhere", I'm completely lost - what exactly I should debug?
If customer instead writes "action X doesn't work on form Y for document Z", then I can happily open form Y, navigate to Z, start X and debug it.Same with your statement - for any sensible support, debugging, help or similar, it is always better provide link or two (but no more) to specific (publicly accessible) site and page, where problems occur. For youtube - link to watch specific video, for some other site - problem page address etc.
Back to topic.
Have you checked site prefs - is sound enabled by default?
Are you using any media related extensions? (I am and some sites react by muting their sound).
How is your audio configured? I have seen cases, when windows cannot easily decide between audio devices and sound for some programs is sent to unused audio device or similar. -
john-phd last edited by john-phd
@donq Have I "checked site preferences"? why, yes, I have.
I will beat this dead horse until we are all tired of it, and I'll keep going. "site specific" and "site preferences" for literally any site with a video is not just a ridiculous notion, but completely wasteful of time. I have other browsers, but like most troubleshooters I would like to solve this even if I no longer use it as I don't like loose ends.
For the present, I will have to remember not to use Opera anymore. My earlier remark about baiting myself to ants is how I feel about having to set preferences to possibly dozens or hundreds of sites I might use in the future. I have other things I would rather do, such as use Chrome, MSIE, or TOR in the event I feel absolutely compelled to watch a video AND have sound at the same time, on my work laptop. But for the sake of argument, lets say I don't know where these site settings are.... because I don't know where they are which was implied in my original question, and in my additional responses.
The grahics which I already posted show that sound is disabled. While I am a rocket scietist, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to deduce this. I'm happy that you are a developer, it was not my calling as I found writing code monumentally boring. Among my programming friends, many whom are quite dazzling when it comes to various aspects of programming language, code, multimedia, and so on, know a lot about a little bit of computing so although helpful, what I really need is a "boots on the ground" simple answer on how and where to enable sounds. I don't know if I can put it any more simple than that.
As I beat this dead horse some more, I've said this. I've gone into various areas of Opera, perused forums, now exhaustively for something that a free software product should "just do". I don't really give a shit about youtube or watching cats fall off tables, but as I don't really watch tv the occasional news video, or work related stuff that comes up at meetings is simply a part of my daily life and for some odd-ball reason, Opera ceased to work in this regard.
Sir, as a developer as you have difficulty writing a certain script to do a certain task you know the troubling feeling you get when it's right in front of you and you don't see it. It's like that but something that is stupidly simple, and answers strangely absent.
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burnout426 Volunteer last edited by
@john-phd said in web based media has no sound in Opera:
What do you mean "player in question".
On the
opera://media-internalspage, it'll show logs/details for each media object on all pages, each separate into its own section. "player in question" means for you to pick the section for the media you're testing out.In other words, if you start Opera and goto https://hpr.dogphilosophy.net/test/opus.opus without loading any other pages with media, and goto
opera://media-internals, you'll just see the one player listed. -
burnout426 Volunteer last edited by burnout426
Is your sound card/device a 4-channel card/device? Opera a while back had a bug where audio was disabled when using a 4-ch device. See https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=957886.
Also, is your sound device an external USB-based one that you're taking with you and hooking up to each computer you use? You said "completely different hardware" for each computer, but want to make sure on this point. The bug I mentioned above was fixed in Chromium a while ago. But, perhaps there's a similar bug in just Opera at the moment.
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burnout426 Volunteer last edited by burnout426
@john-phd said in web based media has no sound in Opera:
"site preferences"
Any suggestions for use of site preferences are just for testing to try and see if it helps to lead us to the cause. Don't consider them solutions at the moment.
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burnout426 Volunteer last edited by
Do a test. Download the Opera installer, launch it, click "options", set "install path" to a folder named "Opera Stable Test" on your desktop, set "install for" to "standalone installation", make sure "import data from default browser" is unchecked, and install.
Test in that Opera, but do not import anything, do not install any extensions, do not enable Opera Sync, do not enable Opera's VPN, and do not enable Opera's adblocker and tracking protection. This will tell you if your normal Opera has a profile problem.
Is audio still disabled there too? You can use https://hpr.dogphilosophy.net/test/opus.opus again to test.
If it's still disabled there, do "Opera Beta Test" and "Opera Developer Test" standalone installations of Opera Beta and Opera Developer from https://www.opera.com/download and test in them. Same problem or do they work fine? If the latter, your problem is probably already solved and the fix is just waiting to reach Opera Stable.
In your testing, try with https://www2.cs.uic.edu/~i101/SoundFiles/CantinaBand3.wav too to see if there's any difference.
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burnout426 Volunteer last edited by
See https://www.howtogeek.com/244963/how-to-adjust-the-volume-for-individual-apps-in-windows. Check that Opera isn't just muted on the computers you're using.
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john-phd last edited by john-phd
Reinstall the software. yeah, I could try that since nothing else works, however I suspect that when I install the full copy (not a beta, not a stable standalone) once updated or whatever, the outcome will be the same, it's kind of how I got here probably. I may try that, but since I could care less about coding and how it actually works. The thought of playing around with it for hours in an amateur debugging adventure is not very appealing.
I would imagine that like Chrome, there would be a button that mutes sound somewhere. After all, in my earlier post, it clearly shows sound is disabled. I want to "enable" it. It seems ridiculous to buy a new car because you have a flat tire you know? I was looking more along the lines of the simple answer of turning the sound back to "ON" since there does not seem to be a problem with the browser installation, per se.
And I can say that, because it works fine. Except for the no sound part. I will compare to Chrome for the moment, that with some past update, chrome has placed a mute button atop the browser window. This button allows mute/unmute when you have something with sound. I anticipated something like that. Maybe the developers forgot about that since they wanted it to have all the other bells and whistles but forgot the basics.
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animaxtor last edited by
Hi. I was having the same issue on a desktop computer running Kubuntu 18.04. My problem was having multiple sound cards: an integrated one and a USB one and disabling the one I don't use fixed it.
@john-phd Check if your laptop also has multiple audio outputs (ie: sound card + hdmi) -
john-phd last edited by john-phd
No, it does not have multiple outputs. Earlier in this thread I briefly explained that it used to work, and I have done the usual troubleshooting steps. Sound works in all other browsers, and at some point stopped working in Opera.
I also stated earlier that within opera, sound is disabled (I posted a graphic/screen shot of the diagnostic). This is the problem, not the sound card.
