I have a strange sound problem on an f11 box - I can play a .wav sound file just fine with aplay on the CLI. But if I try to play the file with Dragon Player or try to set Kmail to play the sound as an incoming mail alert then I get only the first half second or so of the sound. So maybe pulse is dying as it starts to play the file.

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I wouldn't necessarily blame PulseAudio in this case.  If paplay works, then your server's responding and processing fine.  It could be the way that Dragon Player and/or Kmail are dealing with audio that are the problem. I usually first try to use a standard utility (paplay should be fine, or Totem which keeps up with PulseAudio generally) first.  If that works, I create a brand new user account to test whether my configs are at fault with the different app I'm using.  If that doesn't work, the app may be at fault.  If it does, the blame probably lies in my user configuration.