Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, current version of Firefox, AMD A12 CPU & graphics.

When playing audio in the background starting Firefox will severely distort the sound, especially when FF is displaying images.

The problem is not present with the other browser I use, Opera.

Anyone come across similar or have a suggestion for a fix?

PS: No need to tell me to use Opera

Thanks

See what top command says before you open ff and after.

Is it possible that ff is also starting up with some audio playing?

i have had problems with ff when going to some sites so when i go to most sites it is fine but when i go to certain secure sites like yahoo or homedepot the sounds becomes distorted and static-y. i have not figured out a work-around or a fix. the only way to undo is to restart. i have filed bugs but dont get a response usually. i use fc kde spin.

For me at least, it's related to animations. When you open a new site page, during the downloading of the animations the browser appears to use the majority of the computer's resources, mouse is jittery, other windows don't move around well etc. I find it is worst when I'm streaming music to a bluetooth Bose sound link mini, when not streaming music, barely noticeable.
But when the web page is all downloaded, animations playing, everything is good, it's during the downloading of the animations, perhaps because some start playing as soon as they are downloaded while others are still coming down the pipe.
I tried Opera in hopes it was just a FF thing, but had same issue with Opera when streaming music to the bluetooth speaker, just not as bad.

I assume you mean assembly & rendering - actual downloading takes almost no resources at all.
Cannot confirm; I know web pages that constantly eat a substantial amount of CPU (CSS animations, without javascript).

I had a crackling sound after visiting some sites with firefox on my Xubuntu 21.04 installation. It turned out to be related to the 'speech-dispatcher' software. Try running: `killall speech-dispatcher` and see whether or not it goes away. If it does you may uninstall 'speech-dispatcher' with: `sudo apt remove speech-dispatcher`.

source: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1033...edirect=1&lq=1

I will try this exact same problem and report back. At first, it seemed to start when I had a Discord tab open, but randomly does it on anything.

OK, thanks, that fixed it.

Cheers

Another less intrusive fix is:

> Go to about:config in Firefox and search for "media.webspeech.synth.enabled" and set it to "false" (double clicking on the entry should do it) then close Firefox. Don't forget to restart Firefox.

source: https://tqdev.com/2021-firefox-ubuntu-crackling-sound

awesome, thanks mevdschee. stopping media.webspeech in about:config worked on fedora. thanks for putting that up!