Bug#812557: pulseaudio: "refusing to start/autospawn" with multi-user setup

[Rodrigo Campos]

On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 12:58:58PM -0300, Felipe Sateler wrote:
> Control: tags -1 moreinfo
> 
> On 24 January 2016 at 22:42, Rodrigo Campos <rodrigo at sdfg.com.ar> wrote:
> >
> > Package: pulseaudio
> > Version: 7.1-2
> > Severity: normal
> >
> > Dear Maintainer,
> >
> > I'be updated debian testing (didn't update in a while) and after I upgraded,
> > sound from programs that run as a different user stopped working.
> >
> > When some other user tries to run: "/usr/bin/pulseaudio --start
> > --log-target=syslog" it fails with errors like:
> >
> >         Jan 24 22:01:58 lindsay pulseaudio[10238]: [pulseaudio] main.c: User-configured
> >         server at {d07a5e247c911a2ac8ca6d8652d822c1}unix:/run/user/1000/pulse/native,
> >         refusing to start/autospawn.
> >         Jan 24 22:08:13 lindsay pulseaudio[11867]: [pulseaudio] main.c: User-configured
> >         server at lindsay, refusing to start/autospawn.
> >
> > Both users, the user that opened the desktop environment (let's call him userA)
> > and the other user trying to run pulseaudio/firefox (let's call him userB) are
> > member of group audio. Also, userA uid is 1000 and userB uid is 1001.
> 
> How are you running firefox/pulseaudio as different users? Just sudo
> -u userB firefox or some other way?

Yes, just that. And also run: "xhost +SI:localuser:userB" before.

> > Usually, as autospawn is enabled, when running firefox as userB and sound
> > was needed, pulseaudio was started and audio just worked. Now everything works
> > fine, except audio doesn't play. Probably because it fails as above when trying
> > to start pulseaudio.
> >
> > I've found the following work-around, though, to make this work again and this
> > is why I'm reporting it to pulseaudio.
> >
> > If userA logins to the desktop env and opens a console and as userB (I'm doing
> > "su - userB") runs:
> >
> >         pax11publish -r; /usr/bin/pulseaudio --start --log-target=syslog
> >
> > then audio works again.
> 
> OK, this is the x11 publish module.
> 
> >
> > To check if audio works, and to be sure is nothing related to firefox, I run as
> > userA in the desktop env:
> >
> >         sudo -u userB -- aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav
> >
> > iAfter doing the "pax11publish ..." command above, this command works. Before it
> > does not. And, of course, this also fixes the audio in firefox.
> 
> You can work around this by disabling the x11 publish module, via
> disabling the autostart of start-pulseaudio-x11 (by removing/moving
> away the /etc/xdg/autostart/pulseaudio.desktop file).

Ohh, I can confirm that this workaround works.


Let me know if you need more info or I can help you with testing the fix





Thanks a lot,
Rodrigo