Pulseeffects: Equalizer & other effects not working on Ubuntu 18.04

Created on 21 Apr 2020 · 13Comments · Source: wwmm/pulseeffects

Hello,

Just installed PulseEffects. I am able to control the volume / output using it, but any effect (including the equalizer) doesn't seem to have any impact on the output. Note that I _can_ activate effects (including the equalizer) but they just don't do anything.

Any idea?

Ubuntu & kernel versions:

$ lsb_release -a && uname -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS
Release:        18.04
Codename:       bionic
Linux (redacted) 5.3.0-46-generic #38~18.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Tue Mar 31 04:17:56 UTC 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Relevant package versions:

$ dpkg -l | grep -E '(pulse|lsp-plugins)'
ii  gstreamer1.0-adapter-pulseeffects:amd64     4.7.2-3~bionic2                                  amd64        Gstreamer adapter
ii  gstreamer1.0-autogain-pulseeffects:amd64    4.7.2-3~bionic2                                  amd64        Gstreamer crystalizer
ii  gstreamer1.0-convolver-pulseeffects:amd64   4.7.2-3~bionic2                                  amd64        Gstreamer convolver
ii  gstreamer1.0-crystalizer-pulseeffects:amd64 4.7.2-3~bionic2                                  amd64        Gstreamer crystalizer
ii  gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio:amd64               1.14.5-0ubuntu1~18.04.1                          amd64        GStreamer plugin for PulseAudio
ii  libcanberra-pulse:amd64                     0.30-5ubuntu1                                    amd64        PulseAudio backend for libcanberra
ii  libpulse-mainloop-glib0:amd64               1:12.2-9~bionic1                                 amd64        PulseAudio client libraries (glib support)
ii  libpulse0:amd64                             1:12.2-9~bionic1                                 amd64        PulseAudio client libraries
ii  libpulsedsp:amd64                           1:12.2-9~bionic1                                 amd64        PulseAudio OSS pre-load library
ii  lsp-plugins                                 1.1.15-1~bionic1                                 all          LSP (Linux Studio Plugins) audio-plugins package
ii  lsp-plugins-jack                            1.1.15-1~bionic1                                 amd64        LSP (Linux Studio Plugins) JACK plugins
ii  lsp-plugins-ladspa                          1.1.15-1~bionic1                                 amd64        LSP (Linux Studio Plugins) LADSPA plugins
ii  lsp-plugins-lv2                             1.1.15-1~bionic1                                 amd64        LSP (Linux Studio Plugins) LV2 plugins
ii  lsp-plugins-vst                             1.1.15-1~bionic1                                 amd64        LSP (Linux Studio Plugins) VST plugins
ii  pulseaudio                                  1:12.2-9~bionic1                                 amd64        PulseAudio sound server
ii  pulseaudio-equalizer                        1:12.2-9~bionic1                                 amd64        Equalizer sink module for PulseAudio sound server
ii  pulseaudio-module-bluetooth                 1:12.2-9~bionic1                                 amd64        Bluetooth module for PulseAudio sound server
ii  pulseaudio-module-gconf                     1:12.2-9~bionic1                                 amd64        GConf module for PulseAudio sound server
ii  pulseaudio-module-zeroconf                  1:12.2-9~bionic1                                 amd64        Zeroconf module for PulseAudio sound server
ii  pulseaudio-utils                            1:12.2-9~bionic1                                 amd64        Command line tools for the PulseAudio sound server
ii  pulseeffects                                4.7.2-3~bionic2                                  amd64        Sound input and output effects for PulseAudio

Thank you!

Source

nxtof

Most helpful comment

Everything is working perfectly, i just forgot to install lsp plugins !
sudo apt install lsp-plugins did the trick.

Thank you wwmm !
Edit: I think you should add somewhere that it is mandatory to install lsp-plugins to use the equalizer (and give the command): it will save noobies like me from wasting your time! ;)

Troublicious on 21 Apr 2020

❤1 👍1

All 13 comments

Hello,
i got the exact same problem here on Ubuntu 20.04 with kernel 5.4.0-25.
The button to activate equaliser is sometimes greyed out, and sometimes not: when it is possible to activate it, it has no effects on sound, and the bar showing ouptut (at the bottom on equaliser screen) is not moving at all.
(for me it was working perfectly in Ubuntu 18.04, with a 5.3 kernel if i remember)

Troublicious on 21 Apr 2020

Kill the current instance pulseeffects -q and restart it in debug mode G_MESSAGES_DEBUG=pulseeffects pulseeffects. Let's see what is printed in the terminal.

wwmm on 21 Apr 2020

Thank you wwmm, i can see that some some plugins are not found :

(pulseeffects:29302): pulseeffects-WARNING *: 17:47:52.864: equalizer plugin was not found!
(pulseeffects:29302): pulseeffects-WARNING *: 17:47:52.862: compressor plugin was not found!
(pulseeffects:29302): pulseeffects-WARNING **: 17:47:52.891: delay plugin was not found!

How is it possible ?? Just installed pulseeffects in repo via sudo apt install pulseeffects

Troublicious on 21 Apr 2020

I have an existing install that is running into the same symptoms after running apt updates the past week. Not sure exactly what update broke it, since I usually only run minimal EQ/convolution effects. My debug output does not appear to show any missing plugins or errors of any kind, but all effects are not working (tested by setting drastic changes for each effect that I'd notice). Not sure what exactly I updated about Ubuntu that might have caused this but happy to collect debug info for you @wwmm.

zacharyneveu on 21 Apr 2020

@Troublicious in your case the source of the problem is probably a GStreamer bug where it does not update its cache after plugins install/uninstall. Usually removing its cache and restarting PulseEffects solves the problem rm -rf ~/.cache/gstreamer-1.0. I suggest you try this too @zacharyneveu

wwmm on 21 Apr 2020

@Troublicious also make sure you have Linux Studio Plugins installed.

wwmm on 21 Apr 2020

@zacharyneveu which Linux Studio Plugins version do you have installed? Versions higher than 1.1.14 need PulseEffects 4.7.2. Older PulseEffects versions only work with Linux Studio 1.1.13 or older

wwmm on 21 Apr 2020

👍1

Although the equalizer is from Linux Studio the convolver is a built-in PulseEffects plugin. But I think that on Ubuntu repositories our built-in plugins are split into optional packages. Check if you have any of them uninstalled

wwmm on 21 Apr 2020

Everything is working perfectly, i just forgot to install lsp plugins !
sudo apt install lsp-plugins did the trick.

Troublicious on 21 Apr 2020

❤1 👍1

Giving the command to install lsp-plugins is a hard thing to do because it will depend on the distribution. Maybe a more efficient approach would be to have the package maintainers for each distribution to add lsp-plugins as a non optional dependency.

wwmm on 22 Apr 2020

Finally solved my issue. After multiple uninstalls/re-installs, dependency checking etc., turned out simply resetting my settings fixed it, I must have messed something up in there.

zacharyneveu on 26 Apr 2020

I had a similar problem to @zacharyneveu and simply resetting my settings also fixed it. I had activated process all inputs don't know if that was the thing that caused any problems..

mrpickles2000 on 7 May 2020

I was struggling with this problem until I found this issue thread. I was missing lsp-plugins entirely on my fresh 20.04 Ubuntu. The installation instructions do not mention that lsp-plugins are needed at all. It might be a good idea to at least add a mention somewhere in the wiki for this. Obviously the better option would be to have lsp-plugins as a dependency for the package.