Surface Pro 2 audio jack works in IE, not in FF; an intermittent problem in recent weeks after months of perfect performance and a permanent problem today
Surface Pro 2 / Win 8.1 / Firefox 27.0.1. On any of several websites, up until today I could get audio equally well through the Surface speaker or through an external audio device plugged into the Surface audio jack (such as headset or portable [non-Bluetooth] speaker). Today I am suddenly unable to get the sound through the audio jack while using Firefox; the sound comes through with no problem if I use IE. I *do not* want to use IE! However, I may be forced to if this issue continues. Furthermore, the problem does not exist on my Dell Win 8.1 laptop.
All Replies (5)
Your choice of audio output devices seems like a system function that Firefox should be agnostic about... however, because Firefox needs to interact with device drivers, updates and changes to Firefox, plugins, Windows, and device driver software could cause issues.
Can you associate this change with any software updates installed in the past 24 hours?
In case it's a transitory glitch, have you tried shutting down and restarting Windows?
No software updates in last 24 hours. Restarted Windows several times. No effect. :( Thanks for the suggestions.
Can you narrow down the problem to any particular plugin or player?
For example, this page uses the native HTML5 audio player:
http://hpr.dogphilosophy.net/test/
Other pages may use the Flash plugin.
The mystery continues.... today all audio works properly. Thx for input.
BTW your question about the plug in or player threw me for a loop! I have no clue how I would know that info about any given web page. If it's not too complicated, perhaps you can tell me so I will know for future reference.
You could look for a plugin notification icon on the left end of the address bar. If a page uses multiple plugins, or uses a mix of plugin and native players, then you couldn't be sure which was which.
If the audio player is not hidden (who doesn't hate those), usually right-clicking it will reveal its nature. Firefox's native player gives you a pretty ordinary looking context menu, while plugins nearly always display a proprietary menu.