Bug#620082: pulseaudio: Spams the system log when out of disk space, making the problem worse

[Benjamin Cama]

Package: pulseaudio
Version: 0.9.21-4
Severity: normal

Hi,

Today I was hit by a full up disk problem that caused the bug I am talking
about; pulseaudio then fills up /var/log/syslog with the following messages,
every 5 seconds (yes, these are localized):

  Mar 29 22:59:21 nsk pulseaudio[18495]: pid.c: Failed to write PID file.
  Mar 29 22:59:21 nsk pulseaudio[18495]: main.c: Échec de pa_pid_file_create().
  Mar 29 22:59:21 nsk pulseaudio[18493]: main.c: Échec lors du démarrage du démon.

I think it cannot write the PID file because the disk is full, but spaming the
log like that worsen the problem, as /var is not on a separate partition here.
BTW, I found out about this problem because pulseaudio was also stuck at 100%
CPU (don't know if it's related; it's not like it's the first time I see that…)

I don't know exactly what it should do, but I see a lot of problem with
pulseaudio trying harder when things fail: sometime, it's better to just give
up.

Regards,
benjamin

PS: my changed config file is just some lines I commented; no actual change

-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.37-2-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.utf8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages pulseaudio depends on:
ii  adduser                       3.112+nmu2 add and remove users and groups
ii  consolekit                    0.4.4-1    framework for defining and trackin
ii  libasound2                    1.0.23-2.1 shared library for ALSA applicatio
ii  libc6                         2.11.2-13  Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libcap2                       1:2.20-1   support for getting/setting POSIX.
ii  libdbus-1-3                   1.4.6-1    simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libgdbm3                      1.8.3-9    GNU dbm database routines (runtime
ii  libice6                       2:1.0.7-1  X11 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  libltdl7                      2.2.6b-2   A system independent dlopen wrappe
ii  libpulse0                     0.9.21-4   PulseAudio client libraries
ii  libsamplerate0                0.1.7-3    Audio sample rate conversion libra
ii  libsm6                        2:1.2.0-1  X11 Session Management library
ii  libsndfile1                   1.0.24-1   Library for reading/writing audio 
ii  libspeexdsp1                  1.2~rc1-1  The Speex extended runtime library
ii  libudev0                      166-1      libudev shared library
ii  libx11-6                      2:1.4.2-1  X11 client-side library
ii  libxtst6                      2:1.2.0-1  X11 Testing -- Record extension li
ii  lsb-base                      3.2-27     Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip
ii  udev                          166-1      /dev/ and hotplug management daemo

Versions of packages pulseaudio recommends:
ii  gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio     0.10.28-2   GStreamer plugin for PulseAudio
ii  libasound2-plugins           1.0.23-1+b1 ALSA library additional plugins
ii  pulseaudio-esound-compat     0.9.21-4    PulseAudio ESD compatibility layer
ii  pulseaudio-module-x11        0.9.21-4    X11 module for PulseAudio sound se

Versions of packages pulseaudio suggests:
ii  paman                         0.9.4-1    PulseAudio Manager
ii  paprefs                       0.9.9-2    PulseAudio Preferences
ii  pavucontrol                   0.9.9-1    PulseAudio Volume Control
ii  pavumeter                     0.9.3-1    PulseAudio Volume Meter
ii  pulseaudio-utils              0.9.21-4   Command line tools for the PulseAu

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/pulse/daemon.conf changed [not included]

-- no debconf information