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I use Clementine and it started yesterday to refuse to play anything and display an "access denied" alert box. Same with Rhythmbox. After a while, I realized that my sound indication is also greyed and there is no sound card visible in the sound settings.

I think that Pulseaudio is the culprit but no certitude there (see the output below). I am on 13.04 and something went wrong but I don't see how to restart it with a clean config or if I need to change anything. 

lionel@prime:~$ pulseaudio -vvvv
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_NICE, (31, 31)) failed: Operation not permitted
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_RTPRIO, (9, 9)) failed: Operation not permitted
D: [pulseaudio] core-rtclock.c: Timer slack is set to 50 us.
D: [pulseaudio] core-util.c: RealtimeKit worked.
I: [pulseaudio] core-util.c: Successfully gained nice level -11.
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: This is PulseAudio 3.0
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Compilation host: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Compilation CFLAGS: -g -O2 -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -Wformat -Werror=format-security -Wall -W -Wextra -pipe -Wno-long-long -Wno-overlength-strings -Wunsafe-loop-optimizations -Wundef -Wformat=2 -Wlogical-op -Wsign-compare -Wformat-security -Wmissing-include-dirs -Wformat-nonliteral -Wpointer-arith -Winit-self -Wdeclaration-after-statement -Wfloat-equal -Wmissing-prototypes -Wredundant-decls -Wmissing-declarations -Wmissing-noreturn -Wshadow -Wendif-labels -Wcast-align -Wstrict-aliasing -Wwrite-strings -Wno-unused-parameter -ffast-math -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fno-common -fdiagnostics-show-option
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Running on host: Linux x86_64 3.8.0-29-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Tue Aug 13 19:40:39 UTC 2013
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Found 8 CPUs.
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: Page size is 4096 bytes
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Compiled with Valgrind support: no
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Running in valgrind mode: no
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Running in VM: no
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Optimized build: yes
D: [pulseaudio] main.c: FASTPATH defined, only fast path asserts disabled.
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: Machine ID is 77bf4823eb9fbd64b69d605100000002.
I: [pulseaudio] main.c: Using runtime directory /run/user/lionel/pulse.
E: [pulseaudio] core-util.c: Home directory not accessible: Permission denied

The ouput of ls -l /run/user/lionel/ and pulseaudio --dump-conf

lionel@prime:~$ ls -l /run/user/lionel/
total 0
drwx------ 2 lionel lionel  60 août  28 15:15 dconf
dr-x------ 2 lionel lionel   0 août  28 12:30 gvfs
drwx------ 2 lionel lionel  40 août  28 12:30 gvfs-burn
drwx------ 2 lionel lionel 120 août  28 12:30 keyring-iiUWPh
drwx------ 2 lionel lionel  40 août  28 15:11 pulse
lionel@prime:~$ pulseaudio --dump-conf
### Read from configuration file: /etc/pulse/daemon.conf ###
daemonize = no
fail = yes
high-priority = yes
nice-level = -11
realtime-scheduling = yes
realtime-priority = 5
allow-module-loading = yes
allow-exit = yes
use-pid-file = yes
system-instance = no
local-server-type = user
cpu-limit = no
enable-shm = yes
flat-volumes = no
lock-memory = no
exit-idle-time = 20
scache-idle-time = 20
dl-search-path = /usr/lib/pulse-3.0/modules
default-script-file = /etc/pulse/default.pa
load-default-script-file = yes
log-target = auto
log-level = notice
resample-method = speex-float-1
enable-remixing = yes
enable-lfe-remixing = no
default-sample-format = s16le
default-sample-rate = 44100
alternate-sample-rate = 48000
default-sample-channels = 2
default-channel-map = front-left,front-right
default-fragments = 8
default-fragment-size-msec = 10
enable-deferred-volume = yes
deferred-volume-safety-margin-usec = 1
deferred-volume-extra-delay-usec = 0
shm-size-bytes = 0
log-meta = no
log-time = no
log-backtrace = 0
rlimit-fsize = -1
rlimit-data = -1
rlimit-stack = -1
rlimit-core = -1
rlimit-rss = -1
rlimit-as = -1
rlimit-nproc = -1
rlimit-nofile = 256
rlimit-memlock = -1
rlimit-locks = -1
rlimit-sigpending = -1
rlimit-msgqueue = -1
rlimit-nice = 31
rlimit-rtprio = 9
rlimit-rttime = 1000000
Lionel Barret
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7 Answers7

22

Ok, I got it in the end.

It was a permission problem with my home folder and pulseaudio.

Run the following command to fix the $HOME directory permissions for the current $USER:

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER $HOME/

I used http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/problem-with-pulse-audio-834041/ and http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6208727 as sources.

The solution for me was to fix the permissions using the following command: sudo chown -R lionel:lionel /home/lionel and then using pavucontrol to unmute the output.

The gnome indicator is still greyed but music is back, and that's a good thing.

mchid
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Lionel Barret
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3

(I'm only trying to improve the marked answer slightly, but with a little bit more than I think works in a simple comment. I thought it useful at least to post for the next guy. If a moderator disagrees this answer could be demoted to a comment on the selected answer if more appropriate.)

The reference to pavucontrol was rather cryptic and this response somewhat less usable to me, but it did put me onto a solution.

I had none of the permission and ownership problems that seem to be the main focus here. pavucontrol, which I had to install for just this purpose, did allow me, on the playback tab, to change from "High Definition Audio Controller Digital Stereo (HDMI)" to "Built-in Audio Analog Stereo" and my audio began working again as it had before.

I still don't know I got my ThinkPad (running Mint 13 which is basically Ubuntu 12.04 LTS) into this unworking state, but this is how I was able to get audio (in particular, Audacious Player using Pulse) working. I hope this helps.

Russ Bateman
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1

having the same problem as the OP, but not being able to change permissions on $HOME I found a different way to start pulseaudio: explicitly start pulseaudion with a different $HOME, like

> HOME=/tmp/$USER pulseaudio --start

which now runs the program for me. Make sure /tmp/$USER exists.

hth

Wanderer
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1

In my case this was caused by me creating a file ~/.config/pulse/default.pa. The bulletproof solution to fix my sound settings issue was removing the directory with my pulseaudio preferences:

rm -rf ~/.config/pulse/
Klesun
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0

I don't have enough rep to comment and thank @Wanderer, but his hack works perfectly for me. Don't ever let the negativity stop you!

HOME=/tmp/$USER pulseaudio --start

Yes, it would be better to understand where the permission error lies, but I redid all my permissions for the last hour to no avail. I have my User directory on another partition symbolic linked, I've changed perms for the link, for the physical location, for the Home directory to no avail. I just want to listen to Pandora while I finish setting up my Window 10 VDI! So I can get finish getting GCP to work on Kubuntu. If nothing else knowing this hack works is informative to troubleshooting!

Even when logged in I still can't run this without the same error:

systemctl --user start pulseaudio.service

Feb 14 18:56:40 pc pulseaudio[5435]: E: [pulseaudio] core-util.c: Home directory not accessible: Permission denied

But I can move to the home directory no problem as the basic User. I have seen other system processes resolving the link to /media/username/partition/home/username, so it may be the pulseaudio service can't follow through that maze.

alchemy
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0

I was having a ton of intermitent freezing issues in zorin os, the error logs showed pulse having this exact issue.

So I ran sudo chmod -R 755 ~/.config/pulse

Seems to have resolved since then?

Matthew de Marillac
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0

The same problem i have encountered on Ubuntu 18.04, bluetooth earphone can be connected, but no sound. You can try the following steps one by one untill it was solved:

  1. Install pulseaudio-module-bluetooth and modify the configuration:

    $ sudo apt install pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

  2. Opened the pulse config file,

    $ sudo gedit /etc/pulse/default.pa

find the line load-module module-udev-detect , change it into load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0.

  1. If it still didn't work, you can try Blueman:

    $ sudo apt-get install blueman

Some configurations of my computer:

PulseAudio Volume Control 3.0-4
pulseaudio 11.1
AlsaMixer v1.1.3
alsactl version 1.1.3
blueman-manager 2.0.5

FYI.

Karl
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