pulse audio stops working- not showing my sound devices- can't be fixed with rebooting or reinstalling

[Evan Meyers]

Read my usb sound device initially.
Stopped when I tried to play sound through chrome (was fine with firefox).
Can't get it to read my sound device now...
Can't run pavucontrol... get this message: "Connection to pulseaudio failed. automatically retry in 5 seconds." This message is from a pulseaudio generated window.

Cannot run start-pulseaudio-x11; I get this message "Connection failure: Connection refused
pa_context_connect() failed: Connection refused" This message shows in the terminal.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: pulseaudio 1:10.0-2ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.13.0-17.20-generic 4.13.8
Uname: Linux 4.13.0-17-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.7-0ubuntu3.5
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse: Error: command ['fuser', '-v', '/dev/snd/comprC2D2', '/dev/snd/pcmC2D1p', '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0c', '/dev/snd/pcmC2D0p', '/dev/snd/controlC2', '/dev/snd/by-id', '/dev/snd/by-path', '/dev/snd/pcmC1D0c', '/dev/snd/pcmC1D0p', '/dev/snd/controlC1', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D2p', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D1p', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D0p', '/dev/snd/controlC0', '/dev/snd/seq', '/dev/snd/timer'] failed with exit code 1:
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sun Dec 3 11:18:16 2017
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-12-01 (1 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" - Release amd64 (20171018)
PulseList: Error: command ['pacmd', 'list'] failed with exit code 1: No PulseAudio daemon running, or not running as session daemon.
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 06/01/2016
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: E200HA.300
dmi.board.asset.tag: ATN12345678901234567
dmi.board.name: E200HA
dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
dmi.board.version: 1.0
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
dmi.chassis.version: 1.0
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvrE200HA.300:bd06/01/2016:svnASUSTeKCOMPUTERINC.:pnE200HA:pvr1.0:rvnASUSTeKCOMPUTERINC.:rnE200HA:rvr1.0:cvnASUSTeKCOMPUTERINC.:ct10:cvr1.0:
dmi.product.family: E
dmi.product.name: E200HA
dmi.product.version: 1.0
dmi.sys.vendor: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.

[Evan Meyers (ej1luv)]

Update: booting in recovery mode solves the problem, but rebooting normally causes the problem to happen again.

[Evan Meyers (ej1luv)]

Updates this morning fixed this. Now it would be great to be able to use my internal speakers and microphone. Hopefully, that fix is next.