That means PA has not been started. Please provide the contents of ~/.xsession-errors.

Oh, and also everything from syslog regarding PA, please.

Created attachment 337258 [details]
/home/floki/.xsession-errors



[floki@flokipa ~]$ pavucontrol

(pavucontrol:14524): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_main_quit: assertion `main_loops != NULL' failed

(pavucontrol:14524): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_main_quit: assertion `main_loops != NULL' failed
[floki@flokipa ~]$

 where is syslog and "regarding PA" 
I am not sure, but I seams to me that this is related to use off ogg123 ( or mpg321 ) and rhythmbox. It helps to log user out.

/var/log/syslog is the system log. All lines that mention pulseaudio I'd like to have a peek on.

Sorry I haven't responded. I was testing this at a LUG meeting and I don't have a disk with Fedora on it at the moment. I'm downloading one so I'll try to get this info to you today or tomorrow.

Thanks for the help.

Alright, got the live-cd going. I tried immediately after boot and the sound controller worked. However, I just tried it again about 10 minutes later and I'm getting the same error message as I had gotten before. All I've done is open three things: Firefox, gnome-terminal, and add/remove software.

Here's the stuff you've requested:
[liveuser@sabretooth ~]$ cat ~/.xsession-errors 
imsettings information
==========================
Is DBus enabled: yes
Is imsettings enabled: yes
Is GTK+ supported: yes
Is Qt supported: no
DESKTOP_SESSION: gnome
DISABLE_IMSETTINGS: 
IMSETTINGS_DISABLE_DESKTOP_CHECK: 
DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS: unix:abstract=/tmp/dbus-ZYUdUFKpxm,guid=1990ce6cbb3ee491bcd0847349d73932
GTK_IM_MODULE: 
QT_IM_MODULE: xim
XMODIFIERS: @im=imsettings
IMSETTINGS_MODULE: none
IMSETTINGS_INTEGRATE_DESKTOP: yes

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/sbin/sabayon-apply", line 43, in <module>
    from sabayon import errors
ImportError: cannot import name errors
_IceTransmkdir: Owner of /tmp/.ICE-unix should be set to root
GNOME_KEYRING_SOCKET=/tmp/keyring-EFU79e/socket
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-EFU79e/socket.ssh
GNOME_KEYRING_PID=3478
Window manager warning: Failed to read saved session file /home/liveuser/.config/metacity/sessions/10775a13606aa5447f123884166321625600000032710022.ms: Failed to open file '/home/liveuser/.config/metacity/sessions/10775a13606aa5447f123884166321625600000032710022.ms': No such file or directory
I: caps.c: Limited capabilities successfully to CAP_SYS_NICE.
I: caps.c: Dropping root privileges.
I: caps.c: Limited capabilities successfully to CAP_SYS_NICE.
gnome-session[3271]: WARNING: Application 'gnome-panel.desktop' failed to register before timeout

** (gnome-settings-daemon:3473): WARNING **: NumLock remembering disabled because hostname is set to "localhost"
** (gnome-volume-control-applet:3526): DEBUG: Disabling debugging
I: caps.c: Limited capabilities successfully to CAP_SYS_NICE.
I: caps.c: Dropping root privileges.
I: caps.c: Limited capabilities successfully to CAP_SYS_NICE.
N: main.c: Called SUID root and real-time and/or high-priority scheduling was requested in the configuration. However, we lack the necessary privileges:
N: main.c: We are not in group 'pulse-rt', PolicyKit refuse to grant us the requested privileges and we have no increase RLIMIT_NICE/RLIMIT_RTPRIO resource limits.
N: main.c: For enabling real-time/high-priority scheduling please acquire the appropriate PolicyKit privileges, or become a member of 'pulse-rt', or increase the RLIMIT_NICE/RLIMIT_RTPRIO resource limits for this user.
Initializing nautilus-gdu extension

** (gnome-panel:3483): WARNING **: panel-applet-frame.c:1288: failed to load applet OAFIID:TomboyApplet:
(null)
** Message: <info>  No keyring secrets found for Auto X-Mansion/802-11-wireless-security; asking user.


(nm-applet:3512): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_size_group_remove_widget: assertion `g_slist_find (size_group->widgets, widget)' failed


** (nm-applet:3512): WARNING **: applet-device-wifi.c.1539 (get_secrets_dialog_response_cb): canceled
gnome-session[3271]: WARNING: Unable to find watch for alarm 12582917
gnome-session[3271]: WARNING: Unable to find watch for alarm 12582918

(pavucontrol:3919): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_main_quit: assertion `main_loops != NULL' failed

(pavucontrol:3919): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_main_quit: assertion `main_loops != NULL' failed


----------------
I didn't have a syslog file, but here's all the pulseaudio mentions in my /var/log files:
[root@sabretooth liveuser]# grep -R "pulseaudio" /var/log
/var/log/messages:Apr  4 06:41:07 localhost pulseaudio[3482]: main.c: Called SUID root and real-time and/or high-priority scheduling was requested in the configuration. However, we lack the necessary privileges:
/var/log/messages:Apr  4 06:41:07 localhost pulseaudio[3482]: main.c: We are not in group 'pulse-rt', PolicyKit refuse to grant us the requested privileges and we have no increase RLIMIT_NICE/RLIMIT_RTPRIO resource limits.
/var/log/messages:Apr  4 06:41:07 localhost pulseaudio[3482]: main.c: For enabling real-time/high-priority scheduling please acquire the appropriate PolicyKit privileges, or become a member of 'pulse-rt', or increase the RLIMIT_NICE/RLIMIT_RTPRIO resource limits for this user.
/var/log/messages:Apr  4 06:41:26 localhost pulseaudio[3534]: pid.c: Daemon already running.


Thanks.

Jeff, that output looks perfectly fine.

Hmm, you say that in that very session pavucontrol failed to start with 'Connection refused"?

Could you please run PA in a terminal like 'pulseaudio -vvvv' in a terminal, and then do your stuff to reproduce the issue? If you manage to reproduce, please include the output that pulseaudio -vvvv produced here in the bug report. You might need to stop pa first with pulseaudio -k.

So I tried for a while last night to replicate this after running pulseaudio with the -vvvv flags and failed, it was working fine, which I suppose is good. I'll try again when I get some free time.

Ok, will hence close now. If you manage to reproduce feel free to reopen.

I ran into what appeared to be this exact problem.  I followed the detail, above, (mainly killing PA and running -vvvv in terminal) and the problem vanished.  I wasn't sure whether to even document my experience.  As I am no longer experiencing the problem no follow-up is required.  The main reason I'm documenting this is because I'm seeing it here:

]$ uname -a
Linux p7-1456c.localdomain 3.10.4-100.fc18.x86_64 #1 SMP Thu Aug 1 21:13:27 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
]$ cat /etc/redhat-release 
Fedora release 18 (Spherical Cow)

Here's my session.log: http://pastebin.com/E1JJzhDj
-I hope it helps.