I'm having a similar problem. I have audio working (can cat > /dev/audio, and it makes noise), but cannot access pulseaudio. I followed the directions above, and pulseaudio is starting, but does not work.

To test it, I use the gstreamer-properties program, and click "test". I get "Autodetect: failed to connect: connection refused". Furthermore, if I use the drop-down in gstreamer-properties to select the pulseaudio output instead of autodetect, it prints "dropping root privileges" on the console, and the program hangs.

I've tried adding "auth-anonymous=1" to "module-native-protocol-unix" in default.pa, but that doesn't seem to help. Furthermore, there doesn't seems to be anything relevant in /var/log/messages, the only things I see from pulse are "high priority scheduling enabled in configuration but not allowed in policy".

Any advice or tips for where to looks would be great. Thanks!

Please do not post with anonymous bugmenot accounts -- Carpetsmoker