pulseaudio stops accepting connections

[Joe Barnett]

After a while, pulseaudio clients get connections refused and are unable to play audio / receive microphone input.

journalctl shows lots of messages like:

Aug 17 13:00:17 taplop pulseaudio[2244465]: [pulseaudio] native-common.c: Expected 1 memfd fd to be received over pipe; got 0
Aug 17 13:00:17 taplop pulseaudio[2244465]: [pulseaudio] native-common.c: Did we reach our open file descriptors limit?
Aug 17 13:00:17 taplop pulseaudio[2244465]: [pulseaudio] protocol-native.c: protocol error, kicking client

as well as

Aug 17 13:03:52 taplop pulseaudio[2244465]: [pulseaudio] protocol-native.c: Warning! Too many connections (64), dropping incoming connection.

killing the pulseaudio daemon makes audio work for a little while until the same thing repeats. not sure what's triggering it though, or how to best find out.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 22.04
Package: pulseaudio 1:15.99.1+dfsg1-1ubuntu1
Uname: Linux 5.17.0-051700drmtip20220329-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu82.1
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: jbarnett 2265029 F.... pulseaudio
CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Wed Aug 17 14:13:56 2022
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-08-17 (1096 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 19.04 "Disco Dingo" - Alpha amd64 (20190305.1)
RebootRequiredPkgs: Error: path contained symlinks.
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to jammy on 2022-03-18 (152 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 03/25/2021
dmi.bios.release: 1.15
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 1.15.1
dmi.board.name: 0N338G
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A00
dmi.chassis.type: 31
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvr1.15.1:bd03/25/2021:br1.15:svnDellInc.:pnXPS159575:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0N338G:rvrA00:cvnDellInc.:ct31:cvr:sku080D:
dmi.product.family: XPS
dmi.product.name: XPS 15 9575
dmi.product.sku: 080D
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.