PulseAudio service not starting automatically anymore on Kali Linux

rm1984 · 07-13-2022, 01:12 AM

Hi guys,
I'm running the latest Kali Linux, and for some time now the PulseAudio subsystem doesn't start automatically anymore.
As user, everytime I turn on the PC, after login I have to manually run:

Code:

$ systemctl --user start pulseaudio.service

even if the service is obviously enabled.
This is the version of PulseAudio running on my machine:

Code:

pulseaudio                      15.0+dfsg1-4+b1

Any help in solving this odd issue would be very appreciated.
Thanks! :-)

pan64 · 07-13-2022, 07:23 AM

first of all: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ad-4175614092/
Kali is a pentesting distro, is not really suitable for general daily usage.
In general you need to provide more info, like which version of OS you have, did you check log files already? Did you change something?

rm1984 · 07-13-2022, 08:58 AM

Hi pan64,

I perfectly know what Kali is, I'm a pentester and I've been using Kali on my office laptop as a general daily usage distro for 6 years.
It's nothing more than a Debian testing with some useful tools already available via APT.

No, I didn't change anything, and logs look ok.
This is the only line with a suspicious message:

Code:

syslog:Jul 13 15:17:58 host pulseaudio[3090]: Stale PID file, overwriting.

The oddity is that everything worked fine with PulseAudio starting automatically, then suddenly is stopped and now I need to run it by hand everytime.
This is the output of the service status:

Code:

$ systemctl --user status pulseaudio.service
● pulseaudio.service - Sound Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pulseaudio.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
    Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/user/pulseaudio.service.d
             └─kali_pulseaudio.conf
     Active: active (running) since Wed 2022-07-13 15:17:59 CEST; 38min ago
TriggeredBy: ● pulseaudio.socket
   Main PID: 3090 (pulseaudio)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 18734)
     Memory: 23.6M
        CPU: 3min 59.220s
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pulseaudio.service
             └─3090 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no --log-target=journal

lug 13 15:17:58 host systemd[1610]: Starting Sound Service...
lug 13 15:17:58 host pulseaudio[3090]: Stale PID file, overwriting.
lug 13 15:17:59 host systemd[1610]: Started Sound Service.

The version of the OS is Kali with all the latest updates.
Thanks!

pan64 · 07-13-2022, 10:09 AM

Stale PID file means there is another instance, at least was started (and died?) or something like that. So you need to check that pid file and the missing process/daemon (belongs to that pid). And I guess you need to find related info in your logs somewhere.