web based media has no sound in Opera

john-phd

john-phd @leocg

@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.

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @john-phd

@john-phd You mentioned Adobe Flash in your post and I replied saying that you can remove it because it's not necessary nowadays. That was all.

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @john-phd

@john-phd Only audio in videos doesn't work? Or you can't hear any sound in Opera?

donq

donq @john-phd

@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

john-phd @donq

@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.

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer @john-phd

@john-phd said in web based media has no sound in Opera:

What do you mean "player in question".

On the opera://media-internals page, 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

burnout426 Volunteer

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.

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer @john-phd

@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.

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer

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.

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer

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.

john-phd

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.

animaxtor

animaxtor

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

john-phd @animaxtor

@animaxtor

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.

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer

For both the Windows 10 and Windows 7 systems, what sound device (exact model and revision) and driver version do you have?

john-phd

john-phd @burnout426

@burnout426

Seriously?

Intel Display Audio (driver 10.26.0.1)
Realtek (driver 6.0.1.8622)

Animaxtor had a point, this looks like two audio outputs, and when plugged into the docking station there is actually 3. Having tried all 3 after the previous suggestion, that didn't work. I suspect is is because the SOUND IS DISABLED IN OPERA.

I did my magic on the 7 system it works. I am not sure what point it started working, becuase I don't spend my days watching videos. But I did some things and apparently patched up the problem. You know, cleaning out old software, doing updates, that kind of thing.

john-phd

john-phd @animaxtor

@animaxtor

Update to my earlier response (at 7 AM when I was getting ready for work) there are two outputs, and there are three outputs when using a docking station.

Using any one of the three, no sound. Problem remains.

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer @john-phd

@john-phd said in web based media has no sound in Opera:

Intel Display Audio (driver 10.26.0.1)
Realtek (driver 6.0.1.8622)

In the device manager, disable the intel Display Audio device. Then, disable the Realtek device and enable it again (and restart Opera if it's open), or restart the computer. Use headphones or speakers connected directly to the audio out jack on the PC.

Or, is the PC hooked up to a monitor with an HDMI cable where the monitor has speakers and gets the audio from HDMI? If that's the case, you might have to set the Intel Display Audio driver as the default audio device in Windows settings (to make Opera happy). If that's the case, that might be something for one of the Opera devs to go on.

john-phd

john-phd

I'll humor you.

It didn't work. Which is kind of what I was thinking would be the outcome, since sound is disabled in Opera (per the diagnostic that you referred me to on October 1). I am fairly certain that there is not much wrong with the sound card other than it's an OEM built into a DELL, which I would never purchase for myself but that is only a preference. The presence of two (or three) sound cards to me is a bit lame and redundant, and likely useless but I didn't design it.

Also I'll reiterate what I said earlier on. By the time I get to the forums, I've already tried everything I know, and I know a lot. I could itemize my steps, which would take time and would be ignored, based on quite a lot of previous experience. But since you bring up the topic of Opera developers, in what way can I ask Opera developers (or their technical support) a question? They have adopted the microsoft model for users helping other users in forums which keeps everyone busy and off of their payroll hours. While effective as a business model, there is little ground covered so far in most cases.

On that same topic, you mention that the "default audio output" for opera may not be what I am using. This would be interconnected with my earlier question, "if there is a mute button, where do I find it?" So since you brought it up, where would I find the setting for default sound card settings for Opera? I imagine I would also find the volume and "enable" feature in the same place. A helpful hint is that it is not in windows settings, because the system settings for the sound work for everything else. I would not be surprised if Opera defies the default system settings, but if so, where would I look for that? I know this is possible because Chrome will only use a US keyboard, and I have a Swedish keyboard which is why I use opera as much as I do, It doesn't fight me constantly.

So once more, how do I enable sound in my Opera browser? this is the question.

john-phd

john-phd @burnout426

I thought that it was a little hoaky that 2 (or three) sound cards would be present. So a quick look online shows me that these are what we used to call "virtual devices" which is present in device manager, but is not a physical piece of hardware. It is how the software and drivers are written.

Intel Display audio is a driver for HDMI devices. There is no speakers or audio on my monitor so we can rule that out, and disable it. Odd it even appears in device manager, I am reading that it usually does not.

My tertiary (3rd) audio device is Realtek USB audio. According to what i am seeing, this is the docking station for the laptop, and appears to be a virtual device. This has not worked for Opera, nor have the built in laptop speakers (Realtek sound card, which is physically present) since april. That is, there is no sound whether or not I am connected to the docking station.

So, since I am not using HDMI for audio, I will disable it permanently. It's a loose end. I updated the driver for the USB Audio (which should not matter) and there is no update for the physical soundcard. No dice. I should say no sound in Opera after the update and subsequent reboot.

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer @john-phd

@john-phd said in web based media has no sound in Opera:

On that same topic, you mention that the "default audio output" for opera may not be what I am using. This would be interconnected with my earlier question, "if there is a mute button, where do I find it?" So since you brought it up, where would I find the setting for default sound card settings for Opera? I imagine I would also find the volume and "enable" feature in the same place. A helpful hint is that it is not in windows settings, because the system settings for the sound work for everything else.

Opera doesn't have a mute button. Opera doesn't have any default sound device settings. I was indeed referring to sound settings that you get by hitting the Windows key + r to open the run dialog, typing control mmsys.cpl sounds and pressing enter. Specifically, on the Playback tab, I wanted you to double-check that the Realtek device is set as the default device. Also, when the Realtek device is selected on the Playback tab, click properties. In its properties, *if* it's a 4 channel or more audio device, play with the settings (like surround settings or forcing stereo etc.). Also, if the Realtek device has both front and rear speaker outputs, and you're only using one of them, try plugging the speakers into the other. Again, try this if you haven't already, not as a solution, but a test as Opera has had trouble with 4-channel cards in the past.