1430704 - Avoid calling cubeb from the main Gecko thread

Status: NEW

(Core :: Audio/Video: cubeb, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Matthew Gregan [:kinetik]]

There are cubeb calls originating on the main Gecko thread that are a footgun in terms of performance (and are also making remoting even harder - see bug 1426867 comment 7).  For example, creating an AudioContext results in a call to query the max channel count, which then initializes a cubeb context.

Initializing a cubeb context has never been guaranteed to be a cheap operation (it could involve enumerating and initializing multiple OS backends, loading DSOs, connecting to sockets, etc.) and at a minimum we should avoid doing this from the main thread.

I think we should add a warning that triggers if potentially-expensive cubeb APIs are invoked from the main Gecko thread, and then work through removing any of the cases where the warning is triggered.

Comment 1

[Paul Adenot (:padenot)]

Matthew, are you taking this one or should I ?

Comment 2

[Matthew Gregan [:kinetik]]

I don't mind taking it, but I won't have time to work on it until after the Windows remoting stuff, so it might be a while.  If you've got free time, I'm happy for you to grab it instead.