Pulseaudio fails to start via systemctl after upgrade

English Multimedia
1

Hi!

Actaully problem I have workaround to live with, but really strange for me. After upgrading Leap 15.0 to 15.1 pulseaudio daemon is not starting on user login and as well via

systemctl--userstartpulseaudio11:26:58
Job for pulseaudio.service failed because a fatal signal was delivered to the control process.
See "systemctl --user status pulseaudio.service" and "journalctl --user -xe" for details.


Авг 11 11:16:48 ThinkPad-E480 systemd[2420]: Listening on Sound System.
-- Subject: Starring unit UNIT finished 
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
--  
-- Процесс запуска юнита UNIT был завершен.
--  
-- Result: done.
Авг 11 11:16:48 ThinkPad-E480 systemd[2420]: Starting Sound Service...
-- Subject: Starting UNIT
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
--  
-- Начат процесс запуска юнита UNIT.
Авг 11 11:16:48 ThinkPad-E480 systemd[2420]: **pulseaudio.service: Main process exited, code=killed, status=31/SYS**
Авг 11 11:16:48 ThinkPad-E480 systemd[2420]: **Failed to start Sound Service.**
-- Subject: Ошибка юнита UNIT
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
--  
-- Произошел сбой юнита UNIT.
--  
-- Результат: failed.
Авг 11 11:16:48 ThinkPad-E480 systemd[2420]: **pulseaudio.service: Unit entered failed state.**
Авг 11 11:16:48 ThinkPad-E480 systemd[2420]: **pulseaudio.service: Failed with result 'signal'.**
Авг 11 11:16:48 ThinkPad-E480 systemd[2420]: pulseaudio.service: Service RestartSec=100ms expired, scheduling restart.
Авг 11 11:16:48 ThinkPad-E480 systemd[2420]: Stopped Sound Service.
-- Subject: Завершена остановка юнита UNIT.
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
--  
-- Процесс остановки юнита UNIT был завершен.

But, it’s ok when starting just via

pulseaudio --start

from console. Sound is working ok meanwhile even without pulseaudio loaded.

2

Aparently problem is with unit file -

pulseaudio.service

. I’ve commented everything I don’t know and it’s worked. Not sure it’s correct…
So, now it looks like

[Unit]
Description=Sound Service

# We require pulseaudio.socket to be active before starting the daemon, because
# while it is possible to use the service without the socket, it is not clear
# why it would be desirable.
#
# A user installing pulseaudio and doing `systemctl --user start pulseaudio`
# will not get the socket started, which might be confusing and problematic if
# the server is to be restarted later on, as the client autospawn feature
# might kick in. Also, a start of the socket unit will fail, adding to the
# confusion.
#
# After=pulseaudio.socket is not needed, as it is already implicit in the
# socket-service relationship, see systemd.socket(5).
Requires=pulseaudio.socket
ConditionUser=!root

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no
#LockPersonality=yes
#MemoryDenyWriteExecute=yes
#NoNewPrivileges=yes
Restart=on-failure
#RestrictNamespaces=yes
#SystemCallArchitectures=native
#SystemCallFilter=@system-service
# Note that notify will only work if --daemonize=no
Type=notify
#UMask=0077

[Install]
Also=pulseaudio.socket
WantedBy=default.target
3

I’m not sure what you are looking for there.

As far as I know, “pulseaudio” is started by the desktop on login. It is not started by “systemd” (or “systemctl”).

As a test, I just logged into Icewm. And “pulseaudio” was not running there. I then logged out, and logged into KDE Plasma, and “pulseaudio” was running under KDE. So Plasma starts it, but Icewm doesn’t. It should be started by your desktop software.

4

I’m pretty sure it’s systemctl on user level.
Maybe KDE/Plasma invokes it, but pulseaudio launch is controlled by it. I did not follow all chain of pulseaudio daemon to start.

5

But then it should be running if I login to “Icewm”. But it isn’t.

That’s why I started with that test.

However, once Plasma starts it, then it may remain running even if I logout.

6

I have a similar issue.

This started about 2 or 3 days ago after some updates were installed on Suse 15.1.

On system start, I get a number of log messages like:


  pulseaudio.service: Service RestartSec=100ms expired, scheduling restart.
  pulseaudio.service: Main process exited, code=killed, status=31/SYS
  pulseaudio.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
  pulseaudio.service: Unit entered failed state.
  pulseaudio.service: Failed with result 'signal'.

Sound is not working until I start pulseaudio manually (using pulsaudio --start).
Once started from a console, everything works ok until the next power cycle.

Richard Rosa

7

Via experiments were found, than need to modify file
/usr/lib/systemd/user/pulseaudio.service
and comment out line

#SystemCallFilter=@system-service

After this -

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user restart pulseaudio

And all work as expected

8

This worked for me! Thanx.

Richard Rosa

9

Can someone please report this as a bug at https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Submitting_bug_reports

Same username/password as here.

And please post a link to your report here, so others can add information.

10

Already there.
https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1145462

11

> Already there.
> https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1145462](https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1145462)

apparently, no interest from devs in the bug/issue for Leap, particularly if you’re using MedaLibs repo.

for those repos, it’s the result of a sloppy rpm spec – publishing for Leap15.1, but not dealing with the Systemd version diffs for it.

the fix is trivial – and is already mentioned below.

if manually-applying the change isn’t of interest, a simple patch to a DIY obs build takes care of it; fwiw, here’s mine:

https://build.opensuse.org/package/view_file/home:pgnd:multimedia:libs/pulseaudio/boo-1145462.patch?expand=1

for me, on all my Leap15.1 + pulseaudio@MediaLibs instances, it solves the problem.

ymmv.