pulseaudio can't start on NFSv4 home

[Walter R. Moore]

When I configure 12.04 LTS to use autofs and nfs mount the home volume, pulseaudio stops working. Although permissions in $HOME seem correct, it fails with this error:

$ pulseaudio --start
E: [autospawn] core-util.c: Failed to create secure directory: Operation not permitted
W: [autospawn] lock-autospawn.c: Cannot access autospawn lock.
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to acquire autospawn lock

$ df -h .
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
eckserver:/export/home3 1009G 483G 517G 49% /home3/eckserver

strace of `pulseaudio --start' attached.

[Walter R. Moore (moorewr)]

$ ls -lRa . .pulse .config .config/pulseaudio
.:
total 15545196
drwxr-xr-x 125 moorewr staff 5632 May 23 10:54 .
drwxr-xr-x 37 root root 1024 Jan 27 2012 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 moorewr staff 967 Oct 6 1997 .ab_library
drwxr-xr-x 2 moorewr staff 512 D.:
total 15545196
drwxr-xr-x 125 moorewr staff 5632 May 23 10:54 .
drwxr-xr-x 37 root root 1024 Jan 27 2012 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 moorewr staff 967 Oct 6 1997 .ab_library
drwxr-xr-x 2 moorewr staff 512 Dec 4 2002 .acrobat
-rw-r--r-- 1 moorewr staff 1882 Jul 13 2004 .acrorc
-rw-r--r-- 1 moorewr staff 237 Jul 19 2005 .acrosrch
-rw-r--r-- 1 moorewr staff 0 Jan 3 2000 .addressbook
-rw------- 1 moorewr staff 2285 Jan 3 2000 .addressbook.lu
drwx------ 5 moorewr staff 512 Sep 5 2008 .adobe
drwxr-xr-x 2 moorewr staff 512 May 20 13:37 .audioctl
drwx------ 2 moorewr staff 512 May 17 2002 .autosave
-rw------- 1 moorewr staff 7389 May 21 14:04 .bash_history
-rw-r--r-- 1 moorewr staff 15 Oct 31 2007 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x 2 moorewr staff 512 Sep 1 2009 bin
drwxr-xr-x 2 moorewr staff 512 Oct 29 2003 .borland
drwx------ 17 moorewr staff 512 May 21 14:17 .cache
drwxr-xr-x 2 moorewr staff 512 Sep 13 2001 .cas
drwx------ 2 moorewr staff 512 May 16 2003 .cddbslave
drwxr-xr-x 2 moorewr staff 512 Jun 2 1997 .cetables
drwxr-xr-x 4 moorewr staff 512 Dec 7 2005 .cisco_mds9000
drwxr-xr-x 6 moorewr staff 512 Dec 7 2005 cisco_mds9000
drwxr-xr-x 3 moorewr staff 512 May 16 15:58 .compiz-1
-rwxrwxrwx 1 moorewr staff 1451 Aug 15 2006 .com.zerog.registry.xml
drwx------ 15 moorewr staff 512 May 21 14:04 .config
-rw-r--r-- 1 moorewr staff 78 Jan 27 2004 .crash_reportrc
-rwxr--r-- 1 moorewr staff 819 Aug 9 2005 .cshrc
-rwxr--r-- 1 moorewr staff 1683 Apr 18 2001 .cshrc~
-rw-r----- 1 moorewr staff 1638 Oct 6 1998 .cshrc%
-rw-r----- 1 moorewr staff 2658 Oct 6 1998 .cshrc_bad
-rw-r--r-- 1 moorewr staff 378 Jan 17 2003 .darwin
drwx------ 3 moorewr staff 512 May 16 15:51 .dbus
drwx------ 4 moorewr staff 512 Jun 7 2001 .ddd
-rw-r--r-- 1 moorewr staff 634 Jun 5 2001 .default.wst
-rw-r----- 1 moorewr staff 2176 Nov 7 2003 .desksetdefaults
drwxr-xr-x 2 moorewr staff 1024 Feb 13 2004 .desktop
drwxr-xr-x 2 moorewr staff 512 May 20 13:34 Desktop
drwxr-xr-x 3 moorewr staff 512 May 12 1998 .desktop-ctesphon.eckerd.edu
drwxr-xr-x 3 moorewr staff 512 Oct 31 1997 .desktophost
drwxr-xr-x 6 moorewr staff 512 May 12 1998 .desktop-o2
-rw-r--r-- 1 moorewr staff 26 May 21 14:04 .dmrc
drwxr-xr-x 6 moorewr staff 1024 Sep 5 2008 Documents
-rw-r--r-- 1 moorewr staff 721 Sep 26 1997 .doomrc
drwxr-xr-x 2 moorewr staff 512 May 16 15:51 Downloads
drwxr-xr-x 16 moorewr staff 512 May 17 14:41 .dt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 moorewr staff 5400 Jul 1 1997 .dtprofile
drwxr-xr-...

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Anka Rüger (ann-rueger)]

Having a similar problem in Trusty, too.

Jul 23 10:14:39 wslab03 pulseaudio[4054]: [pulseaudio] core-util.c: Failed to create secure directory (/home/tx1/.config/pulse): Invalid argument
Jul 23 10:14:39 wslab03 pulseaudio[4051]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup failed.
Jul 23 10:14:39 wslab03 pulseaudio[4058]: [pulseaudio] core-util.c: Failed to create secure directory (/home/tx1/.config/pulse): Invalid argument
Jul 23 10:14:39 wslab03 pulseaudio[4055]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup failed.

[Walter R. Moore (moorewr)]

Confirmed - problem exists on trusty.

Any progress on this?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Ubuntu 14.04 reached end of standard support in April 2019:

  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

If you would like to continue with free support then please update to a
newer Ubuntu version and tell us if the problem still occurs.

If you would like to continue with Ubuntu 14.04 then there is a paid
support option detailed at https://www.ubuntu.com/esm