Bug 271133 – [GStreamer] pornhub videos have distorted audio (in Debian?)

• Component: Media
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

Created attachment 470406 [details]
brief sfw clip with distorted audio typical of all videos

All videos on the aforementioned website play with distorted audio, though the video seems fine. See attached for SFW sample of audio.

Further information:

Other gstreamer apps (totem, sushi) have no problem playing these videos. Nor does Firefox.

Fedora is unable to play videos on this site at all, until the Cisco-provided h264 plugin is installed, and then videos play flawlessly.

Flatpak is also able to play videos without a problem.

Debian plays videos (has h264 support OOTB), but the audio is distorted. This remains true even after installing the Cisco-provided package.

Because Debian native epiphany-browser is the only app that seems to have a problem, might this not actually be a gstreamer bug, but rather something else misconfigured with epiphany or webkit?

System:
CPU: Intel Core i5-8300H × 8
GRAPHICS: Intel UHD Graphics 630 (CFL GT2)
RAM: 16 GB
Model: Dell XPS 15 9570

This is on Debian testing:
Web 46.beta
WebKitGTK 2.42.5
GStreamer 1.22.10

However, this has been true for a long time (possibly forever?), at least a couple of years.

Installed packages include:
gstreamer1.0-vaapi/testing,now 1.22.10-1 amd64 [installed]
i965-va-driver/testing,unstable,now 2.4.1+dfsg1-1 amd64 [installed]
intel-media-va-driver/testing,unstable,now 24.1.0+dfsg1-1 amd64 [installed]
libigdgmm12/testing,unstable,now 22.3.17+ds1-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libvdpau-va-gl1/testing,unstable,now 0.4.2-1+b1 amd64 [installed,automatic]

gir1.2-gst-plugins-bad-1.0/testing,now 1.22.10-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
gir1.2-gst-plugins-base-1.0/testing,now 1.22.10-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
gir1.2-gstreamer-1.0/testing,now 1.22.10-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
gstreamer1.0-clutter-3.0/testing,now 3.0.27-3+b1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
gstreamer1.0-gl/testing,now 1.22.10-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
gstreamer1.0-gtk3/testing,now 1.22.10-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
gstreamer1.0-libav/testing,now 1.22.10-1 amd64 [installed]
gstreamer1.0-packagekit/testing,now 1.2.8-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
gstreamer1.0-pipewire/testing,now 1.0.3-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad/testing,now 1.22.10-1 amd64 [installed]
gstreamer1.0-plugins-base/testing,now 1.22.10-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
gstreamer1.0-plugins-good/testing,now 1.22.10-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly/testing,now 1.22.10-1 amd64 [installed]
gstreamer1.0-vaapi/testing,now 1.22.10-1 amd64 [installed]
gstreamer1.0-x/testing,now 1.22.10-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libclutter-gst-3.0-0/testing,now 3.0.27-3+b1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libges-1.0-0/testing,now 1.22.9-1 amd64 [installed]
libgstreamer-gl1.0-0/testing,now 1.22.10-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libgstreamer-plugins-bad1.0-0/testing,now 1.22.10-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-0/testing,now 1.22.10-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libgstreamer1.0-0/testing,now 1.22.10-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libgtk-4-media-gstreamer/testing,now 4.12.5+ds-3 amd64 [installed,automatic]

This occurs with and without gstreamer1.0-vaapi, and regardless of whether I am using intel-media-va-driver (installed by default) or intel-media-va-driver-non-free.

[Philippe Normand]

Please attach debug logs, https://docs.webkit.org/Ports/WebKitGTK%20and%20WPE%20WebKit/Multimedia.html#minibrowser

Created attachment 470520 [details]
logs with distorted audio

[Philippe Normand]

(In reply to bwrinkle from comment #2)
> Created attachment 470520 [details]
> logs with distorted audio

The gst.log is missing.

Created attachment 470521 [details]
gst log to accompany previous dot files

Created attachment 470522 [details]
correct gst file for previous dot files upload

[Philippe Normand]

Ok, so avdec_aac is used for audio decoding, and the audio sink periodically signals underruns, hence the glitches...

Can you install this and try again?
https://packages.debian.org/sid/gstreamer1.0-fdkaac

That does fix the audio. fdk-aac seems to be installed by default on Fedora, so I suppose that explains why Fedora works (after video codec installation). Does this also explain why flatpak works OOTB?

[Philippe Normand]

Most likely yes. Closing.