OK, hit this today. Never seen it before. I started to have weird problems with Google Hangout; the plugin failed to start on both firefox and chromium. Manually starting the plugin from command line I got:
$ /opt/google/talkplugin/GoogleTalkPlugin Failed to create secure directory (/run/user/1000/pulse): Permission denied There I figured out there is something wrong with pulse: $ pulseaudio --check E: [pulseaudio] core-util.c: Failed to create secure directory (/run/user/1000/pulse): Permission denied $ ls -lah /run/user/1000/ drwx------ 2 root root 100 elo 13 11:31 pulse Removing the directory fixed the problem with GoogleTalk. I guess all the programs using pulse were affected. Everything was working just fine yesterday. This morning I noticed my laptop had apparently run out of battery. Pluggin in the power chord and power up the machine it seemed that unity did not start straight away. I'm not sure what the failsafe error session looks like, but at least I first saw a bunch of undecorated problem report windows. So I would guess that the first session was run as root or something. Anyway after that the normal unity session started and I was greeted with this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1211674 So, could it be that at some error situation the X session is started as root and pulse somehow creates it's /run/user/1000/pulse with root permissions at situation like this? ** Tags added: apport-collected saucy -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to pulseaudio in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1197395 Title: /run/user/$ID/pulse owned by root and not by the user Status in “pulseaudio” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: I'm experiencing this problem with Ubuntu Saucy. Some times, when I start a media player (I use Musique), it freezes, as it finds that it cannot write into /run/user/$ID/pulse. If I change the owner of that directory to me, the media player starts as usual and is able to play music. I've never had this problem with previous versions of Ubuntu. Someone says that running PulseAudio with the -D argument changes the owner of that directory, but I didn't try. This is before manually changing the owner of that directory: $ musique Failed to create secure directory (/run/user/1000/pulse): Permission denied+ ... # it doesn't crash, it keeps waiting If needed: (dmesg attached) lspci: 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07) 00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07) 00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03) 00:1a.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03) 00:1a.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03) 00:1a.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03) 00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03) 00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03) 00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03) 00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 03) 00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03) 00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03) 00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03) 00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller (rev 03) 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801IBM/IEM (ICH9M/ICH9M-E) 4 port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 03) 02:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01) 85:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8072 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 10) From /var/log/syslog: Jul 3 14:44:12 Davideddu-Laptop pulseaudio[11387]: [pulseaudio] core-util.c: Failed to create secure directory (/run/user/1000/pulse): Permission denied Jul 3 14:44:12 Davideddu-Laptop pulseaudio[11387]: [pulseaudio] main.c: User-configured server at {781995e0a8db2617790d55ca51c37499}unix:/run/user/1000/pulse/native, refusing to start/autospawn. Jul 3 14:46:08 Davideddu-Laptop pulseaudio[11443]: [pulseaudio] core-util.c: Failed to create secure directory (/run/user/1000/pulse): Permission denied Jul 3 14:46:08 Davideddu-Laptop pulseaudio[11443]: [pulseaudio] main.c: User-configured server at {781995e0a8db2617790d55ca51c37499}unix:/run/user/1000/pulse/native, refusing to start/autospawn. This is a fresh installation, I haven't updated it from a previous version. I'm using Ubuntu with Unity, not a derivative. These are my PPAs: canonical-qt5-edgers-qt5-proper-saucy.list dropbox.list dukto.list google-earth.list jd-team-jdownloader-saucy.list kivy-team-kivy-saucy.list mitya57-ppa-saucy.list numix-icon-theme-dev-utouch-saucy.list otto-kesselgulasch-gimp-saucy.list phablet-team-desktop-deps-saucy.list satyajit-happy-themes-saucy.list steam.list ubuntu-sdk-team-ppa-saucy.list ubuntutrucchi.list ubuntutrucchi-testing.list ubuntu-wine-ppa-saucy.list webupd8team-y-ppa-manager-saucy.list To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/1197395/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : desktop-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
