Trouble with autoplaying audio via html in Quest 5.9 #1426

vurt834 · 2025-02-08T08:06:54Z

vurt834
Feb 8, 2025

On a game I've been working on for a couple of years, I used the standard autoplay audio element extensively:

src = GetFileURL("background music.ogg")
ID = "background-music"
msg ("")

It no longer functions as is in Quest 5.9. Does the new Chrome build block autoplay like the browser does? I was able to get it to work via javascript, but only with user interaction (pressing a button). That lines up with what I've read about Chrome's autoplay policy (only playing [or unmuting] audio with a user gesture). Otherwise, all the tricks I read about on stack overflow did nothing.
Anyone else having trouble with this? Any possible solutions?

KVonGit · 2025-02-08T13:35:14Z

KVonGit
Feb 8, 2025
Collaborator

Does the new Chrome build block autoplay like the browser does? I was able to get it to work via javascript, but only with user interaction (pressing a button).

This is correct. It's because the browser was updated, and it's the browser policy.

The easiest solution (as you've found) is to add something before play begins to make the user interact.

(I'm about to test out a second approach, but I'm 50/50 on whether or not it will work. UPDATE: It didn't work.)

3 replies

KVonGit Feb 8, 2025
Collaborator

Quest's built-in script to play a sound still works with no need for interaction.

It has to be MP3 or WAV, though. Can't use OGG. The Quest editor doesn't recognize the format.

I actually found a hack to make play sound work with OGG when playing online, but I could never figure out how to make it work in the desktop player. Turns out Windows Media Player doesn't natively support Vorbis (OGG), and the desktop version of Quest uses WMP to play audio.

vurt834 Feb 8, 2025
Author

Thanks, I'll have to play around a bit to see what I can do. Also, it will accept OGG, but only with user interaction. But, with the built in play sound command, it can only play one sound at a time, correct?

KVonGit Feb 8, 2025
Collaborator

Correct.

The desktop player wouldn't play OGG using Quest's play sound script in 5.9 when I just tested it.
It will play OGG when you use an HTML audio element, but only after the player has interacted with the game.
Playing a sound using play sound will stop any sound that play sound is currently playing. So, you can't play more than one sound at a time.

Hacky workaround¹

<!--Saved by Quest 5.9.9166.36226-->
<asl version="580">
  <include ref="English.aslx" />
  <include ref="Core.aslx" />
  <game name="Begin Game with Ambient Sound (5.9)">
    <gameid>e68a415b-9a2a-4626-92b0-6311b14de66d</gameid>
    <version>0.2 alpha</version>
    <firstpublished>© 2025 AdventureScriptingServices</firstpublished>
    <feature_advancedscripts />
    <description><![CDATA[Test game<br/>Written for Quest 5.9<br/>ASL 580<br/>© 2025 AdventureScriptingServices<br/>8/FEB/2025]]></description>
    <subtitle><![CDATA[v{game.version}<br/>{game.firstpublished}]]></subtitle>
    <author>KV (writing as Robert Galbraith)</author>
    <cover>wipq59.png</cover>
    <inituserinterface type="script">
      game.resuming = true
      if (game.timeelapsed = 0) {
        game.resuming = false
      }
      JS.eval ("$('#divOutput').on('load', ASLEvent('MovePlayerToInitRoom',''));")
    </inituserinterface>
  </game>
  <object name="room">
    <inherit name="editor_room" />
    <object name="player">
      <inherit name="editor_object" />
      <inherit name="editor_player" />
    </object>
    <exit alias="north" to="hall">
      <inherit name="northdirection" />
    </exit>
  </object>
  <object name="hall">
    <inherit name="editor_room" />
    <description><![CDATA[<br/>{command:SAVE}]]></description>
    <exit alias="south" to="room">
      <inherit name="southdirection" />
    </exit>
  </object>
  <object name="InitRoom">
    <inherit name="editor_room" />
    <alias>Initialising...</alias>
    <usedefaultprefix type="boolean">false</usedefaultprefix>
    <enter type="script"><![CDATA[
      ClearScreen
      ShowMenu ("This game includes annoying audio. Is this okay with you?", Split("OK"), false) {
        ClearScreen
        if (not game.resuming and game.showtitle) {
          JS.StartOutputSection ("title")
          PrintCentered ("<span style=\"font-size:260%\">" + game.gamename + "</span>")
          if (game.subtitle <> null) {
            if (LengthOf(game.subtitle) > 0) {
              PrintCentered ("<span style=\"font-size:130%\">" + game.subtitle + "</span>")
            }
          }
          if (game.author <> null) {
            if (LengthOf(game.author) > 0) {
              PrintCentered ("<br/><span style=\"font-size:140%\">by " + game.author + "</span>")
            }
          }
          msg ("<div style=\"margin-top:20px\"></div>")
          JS.EndOutputSection ("title")
          msg ("To test things:<br/>› Go to the other room (hall)<br/>› Save the game<br/>› Close the game<br/>› Resume play<br/><br/>You should be in the room where you saved (which should be 'hall'), and the audio should play.<br/>")
        }
        PlayAmbientSound
        MovePlayer (game.initroom)
      }
    ]]></enter>
  </object>
  <function name="MovePlayerToInitRoom" parameters="unused">
    game.initroom = game.pov.parent
    MovePlayer (InitRoom)
  </function>
  <function name="PlayAmbientSound"><![CDATA[
    JS.eval ("$('<audio src=\"" + GetFileURL("ambient sound.ogg") + "\" autoplay loop/>').insertBefore($('#divOutput'));")
  ]]></function>
</asl>

Begin Game with Ambient Sound (5.9).zip

https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/bqrr43dnmk6mppsrsiyt4g/begin-game-with-ambient-sound-5-9

This will clear the screen when loading the game, whether playing the first time or resuming from a save.

Note: the last time I messed with audio in Quest, I don't think the Safari browser played OGG natively, and I have no iThing to test this.

I am pretty sure I stole the idea of using an after entering room script from one of Davy B's solutions concerning this. ↩

KVonGit · 2025-02-08T21:04:22Z

KVonGit
Feb 8, 2025
Collaborator

Here's a different approach:

This uses a dialog window to fake a prompt. When OK is clicked, it uses JS.ASLEvent() to call a Quest function I created to play the ambient sound.

Tested in Firefox and in the desktop version of Quest 5.9 on Windows 10 .

<!--Saved by Quest 5.9.9166.36226-->
<asl version="580">
  <include ref="English.aslx" />
  <include ref="Core.aslx" />
  <game name="Prompt to Play Audio">
    <gameid>1c2ee527-e8b7-4c7a-bab2-b6d807bac155</gameid>
    <version>0.0 alpha</version>
    <firstpublished>2025</firstpublished>
    <feature_advancedscripts />
    <inituserinterface type="script">
      ShowFakePrompt
    </inituserinterface>
  </game>
  <object name="room">
    <inherit name="editor_room" />
    <object name="player">
      <inherit name="editor_object" />
      <inherit name="editor_player" />
    </object>
    <exit alias="north" to="halllway">
      <inherit name="northdirection" />
    </exit>
  </object>
  <object name="halllway">
    <inherit name="editor_room" />
    <exit alias="south" to="room">
      <inherit name="southdirection" />
    </exit>
  </object>
  <function name="ShowFakePrompt">
    JS.eval ("$('#msgboxCaption').html('This game includes audio.'); var msgboxOptions = { modal: true, autoOpen: false, title: 'Attention!', buttons: [{ text: 'OK',  click: function () { ASLEvent ('PlayAmbientSound',''); $(this).dialog('close'); }}, ], closeOnEscape: false, }; $('#msgbox').dialog(msgboxOptions); $('#msgbox').dialog('open');")
  </function>
  <function name="PlayAmbientSound" parameters="unused"><![CDATA[
    JS.eval ("$('audio').remove(); $('" + Chr(60) + "audio src=\"" + GetFileURL("ambient sound.ogg") + "\" autoplay loop/>').insertBefore($('#divOutput'));")
  ]]></function>
</asl>

Prompt to Play Audio.zip

https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/cve-ibbdkeek9zc_j2zhdq/prompt-to-play-audio

1 reply

KVonGit Feb 8, 2025
Collaborator

The third option I can think of is also from DavyB:

Create a command to play the sound. I believe DavyB uses the simple pattern audio and includes a message when the game loads that tells the player to enter the command AUDIO to enable sound.

vurt834 · 2025-02-09T00:06:31Z

vurt834
Feb 9, 2025
Author

Excellent, thanks for your help!

0 replies

KVonGit · 2025-02-09T01:07:05Z

KVonGit
Feb 9, 2025
Collaborator

One last time:

As of Quest 5.9, the desktop player can handle MP3 in HTML audio elements. So, we no longer need OGG just for that.

Here's the version that uses jQuery dialog as a prompt, only it uses MP3 rather than OGG -- and it has a command to play a second sound while the first is still playing.

<!--Saved by Quest 5.9.9166.36226-->
<asl version="580">
  <include ref="English.aslx" />
  <include ref="Core.aslx" />
  <game name="Prompt to Play Audio">
    <gameid>1c2ee527-e8b7-4c7a-bab2-b6d807bac155</gameid>
    <version>0.1 alpha</version>
    <firstpublished>2025</firstpublished>
    <feature_advancedscripts />
    <inituserinterface type="script">
      ShowFakePrompt
    </inituserinterface>
    <subtitle>v{game.version}</subtitle>
    <author>KV (writing as Richard Bachman)</author>
    <description><![CDATA[Testing game<br/>© 2025 QuestForumQuesters<br/>Written for Quest 5.9<br/>ASL 580<br/>8/FEB/2025]]></description>
    <cover>wipq59.png</cover>
  </game>
  <command name="test">
    <pattern>test</pattern>
    <script>
      msg("Playing announcement...")
      play sound ("announcement.mp3", true, false)
      msg ("Announcement done.")
    </script>
  </command>
  <object name="room">
    <inherit name="editor_room" />
    <description>{command:TEST}</description>
    <object name="player">
      <inherit name="editor_object" />
      <inherit name="editor_player" />
    </object>
    <exit alias="north" to="halllway">
      <inherit name="northdirection" />
    </exit>
  </object>
  <object name="halllway">
    <inherit name="editor_room" />
    <exit alias="south" to="room">
      <inherit name="southdirection" />
    </exit>
  </object>
  <function name="ShowFakePrompt">
    JS.eval ("$('#msgboxCaption').html('This game includes audio.'); var msgboxOptions = { modal: true, autoOpen: false, title: 'Attention!', buttons: [{ text: 'OK',  click: function () { ASLEvent ('PlayAmbientSound',''); $(this).dialog('close'); }}, ], closeOnEscape: false, }; $('#msgbox').dialog(msgboxOptions); $('#msgbox').dialog('open');")
  </function>
  <function name="PlayAmbientSound" parameters="unused"><![CDATA[
    JS.eval ("$('audio').remove(); $('" + Chr(60) + "audio src=\"" + GetFileURL("ambient_sound.mp3") + "\" autoplay loop/>').insertBefore($('#divOutput'));")
  ]]></function>
</asl>

Prompt to Play Audio.zip

https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/cve-ibbdkeek9zc_j2zhdq/prompt-to-play-audio

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Trouble with autoplaying audio via html in Quest 5.9 #1426

vurt834 Feb 8, 2025

Replies: 5 comments · 4 replies

KVonGit Feb 8, 2025 Collaborator

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vurt834 Feb 8, 2025 Author

KVonGit Feb 8, 2025 Collaborator

Hacky workaround1

Footnotes

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vurt834 Feb 9, 2025 Author

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vurt834
Feb 8, 2025

Replies: 5 comments 4 replies

KVonGit
Feb 8, 2025
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KVonGit Feb 8, 2025
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vurt834 Feb 8, 2025
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KVonGit Feb 8, 2025
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Hacky workaround¹

KVonGit
Feb 8, 2025
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KVonGit Feb 8, 2025
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vurt834
Feb 9, 2025
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KVonGit
Feb 9, 2025
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