[LAU] Pulseaudio not starting correctly

[Kevin Zembower]

Hello, all,

I'm having problems with pulseaudio on my Ubuntu 18.04 system, and I 
think I've narrowed it down to pulseaudio not starting correctly on 
system reboots.

After I reboot my system, I have no input or output devices shown in the 
sound control panel, and can't hear anything. I can see pulseaudio 
running, however:

$ ps aux | grep pulse
gdm       1832  0.0  0.0 1121148 16396 ?       Ssl  14:31   0:00 
/usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no
$

I can't kill it:
$ pulseaudio --kill
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to kill daemon: No such process
$ ps aux | grep pulse
gdm       1832  0.0  0.0 1121148 16396 ?       Ssl  14:31   0:00 
/usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no
$ sudo pulseaudio --kill
E: [pulseaudio] core-util.c: Home directory not accessible: Permission 
denied
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to kill daemon: No such file or directory
$

I get these messages in /var/log/syslog when I reboot:
Sep 27 14:26:30 kevin-desktop org.gnome.Shell.desktop[2108]: ALSA lib 
pulse.c:243:(pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Connection 
refused
Sep 27 14:26:30 kevin-desktop org.gnome.Shell.desktop[2108]: ALSA lib 
pulse.c:243:(pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Connection 
refused
Sep 27 14:26:31 kevin-desktop systemd[1703]: pulseaudio.service: Main 
process exited, code=killed, status=9/KILL
Sep 27 14:26:31 kevin-desktop systemd[1703]: pulseaudio.service: Failed 
with result 'signal'.
Sep 27 14:26:32 kevin-desktop systemd[1703]: pulseaudio.service: Service 
hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
Sep 27 14:26:32 kevin-desktop systemd[1703]: pulseaudio.service: 
Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 1.
Sep 27 14:26:32 kevin-desktop pulseaudio[4004]: W: [pulseaudio] pid.c: 
Stale PID file, overwriting.


However, if I manually start it, I get two copies. I also get all my 
input and output devices back in the sound control panel.

$ pulseaudio --start
$ ps aux | grep pulse
gdm       1832  0.0  0.0 1121148 16396 ?       Ssl  14:31   0:00 
/usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no
kevin     3901  2.7  0.0 1457716 16752 ?       S<l  15:30   0:00 
pulseaudio --start
$

And, sound works again, although with some oddities. I can hear the 
'pock' when I adjust the volume with the sound control panel, but not 
with the volume control in the upper right of my desktop. And, the sound 
control panel Test Speakers don't work, they don't even change visually 
from 'Test' to 'Stop' like they used to.

Any ideas on how to fix this? I've really thrashed the sound system on 
my workstation, trying to play MIDI sounds through Zoom and other tasks. 
I've added a lot of sound software, like Cadence, but then thought I 
removed it all because it wasn't working. I reinstalled pulse-base and 
alsa, but this didn't work.

Thanks for any suggestions or advice.

-Kevin