# The Ubuntu Forum Community > Ubuntu Official Flavours Support > Multimedia Software > [ubuntu] 9.10 Waiting for sound system to respond

## taronski

Hello out there, 

I recently upgraded to Koala hoping that my long standing sound problems would go away...  they didn't

Now when I go system/preference/volume control I get a pop up "waiting for sound system to respond" and then nothing happens...

Any ideas?

Thanks a lot

Taron

----------


## Jor_727

I have the exact same problem!  Hope this gets solved..

----------


## azy8000

I have same problem
Ubuntu 9.10

----------


## abestatmos

the same ;(

----------


## Athropos

Same problem here, you can use alsamixergui to set the volume until this bug gets (hopefully) fixed.

----------


## kuric

Same here, after removing pulse audio.

----------


## riebling

Me too.  I mean, me six.  I've never had so many things that I'd gotten working - go broken again, after an 'upgrade.'  I should never have upgraded  :Sad:   For me it was to try and fix the CD player's refusing to burn perfectly good blank CDs, an unrelated problem to this post.  It didn't fix it, either.  :Sad:

----------


## gradinaruvasile

> Same here, after removing pulse audio.


Oh yes, another pulseaudio praising thread....

Karmic has PA integrated. Some features will not work if its removed. Like the "Sound" entry from the preferences menu and the volume control applet. ALSA users are stuck with alsamixer(gui) to adjust volume levels.

I wonder if in the next release we will have alsamixer...

In all these cases pulseaudio is not running/working/crashed/not available.

IMO integrating PA in the OS (in its bugged state) is a major mistake from the Ubuntu devs. 
Should have done it by leaving users a chance to choose (ie if PA is removed have the system working fully, just like in Jaunty).

----------


## Athropos

> Karmic has PA integrated. Some features will not work if its removed. Like the "Sound" entry from the preferences menu and the volume control applet. ALSA users are stuck with alsamixer(gui) to adjust volume levels.


Actually it doesn't work even when installed. I did a fresh install of Karmic and did not modify anything related to the sound system. Sound works but from the beginning I've been unable to set the volume except by going through alsa tools...

----------


## gradinaruvasile

> Actually it doesn't work even when installed. I did a fresh install of Karmic and did not modify anything related to the sound system. Sound works but from the beginning I've been unable to set the volume except by going through alsa tools...


Oh well... Worse than i thought.
Maybe try reinstalling it:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall pulseaudio

in a terminal.

I remember someone posted something about an update that removed pulseaudio... 

This is why its not advised to jump on upgrades as soon a new version is released...

----------


## johanbove

Same issue here; removed brasero for the 5th time because it refuses to write discs without destroying them and with removing it, on the next reboot my audio wasn't working anymore. Removed _Pulseaudio_ and now I'm losing time again having to look through the forums for a solution.

Don't know who pays Canonical to include _stupid_ Brasero in the relesease but they should definitely consider switching it with Gnome Baker which works without *ANY* issue and is at least not linked with audio drivers and sorts;

----------


## johanbove

Seems like the issue can be fixed by _reinstalling pulseaudio_ and i had to additionally perform "Step 4" of the Soundtroubleshootingprocedure guide; after the execution of the code i had a nice "pulseaudio volume control" panel back and now i can actually listing to audio and video (including flash video). super!

----------


## psidrum

I have the same problem after upgrading to 9.10

i removed pulseaudio because it has conflict with KdenLive

the volume applet is gone, and i can not access the Sound Settings from Preference,

but, my audio still works, i have to use a separate mixer,

----------


## Yellow Pasque

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ia/+bug/400973

Here's the old applet for controlling gstreamer and event sounds:
http://launchpadlibrarian.net/334911...perties.tar.gz




> Move the appropriate version of the gnome-sound-properties file to /usr/local/bin and move the sound-properties.glade (this file is not architecture-dependent) to /usr/share/gnome-control-center/glade/ (you'll probably need to create this directory).

----------


## Jor_727

Found a solution, or atleast this worked for me.  Fixes sound problems and the System > Preferences > Sound issue.

Just do


```
sudo apt-get install grub2
```

and make sure to allow it to change your menu.lst so that it updates to loading the newest kernel.

Hope this has helped!

----------


## nickez2001

I fixed it by removing the .pulse-folder in my home dir.


```
cd
rm -rf .pulse
```

----------


## vevel

> I fixed it by removing the .pulse-folder in my home dir.
> 
> 
> ```
> cd
> rm -rf .pulse
> ```


Wow.  This worked.  (I also removed .pulse-cookie for good measure.) Thank you!

----------


## shamimkhaliq

> Same issue here; removed brasero for the 5th time because it refuses to write discs without destroying them and with removing it, on the next reboot my audio wasn't working anymore. Removed _Pulseaudio_ and now I'm losing time again having to look through the forums for a solution.
> 
> Don't know who pays Canonical to include _stupid_ Brasero in the relesease but they should definitely consider switching it with Gnome Baker which works without *ANY* issue and is at least not linked with audio drivers and sorts;


mee too, no sound + no burning.

----------


## Yellow Pasque

If you don't like PulseAudio, you folks should consider Xubuntu or Zenix: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1320899

----------


## redenex

> sudo apt-get install --reinstall pulseaudio


It worked!

----------


## Unhumanje

Same problem here - uninstalled pulseaudio due to winehq recommendations and now i can't access the sound system :X Also lost the sound controls in the taskbar :/
Tried reinsalling,but that made a completely new sound menu in which I couldn't even choose which device to use and more precisely - I couldn't select ALSA anywhere.
Removing the .pulse folder didn't work either :/

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## redenex

> It worked!


I take back what I said. It worked once, but the moment I logged back in, sound disappears! I did it again, and next login, it disappears!

Am I starting to hate Ubuntu new releases?

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## redenex

This helped me:  http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...postcount=1639

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## GrandpaLeaman

I renamed the configuration file from .pulse to .pulse.bak. I was planning on reinstalling, but the .pulse file was regenerated within seconds. Everything worked again after that. No need to even reinstall. Can anyone confirm this works for them?

Edit: I just did a reboot and sound is still working well. Hope this helps someone.

By the way, I personally like PulseAudio very much.

----------


## Unhumanje

> This helped me:  http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...postcount=1639


All I have in Hardware Drivers are 3 nVidia drivers :/ No "Software Modem" to uncheck  :Surprised: 

@Grandpaleaman where can I find this .pulse file?I'm not sure it still exists after uninstalling pulseaudio?

----------


## GrandpaLeaman

> @Grandpaleaman where can I find this .pulse file?I'm not sure it still exists after uninstalling pulseaudio?


Go to your home folder in your file browser, select the "view" menu and click on "show hidden files". Then find the .pulse folder (/home/_yourusername_/.pulse). It should still be there even if you uninstalled PulseAudio (PA). If your not too sure about deleting this folder, just change the name like I did. Then reinstall PA and it will recreate this folder again. At this point you can try out your sound, but you may have to reboot. 

Whether this will help you or not I don't know. Some people are having problems with PA because of their sound cards or drivers. I was having problems because I just HAD to fart around with the sound system till I broke it. Some may be having problems with PA because the files in .pulse were corrupted when the OS was installed. Anyway, this is easy to do and may fix this problem for some out there.

I hope this helps you out!

----------


## Igelwald

Gentlemen, you should do that:
1. uninstall the pulse-audio *sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio*
2. type '*sudo rm /etc/pulse/daemon.conf*' to disable the daemon configuration
3. install pulseaundio *sudo apt-get install pulseaudio*
After that *System->Preferences->Sound* works with refreshed daemon configuration.

----------


## albyone

> Wow.  This worked.  (I also removed .pulse-cookie for good measure.) Thank you!


Lordy Lordy Lordy..... what a simple fix.
Ubuntu... are you listening... This should be a basic adjustment during a 9.04 to 9.10 upgrade.

The upgrade I went through reminds me of a Windows OS upgrade  noooooooo!  :Mad:

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## fallingleaf

Confirm deleting .pulse also fixed it for me. Thanks!

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## joe_schmoe

See now, i have a problem with re installing pulse audio.

I had to remove it so i could get sound in and out of my webcam with skype.

When pulse audio is installed it is the default audio option and cannot be changed.

If 9.10 has to have pulse audio to have any audio at all, im double (expleted deleted) when i need to video chat with my buds on skype eh.

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## fallingleaf

joe_schmoe, what version of Skype do you have?  I installed 2.1 beta following instructions here and it plays nice with pulse.

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## kevinfishburne

I had the problem a few days after a recent installation of Ubuntu 9.10. The laptop had similar problems in Windows XP, with the sound clicking occasionally though no app was trying to play anything. This was probably the audio chipset coming in and out of a power-saving mode. The volume control applet would also disappear in XP. 9.10 was working for a while and quit with no changes to the system settings or installed packages.

Uninstalling all traces of PulseAudio packages in Synaptic fixed the issue without even having to reboot. Interesting that many report that uninstalling Pulse caused the problem when in my case it resolved it.

----------


## kevinfishburne

Okay, this is getting stranger by the moment. It appears that uninstalling PulseAudio didn't directly resolve the issue but merely triggered something that temporarily resolved it.

I installed the 8.04 deb package for flashplugin-nonfree so that my 9.10 system would use Flash 9 instead of the Flash 10 in the Karmic repos. I did this because Flash 10 doesn't work with some Facebook games, Farm Pals specifically. Flash 10 would fail to completely render some portions of the graphic areas, but Flash 9 worked perfectly. The volume control applet and Sound Preferences app have the same problem with both versions of Flash however.

Playing a YouTube video works fine, but as soon as Farm Pals on Facebook starts up it causes the volume control applet to disappear and the Sound Preferences app to become inaccessible, displaying the "Waiting for sound system to respond" message. Rebooting doesn't fix this, but installing and uninstalling PulseAudio does fix it until Farm Pals is started again. The problem occurs whether or not Pulse is installed however, so I don't think that using ALSA-only or ALSA+Pulse are the cause of the problem.

Can those having this problem try installing and uninstalling PulseAudio and related packages to see if it corrects the problem? If it does correct the problem, try running the Farm Pals app in Facebook (requires Adobe Flash) and see if it causes the problem again.

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## Yellow Pasque

Kevin: This replaces the pulse volume control with a gstreamer-based one: https://launchpad.net/~dtl131/+archive/ppa/ (Don't upgrade/install portaudio packages from that repo, though).

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## rbolio

OH MY GOD...

you people are my heroes :Very Happy: 


after 1 month considering abot deleting  9.10, using alsa mixer gui to hear music..



, deleteing ".pulse" from my home folder mad pulse work instantaneously!..


or else, try  reinstalling pulse audio "sudo apt-get install pulseaudio" and then go to home and delete the .pulse foder...worked INSTANTLY  :Very Happy: 



--bliss--

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## premamotion

Remove PulseAudio from Ubuntu 9.10... and fix the problem once for all...

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...ighlight=pulse

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## premamotion

Remove PulseAudio and everything related to sound will work!

Please see http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...ighlight=pulse

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## Mr. Matt

I tried removing the .pulse folder except when I run System -> Preferences -> Sound it is re-created and I still get the message "Waiting for sound system to respond".

I have removed PulseAudio but maybe there is some package left.  Anything I can do to remove it completely?  I'm trying to get my sound input to work.

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## khopek

I have this same issue. I had shotty sound in flash object. It'd work until the computer sat for awhile, then it'd stop.

Then I followed the Ubuntu wiki that suggested upgrading something...and no sound at all. 

Then I uninstalled PulseAudio and now have no access to the Sound settings.

Then I finally managed to get audio working, but it's worse than if I would have just left it alone! It's fuzzy now.

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## jintachi

None of the above mentioned fixes worked for me. Deleting the pulse folder, removing and reinstalling pulseaudio, etc. weren't successful.

I recovered my sound by upgrading Alsa using the instructions here:
http://monespaceperso.org/blog-en/20...u-jaunty-9-04/

I've yet to recover my volume control icon but that's fairly minor.

Best.

Edit: follow-up, I restored the volume control icon by installing pulseaudio having removed it: sudo apt-get install pulseaudio

----------


## garvinrick4

*rt A: Common instructions (Hardy, Intrepid, Jaunty & Karmic)*
_All users must must follow the steps in this section to guarantee a fully working PulseAudio configuration._

1. Backup (and then delete) your previous configuration files:  
Code:
$ mkdir ~/pulse-backup && cp -r ~/.pulse ~/.asound* /etc/asound.conf /etc/pulse -t ~/pulse-backup/ $ rm -r ~/.pulse ~/.asound*  $ sudo rm /etc/asound.conf *Warning:* As always, use caution when removing files on your system. Any typos can potentially cause data loss.
*Note:* Don't worry if some of these files did not exist on your system.


2. Ensure you have the necessary PulseAudio libraries and configuration utilities installed:
Code:
 $ sudo apt-get install libasound2-plugins padevchooser libsdl1.2debian-pulseaudio 3. Ensure the evil "libflashsupport" library is *not* installed:  
Code:
$ sudo apt-get remove --purge libflashsupport flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound *Note:* the libflashsupport library was (and to a certain extent, still is) the most common cause of Firefox instability since the Hardy release, because many users have been misled into thinking they must install it to ensure Flash & PulseAudio can work correctly. If you notice any postings that recommend this library to be installed, please reply to the post and point them to this thread, or the bug report linked. The more people that are aware of this issue the better. Thanks!

4. (Karmic users - please skip this step, it's not necessary). Open System/Preferences/Sound. In the Devices section, ensure that all "Sound playback" options are set to Autodetect. Set the "Sound capture" item to "ALSA", or the appropriate hardware definition. Close the application when you're finished.
*Note:* Choosing PulseAudio for sound capture may result in crashes, so you are advised to choose the "direct" ALSA device instead.

5. Open the PulseAudio Volume Control application ("pavucontrol", or you can launch "Applications/Sound & Video/PulseAudio Device Chooser" and select Volume Control from this applet's menu). In the Output Devices section you will see a listing of the playback devices available on your system. Right-click on the entry that you desire to be made the default playback device on your system and enable the "Default" checkmark. Similarly, navigate to Input Devices, then right-click on the device you wish to set as your default input device (microphone), and ensure the "Default" setting is checked. Close the application when you're finished.

*Note:* If you are greeted with the error "Connection failed: Connection refused", manually launch PulseAudio before opening the PulseAudio Volume Control application:
Code:
$ pulseaudio & pavucontrol 6. Ensure that your sound card's PCM mixer is not muted or set to 0% volume (this appears to be a common bug in Intrepid and Jaunty):
Code:
$ alsamixer -Dhw *Note:* When the PulseAudio ALSA plugins are active, you must explicitly specify your hardware device in alsamixer (marked in blue above), otherwise it will open the PulseAudio mixer.
Reboot before takes effect.

----------


## jweaver28

With all due respect to garvinrick4, this doesn't work for the problem in this thread. Can't open system/preferences/sound (i.e. complete step 4) when clicking on it produces the "waiting for sound system to respond" box, which ultimately (and quietly) just disappears. If I try to open pulse audio volume control, I get a connection failed:refused message. Apparently, no devices load, although I checked the default config file which has a default (and adding a line to permit other. Uninstalling and reinstalling pulseaudio simply doesn't work. This machine is a dual boot with an ATI HDMI card that works fine in Vista.

----------


## zenon222

> It worked!


Me Three!

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## mvalviar

> Wow.  This worked.  (I also removed .pulse-cookie for good measure.) Thank you!


Wow! Thanks!

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## vishnu

> I fixed it by removing the .pulse-folder in my home dir.
> 
> 
> ```
> cd
> rm -rf .pulse
> ```


this worked for me to.  many thanks!!

----------


## cesium62

> http://monespaceperso.org/blog-en/20...u-jaunty-9-04/



This appears to be a bogus web-site.  It constantly redirects.  It would appear that jintachi is a spammer.

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## sgosnell

I've done pretty much everything in the thread, with no positive result.  Trying to run pulseaudio produces 

```
stan@stan-laptop:~$ /usr/bin/pulseaudio
W: module.c: module-detect is deprecated: Please use module-udev-detect instead of module-detect!
E: module.c: Failed to load  module "module-alsa-sink" (argument: "device_id=0"): initialization failed.
E: module.c: Failed to load  module "module-alsa-source" (argument: "device_id=0"): initialization failed.
W: module.c: module-oss is deprecated: Please use module-alsa-card instead of module-oss!
E: oss-util.c: open('/dev/dsp'): Device or resource busy
E: module.c: Failed to load  module "module-oss" (argument: "device=/dev/dsp"): initialization failed.
W: module-detect.c: failed to detect any sound hardware.
E: module.c: Failed to load  module "module-detect" (argument: ""): initialization failed.
E: main.c: Module load failed.
E: main.c: Failed to initialize daemon.
```

  Pulseaudio simply will not run, and esd will not run.  I'm not really happy with Karmic in general, and the sound in particular.  I really, really hope Lucid is better.

----------


## svimes

I got this message after installing 9.10 on a (someone else's) Windows system using wubi.  Due to space restrictions on the C: drive, I set up a number of soft links to another disk, including my home directory.  

After reading all the posts about pulseaudio startup problems, I finally came across a bug report that says that pulseaudio cannot deal with soft links to access the ~/.pulse directory.  Moving my home directory back to the root file system fixed the problem.

See      http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=537237   for details

----------


## sgosnell

Mine is a straight vanilla install, one drive, with /home on a separate partition, nothing unusual.  

Apparently my problem is that pulse can't find any sinks or sources.  Anyone know what should be set for those?

----------


## Yellow Pasque

> Apparently my problem is that pulse can't find any sinks or sources.  Anyone know what should be set for those?


From looking at that error log, it could be a problem with your ALSA driver (which leads to pulse not starting). Does this show any devices?:


```
aplay -l
```

----------


## sgosnell

Pulse starts, it's in the panel, but it can't find anything.


```
stan@stan-laptop:~$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC662 rev1 Analog [ALC662 rev1 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
```

I get sound, but I can't run the pulseaudio volume control.  Pulseaudio runs, but can't find a sink or server.  I get "waiting on sound server" at boot, and when I try to run System/Preferences/Sound.  I can't figure out exactly what to put in the pulseaudio configuration to make it find the sound card.

----------


## andy_spoo

> Gentlemen, you should do that:
> 1. uninstall the pulse-audio *sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio*
> 2. type '*sudo rm /etc/pulse/daemon.conf*' to disable the daemon configuration
> 3. install pulseaundio *sudo apt-get install pulseaudio*
> After that *System->Preferences->Sound* works with refreshed daemon configuration.


This worked for me, once I'd realised that the sound settings "Hardware" had changed from "Analog 5.1 Output Surround" to "Analog Stereo Duplex". I just changed it back.

No 'bitty' 8-bit type sound anymore. All is good  :Smile:

----------


## prince_niceguy

Well, I got this error today and I tried all combination. Also, I cannot use pulse audio as I cannot use ac3 pass through with it. So, I switched to kde and trust me it is way easier in there. I have alsa set up as the default one. Now it is working awesome...

----------


## lwimble

I had this problem as well, on a brand new install of Karmic 9.10.   It drove me nuts for about 4 hours.    It turned out to be a problem in the file /etc/pulse/default.pa

At the bottom of the file, there were two offending lines that were causing the pulseaudio daemon to harph.  It just kept re-spawning and failing.

Fix it:

sudo gedit /etc/pulse/default.pa

Search for...

reboot
load-module module-volume-restore

...and comment them both out.  Save the file.  Pulseaudio should start working on it's own, but if not, give it a reboot.

Incidentally, when pulseaudio is not running, it can cause all kinds of other havoc such as Firefox and other applications that make "noises" to run extremely slow.  I initially thought this was a GTK problem, but it turned out to be all audio.

Hope it helps.  As always, YMMV.

Larry

----------


## englfc

I just deleted the .pulse directory in my home folder and that seemed to do the trick! Could then open the sound panel to reconfigure. (Also deleted Pulse directories in /tmp but not sure if that was necessary)

----------


## greyfox1

> I just deleted the .pulse directory in my home folder and that seemed to do the trick! Could then open the sound panel to reconfigure. (Also deleted Pulse directories in /tmp but not sure if that was necessary)


This is what fixed it for me too. I had tried to load the Sound Preferences and was stuck with "waiting for sound system to respond". While that was still open, I renamed .pulse to .pulse-old and the preferences dialog opened IMMEDIATELY. No trying again, logging out, or any of that. It just worked, presto!

----------


## condamine

Confirming that renaming the .pulse audio folder in my home directory fixed my issues. So simple!
File client.conf was not rewritten when .pulse folder was recreated.

----------


## zim2dive

I had this problem with 10.04.

I found that I had to edit the /etc/pulse/default.pa and remove the (last) line pointing to my (no longer existing) sound card/device.

----------


## MikeFlint

I had this problem on my Karmic system (an upgrade system) and my syslog was filling up with 'module.c: module-detect is deprecated: Please use module-udev-detect instead of module-detect! module-detect.c: failed to detect any sound hardware' errors, and sound had stopped working.

I think this was caused by a recent kernel upgrade.

None of the solutions listed here solved my problem, as it had been caused (I think) by a previous patch I'd applied to get my soft-modem to work, which had involved a change to /etc/pulse/default.pa as recommended in this post.

To restore my audio, and make sound preferences work I did the following:

(a) removed the patch in /etc/pulse/default.pa (to stop my logs filling, and to get the pulseaudio daemon to initialise correctly
(b) reinstalled the alsa-driver-linuxant drivers from the deb package (this causes a re-build with the new kernel)
(c) ran sudo hsfconfig (keeping the drivers when prompted - replied 'yes')
(d) rebooted (this might be optional)
(e) checked with  'aplay -l'   to see that audio devices exist
(f) re-applied the patch from step (a)
(g) rebooted, and now sound was back, and softmodem working.

Hope this helps someone.

----------


## Estwald

> Hello out there, 
> 
> I recently upgraded to Koala hoping that my long standing sound problems would go away...  they didn't
> 
> Now when I go system/preference/volume control I get a pop up "waiting for sound system to respond" and then nothing happens...
> 
> Any ideas?
> 
> Thanks a lot
> ...


Go to System->Preferences -> Startup Applications

Make sure you're in the tab 'Startup programs' 
-> Click on 'Add'

Name: Pulseaudio daemon
Command:/usr/bin/pulseaudio
Comment: Start the sound daemon

Now logout, then login again

----------


## Manolicious

> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ia/+bug/400973
> 
> Here's the old applet for controlling gstreamer and event sounds:
> http://launchpadlibrarian.net/334911...perties.tar.gz


this didn't work for me.  I also don't know how some of you managed to remove or rename your .pulse folder as it keeps coming back from the dead for me.  What is the deal with me not being in control of my own home folder?  I hate hidden files.

----------


## sgosnell

There are lots of hidden files in any home folder.  They're easy enough to find, though, having only a . at the start of the filename to hide them.  You can easily delete any hidden file, but most are written as configuration files by applications, and are required for the apps to work.  You can delete .pulse, but it will be replaced, and that's the whole point of the exercise, getting a new pristine configuration.

----------


## Manolicious

> There are lots of hidden files in any home folder.  They're easy enough to find, though, having only a . at the start of the filename to hide them.  You can easily delete any hidden file, but most are written as configuration files by applications, and are required for the apps to work.  You can delete .pulse, but it will be replaced, and that's the whole point of the exercise, getting a new pristine configuration.


I would think removing pulse audio "completely" from my system would have taken care of the application generating this .folder, but I guess pulse was just too hardwired into my release.

Anyway, yeah, I got my pristine configuration, and I'm still waiting for my sound system to respond.

----------


## sgosnell

You didn't mention uninstalling pulseaudio.  How did you do that - apt-get, synaptic, or what?  Completely removing pulseaudio should prevent the .pulse folder from being recreated.

----------


## Manolicious

I followed this guy's advice: #4, Safely Remove Pulseaudio?

----------


## sgosnell

Upgrade from 9.10, and all your problems should be solved.  Karmic was a disaster, but Lucid is much, much better, especially for the sound system.

----------


## egunay

> sudo apt-get install --reinstall pulseaudio


it worked thanks!  :Popcorn:

----------


## JPWhite

> It worked!


Yep, that's the ticket to solving the problem  :Smile:

----------


## asv1988

Hello everybody!

This method works not only in 9.10. I had this issue on 11.04

I had the same issue. My master control did not work. There was no sound and when I tried to access system->preferences->sound all that happened was waiting for sound system to respond. I tried many things but nothing worked. So this worked for me:

Remove pulseaudio:

```
 sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio
```

Remove folder .pulse and pulse-cookies (You might need to go to "edit->preferences" and check "show hidden and backup files" inside any of your folders)REBOOT - I did everything up top step 3 and it didn't work, only after I rebooted everything worked like a charm.Everything should work nowIf your sound controls don't work try installing pulseaudio again: 

```
sudo apt-get install pulseaudio
```

Reboot or Just logout and log back in
Hope that helps
Cheers

----------


## Affendi

This doesn't work for me, but I find that I can control my sound through audacity for some weird reason.  I just open up audacity and it's volume control controls the whole system volume.

----------


## tsh

I get this too, no volume control and 'waiting for sound system to respond' if I try to open the sound settings. PA volume control gets 'connection refused' so I am wondering if it is a permissions issue? Some clues about debug and opening a bug on the right area would help.


```
>grep -i pulse /var/log/syslog
Jul 18 12:06:19 desktop pulseaudio[23302]: core-util.c: Home directory /home/me not ours.
Jul 18 12:06:19 desktop pulseaudio[23302]: lock-autospawn.c: Cannot access autospawn lock.
Jul 18 12:06:19 desktop pulseaudio[23302]: main.c: Failed to acquire autospawn lock
(where me is my uid)
```

So the problem for me is that my home directory was owned by 'mythtv' and had group 'mythtv'
The fix was


```
cd /home
sudo chown <username> <username>
```

----------


## thogios

Thanks tsh!! That was it...

----------

