Ubuntu 18.04 | pulseaudio Daemon startup failed

Upon restarting pulseaudio in the terminal by using pulseaudio -k and then pulseaudio --start I receive the following output.

E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup failed.

When typing pulseaudio -vvv I receive the following output.

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 11.1 D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Compilation host: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Compilation CFLAGS: -g -O2 -fdebug-prefix-map=/build/pulseaudio-EOwPuF/pulseaudio-11.1=. -fstack-protector-strong -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 -fno-common -fdiagnostics-show-option -fdiagnostics-color=auto D: [pulseaudio] main.c: Running on host: Linux x86_64 4.15.0-43-generic #46-Ubuntu SMP Thu Dec 6 14:45:28 UTC 2018 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 f8def17f479a479fb03bc39dc2d9b6fb. I: [pulseaudio] main.c: Session ID is 1. I: [pulseaudio] main.c: Using runtime directory /run/user/1000/pulse. I: [pulseaudio] main.c: Using state directory /home/samuel/.config/pulse. I: [pulseaudio] main.c: Using modules directory /usr/lib/pulse-11.1/modules. I: [pulseaudio] main.c: Running in system mode: no I: [pulseaudio] main.c: System supports high resolution timers D: [pulseaudio] memblock.c: Using shared memfd memory pool with 1024 slots of size 64.0 KiB each, total size is 64.0 MiB, maximum usable slot size is 65472 I: [pulseaudio] cpu-x86.c: CPU flags: CMOV MMX SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE4_1 SSE4_2 I: [pulseaudio] svolume_mmx.c: Initialising MMX optimized volume functions. I: [pulseaudio] remap_mmx.c: Initialising MMX optimized remappers. I: [pulseaudio] svolume_sse.c: Initialising SSE2 optimized volume functions. I: [pulseaudio] remap_sse.c: Initialising SSE2 optimized remappers. I: [pulseaudio] sconv_sse.c: Initialising SSE2 optimized conversions. I: [pulseaudio] svolume_orc.c: Initialising ORC optimized volume functions. E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Unknown command: You do not have the permissions necessary to save the file. Please check that you typed the location correctly and try again.# General Public License for more details. E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to initialise daemon. I: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon terminated.

Is there a way where I can get pulseaudio to start back up again?

Solution 1:

I have this same issue. Bloody annoying.

On my machine this appears to be due to pulseaudio already running, but possibly only responding to systemctl commands. My temporary workaround to get sound going is:

1. $ ps aux | grep pulseaudio
2. kill all pulseaudio processes
3. $ rm -rf /.config/pulse/ (force pulseaudio to regenerate config files)
4. $ pulseaudio --start

Everything works as expected.

As mentioned previously, this is not an actual solution but it should get sound going until further troubleshooting happens.