Pulseaudio crashes / restarts for no apparent reason

[Diego Schulz]

Pulseaudio apparently crashes or restarts but I couldn't identify what triggers the problem.
The indicator icon suddenly shows the speaker with two dashes, no sound at all, and then after a few seconds the soundcard is detected either as "dummy audio device" or as "Analog output", in which case sound works again for a few minutes until it happens again.

Tried removing ~/.pulse and restarting the session. It didn't helped.

This is the only sign I found in /var/log/syslog:

Mar 13 15:55:42 e6510 pulseaudio[4592]: ( 0.009| 0.009) [pulseaudio] pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.
Mar 13 15:55:43 e6510 pulseaudio[4597]: ( 0.060| 0.060) [pulseaudio] pid.c: Daemon already running.
Mar 13 15:58:48 e6510 pulseaudio[5030]: ( 0.000| 0.000) [pulseaudio] main.c: User-configured server at {7d28ecb219f790d6371240550000000b}unix:/home/dschulz/.pulse/7d28ecb219f790d6371240550000000b-runtime/native, which appears to be local. Probing deeper.
Mar 13 15:58:48 e6510 pulseaudio[5031]: ( 0.000| 0.000) [pulseaudio] main.c: User-configured server at {7d28ecb219f790d6371240550000000b}unix:/home/dschulz/.pulse/7d28ecb219f790d6371240550000000b-runtime/native, which appears to be local. Probing deeper.
Mar 13 15:58:51 e6510 pulseaudio[5041]: ( 2.258| 2.258) [pulseaudio] pid.c: Daemon already running.
Mar 13 15:59:03 e6510 pulseaudio[5046]: ( 0.000| 0.000) [pulseaudio] main.c: User-configured server at {7d28ecb219f790d6371240550000000b}unix:/home/dschulz/.pulse/7d28ecb219f790d6371240550000000b-runtime/native, which appears to be local. Probing deeper.
Mar 13 15:59:03 e6510 pulseaudio[5049]: ( 0.013| 0.013) [pulseaudio] pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.
Mar 13 16:02:33 e6510 pulseaudio[5103]: ( 0.000| 0.000) [pulseaudio] main.c: User-configured server at {7d28ecb219f790d6371240550000000b}unix:/home/dschulz/.pulse/7d28ecb219f790d6371240550000000b-runtime/native, which appears to be local. Probing deeper.
Mar 13 16:02:33 e6510 pulseaudio[5104]: ( 0.000| 0.000) [pulseaudio] main.c: User-configured server at {7d28ecb219f790d6371240550000000b}unix:/home/dschulz/.pulse/7d28ecb219f790d6371240550000000b-runtime/native, which appears to be local. Probing deeper.
Mar 13 16:02:33 e6510 pulseaudio[5107]: ( 0.009| 0.009) [pulseaudio] pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.
Mar 13 16:02:34 e6510 pulseaudio[5112]: ( 0.056| 0.056) [pulseaudio] pid.c: Daemon already running.
Mar 13 16:19:59 e6510 pulseaudio[5819]: ( 0.000| 0.000) [pulseaudio] main.c: User-configured server at {7d28ecb219f790d6371240550000000b}unix:/home/dschulz/.pulse/7d28ecb219f790d6371240550000000b-runtime/native, which appears to be local. Probing deeper.
Mar 13 16:19:59 e6510 pulseaudio[5826]: ( 0.009| 0.009) [pulseaudio] pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.
Mar 13 16:19:59 e6510 pulseaudio[5828]: ( 0.000| 0.000) [pulseaudio] main.c: User-configured server at {7d28ecb219f790d6371240550000000b}unix:/home/dschulz/.pulse/7d28ecb219f790d6371240550000000b-runtime/native, which appears to be local. Probing deeper.
Mar 13 16:20:02 e6510 pulseaudio[5834]: ( 2.317| 2.317) [pulseaudio] pid.c: Daemon already running.
Mar 13 16:24:00 e6510 pulseaudio[5900]: ( 0.000| 0.000) [pulseaudio] main.c: User-configured server at {7d28ecb219f790d6371240550000000b}unix:/home/dschulz/.pulse/7d28ecb219f790d6371240550000000b-runtime/native, which appears to be local. Probing deeper.
Mar 13 16:24:00 e6510 pulseaudio[5903]: ( 0.008| 0.008) [pulseaudio] pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: pulseaudio 1:1.1-0ubuntu12
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-18.29-generic 3.2.9
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-18-generic x86_64
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.24.
ApportVersion: 1.94.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: STAC92xx Analog [STAC92xx Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: dschulz 5903 F.... pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf6960000 irq 44'
   Mixer name : 'Intel IbexPeak HDMI'
   Components : 'HDA:111d76d5,1028040b,00100104 HDA:80862804,80860101,00100000'
   Controls : 37
   Simple ctrls : 13
Date: Tue Mar 13 16:49:10 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Alpha amd64 (20120110.2)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-01-12 (60 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 11/30/2011
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A11
dmi.board.name: 02K3Y4
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A00
dmi.chassis.type: 9
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA11:bd11/30/2011:svnDellInc.:pnLatitudeE6510:pvr0001:rvnDellInc.:rn02K3Y4:rvrA00:cvnDellInc.:ct9:cvr:
dmi.product.name: Latitude E6510
dmi.product.version: 0001
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.
modified.conffile..etc.pulse.daemon.conf: [modified]
mtime.conffile..etc.pulse.daemon.conf: 2012-03-11T19:42:49.354579

[Diego Schulz (dschulzg)]

Forgot to mention that sounds works without problems with OpenSUSE and Microsoft Windows 7.

[Diego Schulz (dschulzg)]

Recently noticed there's actually an easy way to reproduce this bug in my system. Just putting the cursor over the sound indicator icon and scrolling the mouse wheel for a few seconds causes pulseaudio process to terminate.

I created a ~/.pulse/client.conf with a line

autospawn = no

and then killed pulseaudio and restarted with

pulseaudio -vvvvv > pulselog.txt

to see what's happening. Please find the output attached below.

I also strace'd pulseaudio with this line:

LANG=en strace pulseaudio 2> strace-pulselog.txt

The output is also attached.

[Diego Schulz (dschulzg)]

Please let me know if there's something I can do to help solving this problem.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[puchuu (aladjev-andrew)]

you should clean pulseaudio config properly:
sudo killall -9 pulseaudio
rm -rf ~/.pulse*
rm -rf /tmp/pulse*
pulseaudio --start
and it will start with warning:
N: [pulseaudio] main.c: User-configured server at {122eaf3e0e2211bbda6c83550000103d}unix:/home/puchuu/.pulse/122eaf3e0e2211bbda6c83550000103d-runtime/native, which appears to be local. Probing deeper.
this is normal. go and listen music now ^___^

[Steven (steven3000)]

Might be a duplicate of this bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/989833

[Diego Schulz (dschulzg)]

@Steven how exactly this bug can be a duplicate of another bug posted 45 *after* ?

[Diego Schulz (dschulzg)]

meant to write "45 days after".

I still can reproduce this bug, but only with Unity. I couldn't reproduce with KDE but a few times I've experimented sound problems after restoring from suspend to ram.

[Steven (steven3000)]

@Diego: I meant that the two reports might be referring to the same problem (I didin't even check the dates). I apologize for the incorrect wording.

Anyway I don't care at all which bug is the 'duplicate' one, I just want to help getting the problem fixed as it's really annoying.

I still experience the same problems using either unity or gnome shell.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 12.04 (precise) reached end-of-life on April 28, 2017.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

We appreciate that this bug may be old and you might not be interested in discussing it any more. But if you are then please upgrade to the latest Ubuntu version and re-test.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for pulseaudio (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]