[LAU] Pulseaudio not starting correctly

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