Establishing connection to PulseAudio. Please wait...

[gregrwm]

Sometimes when i start up firefox in the morning i can't hear any audio. Or sometimes a page that wants to play audio will freeze, waiting. When these happen i'll launch pavucontrol next and it'll say "Establishing connection to PulseAudio. Please wait..." and just keep waiting. i look for the pulseaudio process, it's there as usual. Even so i just launch an additional pulseaudio process, and then pavucontrol is immediately all happy. Firefox might also immediately become all happy, or less often i'll also need to restart firefox before i can play audio.

i usually shut off my computer at night. Starting it up each morning, manifestations as described above might be separated by a couple weeks, or might happen a couple times within a week.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: pulseaudio 1:11.1-1ubuntu7.4 [modified: usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/steelseries-arctis-7-output-mono.conf]
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-88.88-generic 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-88-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.11
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse: Error: command ['fuser', '-v', '/dev/snd/by-path', '/dev/snd/hwC0D0', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D2c', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D2p', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D0c', '/dev/snd/pcmC0D0p', '/dev/snd/controlC0', '/dev/snd/seq', '/dev/snd/timer'] failed with exit code 1:
Date: Sat Sep 5 16:45:50 2020
ProcEnviron:
 LC_TIME=en_DK.utf8
 TERM=screen
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
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: 04/30/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A10
dmi.board.name: 0PU052
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.type: 15
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA10:bd04/30/2008:svnDellInc.:pnOptiPlex755:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0PU052:rvr:cvnDellInc.:ct15:cvr:
dmi.product.name: OptiPlex 755
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

[gregrwm (gregrwm)]

Sorry i launched ubuntu-bug on the wrong box. And upon running it on the proper box just now, it said '*** It seems you have modified the contents of "/etc/apport/crashdb.conf". Would you like to add the contents of it to your bug report?
What would you like to do? Your options are:
  Y: Yes
  N: No
  C: Cancel
Please choose (Y/N/C):'. i answered 'y'. But, no, i didn't modify that file! But whatever, tho bizarre, hopefully that's irrelevant.

Anyway, see the attachment for the report from the proper box.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

On the affected machine, please:

1. Check for any crashes in /var/crash/

2. Reproduce the problem again and verify there is a pulseaudio process running while the problem is occuring.

3. Reboot, reproduce the problem again and while it is happening run:

   journalctl -b0 > journal.txt

   and attach the resulting text file here.

[gregrwm (gregrwm)]

>On the affected machine, please:
>1. Check for any crashes in /var/crash/

None.

>2. Reproduce the problem again and verify there is a pulseaudio process running while the problem is occuring.

Yes there was.

>3. Reboot, reproduce the problem again and while it is happening run:
>journalctl -b0 > journal.txt
>and attach the resulting text file here.

i believe what you are asking for is already in comment #3, in the attachment, immediately following "CurrentDmesg:".

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

No 'CurrentDmesg' is not the same thing.

Please reboot, reproduce the problem again and while it is happening run:

 journalctl -b0 > journal.txt

and attach the resulting text file here.

[gregrwm (gregrwm)]

upon the next manifestation i certainly will attach journalctl -b0 for you. meanwhile i'm curious what difference you find between that and CurrentDmesg. To me they both appear to be a readout of messages from the most recent boot up until the present.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

'dmesg' or 'CurrentDmesg' contains only messages from the kernel.

'journalctl' contains all messages from everything, including pulseaudio hopefully.

[gregrwm (gregrwm)]

Attaching as requested. fyi i was rather busy yesterday and was able to overlook the fact that pavucontrol said "Establishing connection to PulseAudio. Please wait..." all day because even so sound was working and the volume was tolerable. i didn't even shut the box off last night. i finally got around to launching the additional pulseaudio process this morning whereupon i observe that this manifestation differs from prior manifestations in that pavucontrol only then displayed the built-in audio with no mention of my arctis 7 headset which meanwhile was working! so i killed both pulseaudio processes owned by me (tho not the third one owned by sddm, i didn't login via sddm) and launched another. whereupon pulseaudio showed all the devices, but the youtube player was stuck as if it was paused but wasn't. so i killed my pulseaudio processes again, whereupon the youtube player proceeded as if it was no longer paused, but i could no longer hear the audio! so i paused the youtube player, this time killed All the pulseaudio processes, unpaused the youtube player, i could then hear audio again and another pulseaudio process had somehow spawned, but pavucontrol was still stuck saying "Establishing connection to PulseAudio. Please wait..." so i launched another pulseaudio process which made pavucontrol happy again but the youtube player again stayed stuck as if paused again. so again i killed all pulseaudio processes, the youtube player plays, i can hear it, but pavucontrol says "Establishing connection to PulseAudio. Please wait...". so i killed pulseaudio again, and now i can hear the youtube but there's no pulseaudio process! after a tad longer of listening another pulseaudio process appeared, and again pavucontrol-qt is stuck saying "Establishing...". i launched pavucontrol (no -qt) at this point, they're both stuck saying "Establishing...". i then launched another pulseaudio process, whereupon both pavucontrols immediately showed the controls but the youtube player is stuck again. so i'll finally give up and reboot, after attaching the journalctl report, which should span from yesterday morning through this morning...

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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