Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 861350
firefox doesn't work properly without pulseaudio running
Last modified: 2013-01-04 07:09:54 EST
Description of problem: Firefox UI doesn't work properly if pulseaudio process is not running. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): firefox-10.0.7-1.el6_3.x86_64 How reproducible: always Steps to Reproduce: 1. kill or don't install pulseaudio 2. start firefox as normal user 3. click "Bookmarks" Actual results: the menu opens quickly Expected results: menu opens only after 20-30 seconds delay Additional info: After starting "pulseaudio" as the same user Firefox's menus started responding properly. I noticed this by first installing a server with X/GNOME, and later did yum groupinstall for graphical environment. A server environment shouldn't require audio, and Firefox is sometimes needed for configuring servers such as RHEV-M.
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It seems that firefox starts pulseaudio if it's not running. However it will fail if pulseaudio is not installed. I'd say the bug is real; it's very common to install server first without X, and then later install Firefox and X dependencies. Maybe this could be fixed by adding pulseaudio to Firefox dependencies?
I removed pulseaudio from my rhel6 virtual box (by yum remove pulseaudio) and reboot the box and firefox works fine w/o any problem. So I don't see the problem you're talking about. I also removed a soundcard from the virtual box and it does not affect FF either.
And I don't see any dupes for this bug...so it still looks like a WONTFIX or WORKSFORME.
ok, maybe I had some other problem on the server earlier. Lets close this then. Thanks!