I was having some problems with my sound tonight on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex. I wasn't able to get Rhythmbox or VLC to play any audio. When I tried to to play a test sound in the sound administration I got this error:

audiotestsrc wave=sine freq=512 ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! gconfaudiosink: Failed to connect: Connection refused

So I decided the culprit was PulseAudio. I'm trying to trace the root of the problem. I've more or less determined it is an issue with the deadly combo of Firefox/Flash Player/Pulseaudio. To correct the problem I simply opened up a terminal and ran