[pulseaudio-discuss] pa_simple_new function - Failed to load cookie file from cookie: Not a directory

[Sean Greenslade]

On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 09:05:12AM +0200, Björn Försterling wrote:
> Hi Sean,
> 
> thank you very much for the reply.
> 
> I figured out my mistake.
> I actually modified the HOME environment variable in my program
> by using the pointer that was returned by the getenv() function.
> (which is not a pointer to a copy of the string but to the actual env var...)
> 
> I wonder why pulseaudio is using these authentication cookies when trying to
> connect to a local pulseaudio server though.

As the pulse docs [0] put it:

>> cookie: A random value which may be used to identify this instance of
>> PulseAudio. Not cryptographically secure in any way.

It's mainly a sanity check to make sure that you're talking to the pulse
server that you're expecting to, on the off chance that multiple servers
are running on the same system.

--Sean

[0]: https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Documentation/Developer/CoreAPI/