Pulseaudio fails to start after reboot if home partition is encrypted

[Anton Keks]

It seems that with Ubuntu 20.10, Pulseaudio now tries to start as main user too early, before user logs in and the home partition is decrypted. Probably pulseaudio should not start as main user before login of this user.

Starting pulseaudio manually after login works.

grep 'pulseaudio' /var/log/syslog
Feb 24 10:52:31 aziber systemd[1451]: Not generating service for XDG autostart app-pulseaudio-autostart.service, startup phases are not supported.
Feb 24 10:52:31 aziber dbus-daemon[972]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' unit='rtkit-daemon.service' requested by ':1.30' (uid=123 pid=1497 comm="/usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no --log-target=jo" label="unconfined")
Feb 24 10:52:38 aziber systemd[3631]: Not generating service for XDG autostart app-pulseaudio-autostart.service, startup phases are not supported.
Feb 24 10:52:38 aziber pulseaudio[3690]: Failed to create secure directory (/home/anton/.config/pulse): No such file or directory
Feb 24 10:52:38 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Feb 24 10:52:38 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 24 10:52:38 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 1.
Feb 24 10:52:38 aziber pulseaudio[3899]: Failed to create secure directory (/home/anton/.config/pulse): No such file or directory
Feb 24 10:52:38 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Feb 24 10:52:38 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 24 10:52:39 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 2.
Feb 24 10:52:39 aziber pulseaudio[4128]: Failed to create secure directory (/home/anton/.config/pulse): No such file or directory
Feb 24 10:52:39 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Feb 24 10:52:39 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 24 10:52:39 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 3.
Feb 24 10:52:39 aziber pulseaudio[4311]: Failed to create secure directory (/home/anton/.config/pulse): No such file or directory
Feb 24 10:52:39 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Feb 24 10:52:39 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 24 10:52:39 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 4.
Feb 24 10:52:39 aziber pulseaudio[4493]: Failed to create secure directory (/home/anton/.config/pulse): No such file or directory
Feb 24 10:52:39 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Feb 24 10:52:39 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 24 10:52:39 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Feb 24 10:52:39 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Feb 24 10:52:39 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 24 10:52:39 aziber systemd[3609]: pulseaudio.socket: Failed with result 'service-start-limit-hit'.
Feb 24 10:52:42 aziber pulseaudio.desktop[5720]: Connection failure: Connection refused
Feb 24 10:52:42 aziber pulseaudio.desktop[5720]: pa_context_connect() failed: Connection refused
Feb 24 10:52:42 aziber gnome-session[5663]: gnome-session-binary[5663]: WARNING: App 'pulseaudio.desktop' exited with code 1
Feb 24 10:52:42 aziber gnome-session-binary[5663]: WARNING: App 'pulseaudio.desktop' exited with code 1
Feb 24 10:52:42 aziber systemd[3609]: app-gnome-pulseaudio-5715.scope: Failed to add PIDs to scope's control group: No such process
Feb 24 10:52:42 aziber systemd[3609]: app-gnome-pulseaudio-5715.scope: Failed with result 'resources'.
Feb 24 10:52:45 aziber systemd[1432]: pulseaudio.service: Succeeded.
Feb 24 10:52:55 aziber systemd[1432]: pulseaudio.socket: Succeeded.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.10
Package: pulseaudio 1:13.99.2-1ubuntu2.3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.8.0-44.50-generic 5.8.18
Uname: Linux 5.8.0-44-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu50.5
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse: Error: command ['fuser', '-v', '/dev/snd/by-path', '/dev/snd/controlC0', '/dev/snd/hwC0D0', '/dev/snd/hwC0D2', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D5p', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D4p', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D3p', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D1c', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D1p', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D0c', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D0p', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D7c', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D6c', '/dev/snd/seq', '/dev/snd/timer'] failed with exit code 1:
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed Feb 24 10:57:51 2021
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-11-29 (452 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 19.04 "Disco Dingo" - Release amd64 (20190416)
PulseList: Error: command ['pacmd', 'list'] failed with exit code 1: No PulseAudio daemon running, or not running as session daemon.
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to groovy on 2020-10-25 (121 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 01/09/2020
dmi.bios.release: 1.54
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: AUCN54WW
dmi.board.asset.tag: NO Asset Tag
dmi.board.name: LNVNB161216
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: SDK0R32862 WIN
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: NO Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 31
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: Lenovo Yoga C940-14IIL
dmi.ec.firmware.release: 1.43
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvrAUCN54WW:bd01/09/2020:br1.54:efr1.43:svnLENOVO:pn81Q9:pvrLenovoYogaC940-14IIL:rvnLENOVO:rnLNVNB161216:rvrSDK0R32862WIN:cvnLENOVO:ct31:cvrLenovoYogaC940-14IIL:
dmi.product.family: Yoga C940-14IIL
dmi.product.name: 81Q9
dmi.product.sku: LENOVO_MT_81Q9_BU_idea_FM_Yoga C940-14IIL
dmi.product.version: Lenovo Yoga C940-14IIL
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO

[Samuel PHAN (samuel-phan)]

Hi Anton,

As a workaround, you can try to edit the systemd file "/usr/lib/systemd/user/pulseaudio.service" and add the line:

```
RestartSec=2s
```

Your [Service] section would look like to this:

```
[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no --log-target=journal
LockPersonality=yes
MemoryDenyWriteExecute=yes
NoNewPrivileges=yes
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=2s
RestrictNamespaces=yes
SystemCallArchitectures=native
SystemCallFilter=@system-service
# Note that notify will only work if --daemonize=no
Type=notify
UMask=0077
```

Samuel

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 20.10 (groovy) reached end-of-life on July 22, 2021.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

We appreciate that this bug may be old and you might not be interested in discussing it any more. But if you are then please upgrade to the latest Ubuntu version and re-test. If you then find the bug is still present in the newer Ubuntu version, please add a comment here telling us which new version it is in.