Timidity folder /etc/timidity is not owned by timidity user and therefore pulseaudio and timidity don't start

[Andreas Grois]

After installing timidity, the daemon does not start. Pulseaudio complains in the syslog, that the directory /etc/timidity is not owned by the user running timidity (which is called timidity). Changing the ownership of /etc/timidity to timidity:timidity makes the pulseaudio start and the timidity daemon run, yet I'm not sure if this is the preferred solution for this issue.

Here's what pulseaudio put in the syslog before I changed the ownership of the folder.

Aug 11 11:56:08 grois pulseaudio[2291]: [pulseaudio] authkey.c: Failed to open cookie file '/etc/timidity/.pulse-cookie': Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden
Aug 11 11:56:08 grois pulseaudio[2291]: [pulseaudio] authkey.c: Failed to load authorization key '/etc/timidity/.pulse-cookie': Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden
Aug 11 11:56:08 grois pulseaudio[2291]: [autospawn] core-util.c: Home directory /etc/timidity not ours.
Aug 11 11:56:08 grois pulseaudio[2291]: [autospawn] lock-autospawn.c: Fehler beim Zugriff auf Autostart-Sperre.
Aug 11 11:56:08 grois pulseaudio[2291]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to acquire autospawn lock

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Nicolas (go095)]

This problem can be solved by setting the home directory of user `timidity` to /var/run/timidity.

[Ｖ字龍(Vdragon) (vdragon)]

Got this problem today...
What is the reasonable home directory for timidity in Debian/Ubuntu? /etc/timidity or /var/run/timidity?

[Josep Pujadas-Jubany (jpujades)]

On 12.04.3 LTS up-to-date (32 and 64 bit platforms)

josep@myubuntu:~$ cat /var/log/syslog | grep pulseaudio
Oct 11 08:21:25 myubuntu pulseaudio[1856]: [pulseaudio] authkey.c: Failed to open cookie file '/etc/timidity/.pulse-cookie': No such file or directory
Oct 11 08:21:25 myubuntu pulseaudio[1856]: [pulseaudio] authkey.c: Failed to load authorization key '/etc/timidity/.pulse-cookie': No such file or directory
Oct 11 08:21:25 myubuntu pulseaudio[1856]: [autospawn] core-util.c: Home directory /etc/timidity not ours.
Oct 11 08:21:25 myubuntu pulseaudio[1856]: [autospawn] lock-autospawn.c: Cannot access autospawn lock.
Oct 11 08:21:25 myubuntu pulseaudio[1856]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to acquire autospawn lock
Oct 11 08:21:25 myubuntu pulseaudio[3417]: [pulseaudio] pid.c: Daemon already running.

Timidity doesn't work. Same problem in Debian:

http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.debian.devel.bugs.general/1009931

[Josep Pujadas-Jubany (jpujades)]

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/timidity/+bug/1035592/comments/2 [Nicolas (go095) wrote on 2012-11-1]

If I change the home for user timidity as suggested, will timidity read /etc/timidity for its configuration?

[Janus (ysangkok+launchpad)]

This is still an issue for me in 14.10.

[Tritus (tritus)]

The following helped me in Ubuntu 12.04:

sudo chown -R timidity:timidity /etc/timidity

[Eus (eus-member)]

This bug still exists in Ubuntu 16.04! Can't it be fixed?

[Eus (eus-member)]

@Josep Pujadas-Jubany (jpujades): Yes, timidity will still read from /etc/timidity for its configuration. I have tried changing the config file several times after changing the home directory of timidity in /etc/passwd to /var/run/timidity. Each change to the config file took effect after restarting the daemon using "sudo service timidity restart" as expected.