Comment 37 for bug 647539

I have a Thinkpad X61 Tablet, and am also experiencing this bug. The pulseaudio daemon never runs. When I try to launch it in a terminal, I see this:

E: module-alsa-card.c: Failed to find a working profile.
E: module.c: Failed to load module "module-alsa-card" (argument: "device_id="29" name="platform-thinkpad_acpi" card_name="alsa_card.platform-thinkpad_acpi" tsched=yes ignore_dB=no card_properties="module-udev-detect.discovered=1""): initialization failed.
pulseaudio: could not connect to socket
pulseaudio: No such file or directory

Also relevant is:
% cd /proc/asound
% ls
card0/ card1/ card29/ cards devices hwdep Intel@ modules pcm seq/ ThinkPadEC@ timers version Webcam@
% cat modules cards devices pcm
 0 snd_hda_intel
 1 snd_usb_audio
29 thinkpad_acpi

 0 [Intel ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
                      HDA Intel at 0xf8220000 irq 46
 1 [Webcam ]: USB-Audio - HP USB Webcam
                      HP USB Webcam HP USB Webcam at usb-0000:00:1d.7-1.2, high speed
29 [ThinkPadEC ]: ThinkPad EC - ThinkPad Console Audio Control
                      ThinkPad Console Audio Control at EC reg 0x30, fw 7RHT16WW-1.02

  2: : timer
  3: : sequencer
  4: [29] : control
  5: [ 1- 0]: digital audio capture
  6: [ 1] : control
  7: [ 0- 1]: digital audio playback
  8: [ 0- 0]: digital audio playback
  9: [ 0- 0]: digital audio capture
 10: [ 0- 0]: hardware dependent
 11: [ 0] : control

00-00: AD198x Analog : AD198x Analog : playback 1 : capture 2
00-01: AD198x Digital : AD198x Digital : playback 1
01-00: USB Audio : USB Audio : capture 1

Notice that card29 is from the Thinkpad Embedded Controller, and that it presents a control, but not a PCM. Pulseaudio is getting the device from udev, but it can't set it up because it has no pcm. I think that pulseaudio really ought to just ignore that device, at least for the time being. That's fine because it never knew about it prior to this anyway and sound worked just fine. I will research this and see if it's a udev change or what that needs to be done, and will post a patch or whatever it takes when I find out what to do.