pulseaudio errors during boot up

[kylea]

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

Getting no audio and these errors are in the messages log. I can sometime fiddle with settings and get some audio.

Description: Ubuntu intrepid (development branch)
Release: 8.10

pulseaudio:
  Installed: 0.9.10-2ubuntu9
  Candidate: 0.9.10-2ubuntu9
  Version table:
 *** 0.9.10-2ubuntu9 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Here is the extract from messages - these same messages have appeared since 16th Oct - have applied all updates

Oct 21 00:43:04 kylea-E6500 pulseaudio[6846]: module-x11-publish.c: PulseAudio information vanished from X11!
Oct 21 01:11:40 kylea-E6500 pulseaudio[6837]: ltdl-bind-now.c: Failed to find original dlopen loader.
Oct 21 01:11:40 kylea-E6500 pulseaudio[6839]: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_NICE, (31, 31)) failed: Operation not permitted
Oct 21 01:11:40 kylea-E6500 pulseaudio[6839]: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_RTPRIO, (9, 9)) failed: Operation not permitted
Oct 21 01:11:40 kylea-E6500 pulseaudio[6839]: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:0: Device or resource busy
Oct 21 01:11:40 kylea-E6500 pulseaudio[6839]: module.c: Failed to load module "module-alsa-sink" (argument: "device_id=0 sink_name=alsa_output.pci_8086_293e_sound_card_0_alsa_playback_0"): initialization failed.
Oct 21 01:11:56 kylea-E6500 pulseaudio[6839]: module-x11-xsmp.c: X11 session manager not running.
Oct 21 01:11:56 kylea-E6500 pulseaudio[6839]: module.c: Failed to load module "module-x11-xsmp" (argument: ""): initialization failed.

[kylea (kylea)]

Have made up a work around for this - created a session executed script that kills pulseaudio and restarts the daemon:

#!/bin/bash
pulseaudio -k >/dev/null 2>&1
pulseaudio -D
pulseaudio

Audio nows works correctly.

[Luke Yelavich (themuso)]

Please enter the following command, log out, and back in, and let me know if the problem still persists:

gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/sound/event_sounds false

[Erik Reuter (misc71)]

I had a similar problem. There was a partial workaround to get sound working again here:

  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/288861

where alsamixer -Dhw revealed that the PCM volume was at zero, and turning it up restored
sound operation. I still have the problem that my system hangs during shutdown while it is
shutting down ALSA. Possibly ALSA cannot be shutdown because pulseaudio -k does not
work, and pulseaudio is an ALSA client.

Here is a list of similar bugs:

#288861
#288652
#288093
#288039
#286966
#286430
#285965

[Nick Read (nickread)]

I started getting this problem a few days after upgrading to Intrepid. While restarting PulseAudio manually (like kylea) was making it work, I was getting fed up and found this issue. Taking Luke's advice and disabling the gnome sound events then restarting worked a treat. I was then able to re-enable them, restart, and everything is working as expected. The steps were basically:

1. Login (actually, it was an auto login - could this be the source of the problem?)
2. Apps couldn't connect to PA
3. gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/sound/event_sounds false
4. Restart
5. Test PA using the PA Setup and also check sound plays in Banshee - no probs.
6. gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/sound/event_sounds true
7. Immediately hear the Ubuntu login sound playing
8. Restart
9. Auto login and Ubuntu login sound plays, Banshee plays, PA Setup works, etc...

I'm unsure what /desktop/gnome/sound/event_sounds was set to prior to the changes (I should have checked). Maybe it wasn't set and defaulting back to the schema value? I can't understand though why setting to false then true would have solved the problem.

[Echo Nolan (echonolan)]

I had this problem after upgrading to intrepid from hardy as well. Setting event_sounds to false, then logging out and back in, then setting it to true again fixes the issue for me too. Very strange.

[Echo Nolan (echonolan)]

After a reboot, sound was broken after logging in again. Turning event_sounds off and logging out and back in fixed the problem again. Also, I ran gconftool-2 -g /desktop/gnome/sound/event_sounds before I did any mucking about and it was set to true.

[kylea (kylea)]

I followed this post:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6117147#post6117147

and have finally got some sanity - even pulseaudio works: after a re-boot. my comments are on page 92

I still run "killall pulseaudio" and then run "pulseaudio -D" as a session process

Start at page 1 read carefully the details on 64bit stuff.

You may need to re-do some of the steps.

Also I installed install_flash_player_10_linux.deb using the I386 override switch and Xine Plugin
for Windows Media Player / RealPlayer / QuickTime compatibility, mPlayer was no good for me

[Hypnos (rspoerri)]

I have had a very similar problem on my system. I have found out that skype, which was in the "Session Preferences" -> "Startup Programs", must have started before the pulseaudio session. And thus blocked it...

Chainging skype to use the pulseaudio driver resolved that problem.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

related to session-startup race, fixed in jaunty