pulseaudio[1378]: lock-autospawn.c: Cannot access autospawn lock

Sometimes we used to face problems in getting into GUI Mode in debian systems.

Try to see the error messages logged in syslog

bash-3.1#  tailf /var/log/syslog

In case if you are getting the below error messages

Jan 14 04:37:45 debian pulseaudio[4062]: [autospawn] lock-autospawn.c: Cannot access autospawn lock.

Jan 14 04:37:45 debian pulseaudio[4062]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to acquire autospawn lock

Here are the steps to solve it

1)Change the user permission of the folder from root to appropriate user as below

sudo chown -R user:user /home/user

For example

===========

The name of the user is "labuser".

Check the owner of the folder "/home/labuser"

bash-3.1# ls -lrt /home/

drwxr-xr-x 25 root root           4096 Jan 13 18:36 labuser

here the folder is owned by root. We need to change it as

sudo chown -R labuser:labuser /home/labuser

bash-3.1# ls -lrt /home/

drwxr-xr-x 25 labuser labuser           4096 Jan 13 18:36 labuser

2) Switch to labuser mode

bash-3.1# su labuser

3) Execute the below command

start-pulseaudio-x11

bash-3.1#  start-pulseaudio-x11

The command should run successfully.

4) In case if you are getting the below error messages

E: [autospawn] core-util.c: Failed to create random directory /tmp/pulse-1cadfldalelalrfmmad: Permission denied

E: [autospawn] core-util.c:Failed to symlink /home/labuser/.pulse/1c4f1cadfldalelalrfmmad

E: [autospawn] lock-autospawn.c: Cannot access autospawn lock

E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to acquire autospawn lock

Change the permission of /tmp folder from root mode

bash-3.1#  chmod 777 /tmp

5) Reboot the system

6) Now you could able to login the GUI for a user successfully

Reference
http://askubuntu.com/questions/349767/cant-start-pulseaudio-ubuntu-12-04-cant-use-usb-headset