Description of problem: Recently upgraded to F16. Pulseaudio crashes after a dozen seconds (regardless of the desktop environment: even tested under ratpoison) ; when there's an application reactivating it (e.g. kmix) it spawns over multiple processes (a new pulseaudio process is issues every ten seconds or less) and the audio is full of glitches. For some reason, the bug disappears if a terminal (or tty) is opened and logged in as root. (Note that pulseaudio is *not* running as root, however.) Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): pulseaudio 0.9.23 kmix 3.9-alpha How reproducible: Every time the OS is booted. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Boot the computer. 2. Log on as standard user. 3. Launch audio app (or have a look at the running process list). Actual results: Audio is full of glitches. If kmix (or equivalent) isn't running, audio stops after a few seconds. Expected results: Pulseaudio shouldn't crash. Additional info: The easy workaround is to open a terminal (or a tty) and log in as root: pulseaudio stops crashing. (On several occasions a stdout warning "pulseaudio: daemon already running" was issued. But the workaroung still works.)
Latest yum update fixed the issue. (Strangely enough, no pulseaudio or sound-related package was part of the update; could've been kernel 3.1-rc6 or some change to the initscripts.) Sound server is now stable (and F16 in general is looking pretty good). Thanks!