Libpulse Dependency Error – Unable To Reinstall Pulseaudio In Ubuntu

This brief guide explains how to fix libpulse dependency error and reinstall Pulseaudio in Ubuntu and its derivatives like Linux Mint and Pop OS.

Today, I accidentally removed Pulseaudio on my Ubuntu 18.04 desktop. When I tried to reinstall Puslseaudio using the following command:

$ sudo apt install pulseaudio

I encountered with the following error:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 pulseaudio : Depends: libpulse0 (= 1:11.1-1ubuntu7.4) but 1:12.2-9~bionic1 is to be installed
              Depends: pulseaudio-utils but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Fix libpulse dependency error and reinstall Pulseaudio In Ubuntu

I ran the following command to fix the missing dependencies.

$ sudo apt install -f

It didn't solve the error, because there were no missing packages.

I tried to update all packages using commands:

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt upgrade

$ sudo apt dist-upgrade

It didn't help either. My Ubuntu system is already up-do-date!

I tried everything I could and ran all steps suggested in various Ubuntu forums and blogs. None of them helped! I keep getting the same error every time. I almost gave up the idea of installing Pulseaudio. I decided to forcibly reinstall libpulse package one last time and It worked!! If you ever encountered with libpulse dependency problem while reinstalling Pulseaudio on Ubuntu, try the following workaround.

Fix libpulse dependency error and reinstall pulseaudio in Ubuntu

First, forcibly install libpulse0 package using the following commands:

$ sudo dpkg -P --force-depends libpulse0

$ sudo dpkg -P --force-depends libpulse-mainloop-glib0

$ sudo apt install libpulse0/bionic-updates

Then, install broken dependencies using command:

$ sudo apt --fix-broken install

Finally, reinstall Pulseaudio package with command:

$ sudo apt install pulseaudio

Pulseaudio should install now.

If you still can't install Pulseaudio, try the following commands instead:

$ sudo dpkg --force-depends -r libpulse0

$ sudo apt-get -f install

$ sudo apt install pulseaudio

Hope this helps.