[regression] Pulseaudio 0.9.22 needs to be started manually in a multi-user environment

[Takkat]

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

1)
Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Kernel 2.6.31-19-generic
GNOME 2.28.1

2)
Pulseaudio 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478

3)
User1 updates 0.9.21 to 0.9.22 from ubuntu-audio-dev ppa

4)
On logon pulseaudio is running fine but exclusively for user1.
User2 is getting the following errors:

pulseaudio[2030]: protocol-native.c: Denied access to client with invalid authorization data.
pulseaudio[2030]: protocol-esound.c: Kicked client with invalid authorization key.

When starting pulseaudio manually from a terminal the errors stop and audio is fine until logoff.

Re-installing PA 0.9.22 by user2, or deleting ~/.pulse have no effect on this odd behaviour.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

This looks like a ConsoleKit issue.

[Takkat (takkat-nebuk)]

Hmm, ConsoleKit. Good idea, thank you. Didn't think of it as usually only one user at a time was logged in here.

Booting with user2 first (instead of user1 that usually starts work on this machine) made the trick. All users now have PA running properly.

[Takkat (takkat-nebuk)]

Still, when user1 logs in first after reboot, user2 will not have PA services automatically (even after logoff of user1).

Only when user2 logs in first, then for both users PA runs as expected.

Any idea of how to fix this?

[Takkat (takkat-nebuk)]

@ Daniel T Chen: Thank you for linking to [bug:433654].

Maybe there are reasons that there is a different issue here:

 * starting ''pulseaudio'' after gdm works fine even when other users are logged in
 * Igor's workaround (removing 'Use audio device' for all users) doesn't work here
 * we never had problems before updating to 0.9.22
 * problem started the minute we updated
 * Before that sound was always fine for all users (even when multiple users are logged in)

[Takkat (takkat-nebuk)]

yesterday's update:

pulseaudio 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu14~~karmic~ubuntuaudiodev1

solved the issue here.

[Takkat (takkat-nebuk)]

The issue came back after a reboot and is still present since the upgrade to Lucid 10.04 LTS. Both users are not a member of the audio group therefore this issue is different to bug #433654.

[Takkat (takkat-nebuk)]

Unplugging the external speakers from line out and a reboot fixed the issue here. A simple power off of the external speakers was not sufficient!

This indicates that at some place unknown to us the hardware information for external devices attached to the internal sound card may not be restored correctly for all users. This may lead to problems launching pulseaudio daemon after login in a multi-user setting.