Pulseeffects: Effects grayed out, no plugins found [SOLVED]

[VideoMem]

Recently I had this issue appearing on my ubuntu 18.04, similar to #488

PulseEffects version: 4.7.2

No Reverberation, No Bass Enhancer
(It shows 'plugin was not found' warning at startup for these)

I solved it by removing calf-ladspa and reinstalling calf from sources.

Some other packages which are needed to be installed/upgraded to make calf compile:

libjack0 (not installed)
libjack-dev (not installed)
lv2core (not installed, not found on the repos, installed from source: https://lv2plug.in/spec/lv2core-6.0.tar.bz2 )

For details of the dependencies needed visit: https://calf-studio-gear.org/

Removing the gstreamer cache did not solve the problem for me.

I'm only here to give a record of the issue.

[Talkless]

I solved it by removing calf-ladspa and reinstalling calf from sources.

So it's calf-ladpsa package problem/bug in Ubuntu - it's simply not built "good enough"?

[VideoMem]

I'm in doubt now.
I reinstalled calf-ladspa_1.1.3-7_amd64.deb 'as is' from the repos again and the thing works now.

When I tried to build calf I got:

configure: error: 

Obsolete LADSPA version of the Calf plugins has been detected:
    /usr/lib/ladspa/calf.so

It will interfere with the current version. Please remove the file and try
again.

So I removed it, in order to build calf.

Something in the process of building the latest stable calf made the problem to disappear.

Like when you have a faulty vintage electronic equipment and replace all the electrolytic capacitors, then it starts working.
It might be a component, or it might be various components.

Can it be a lv2core related?
I can't find lv2core on the ubuntu repos, but it seems to be a required dependency of the latest calf.

Pulseeffects worked with the installation instructions provided on the wiki, but somewhere after a system update it started to miss the plugins.

[Mlocik97]

I have 4.7.2 on Ubuntu 18.04 from package provided by mikhailnov (sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mikhailnov/pulseeffects -y)

if You install pulseeffect by this command: sudo apt install pulseeffects, on older version of Ubuntu (18.04 for example) it's problematic and not working correctly. You should use that command before installing, as is written in Wiki:

https://github.com/wwmm/pulseeffects/wiki/Package-Repositories#debian--ubuntu

You should install package repo provided by hosiet only on new Ubuntu version.

[VideoMem]

I installed it from the mikhailnov repository various months ago, but it stopped working somewhere after updates.

[wwmm]

I wonder why some distributions are still packaging the LADSPA version of the Calf plugins. They moved to LV2 a long time ago.

[VideoMem]

Woah! That might be the problem here.
That package is not a dependency of any other installed on my system, so I'm banning it right now.

For those who might find this thread in the future: (ignore this)

sudo apt-mark hold calf-ladspa

This will mark calf-ladspa as non installable, non upgradable

[Mlocik97]

OK, so I just get look on what I have installed, because 4.7.2 for Ubuntu 18.04 is working fine for me:

calf-plugins/bionic,now 0.90.1-1~bionic1 amd64
rubberband-ladspa/bionic,now 1.8.1-7ubuntu2 amd64
mda-lv2/bionic,now 1.2.2~dfsg0-2 amd64
samplv1-lv2/bionic 0.8.6-1 amd64
so-synth-lv2/bionic 1.4-2 amd64
swh-lv2/bionic 1.0.16+git20160519~repack0-3 amd64

[VideoMem]

I think I found the reason why it failed.
I uninstalled all the manually installed packages (calf and lv2core)

Then I queried the package manager for a missing dependency of pulseeffects issuing this command:
for i in `apt-cache depends pulseeffects | awk -F: '{ print $2 }'`; do apt -q list "$i"; done | grep -v installed

calf-plugins/bionic,now 0.90.1-1~bionic1 amd64

Is not installed.
Then I started pulseeffects and the issue appears, logically as expected.

I don't know what caused that package to uninstall in first place.
I installed it manually issuing:

sudo apt install calf-plugins

And, voila!, the thing works now.

Then I searched for the calf-ladspa reverse dependencies

And I found this:

$ apt-cache rdepends calf-ladspa

calf-ladspa
Reverse Depends:
  lmms

Both packages (calf-plugins and calf-ladspa) seems to be able to co-exist in the same system, so I removed it from the backlist.

sudo apt-mark unhold calf-ladspa

I forced a reinstall of lmms to see if it conflicts with calf-plugins, but no conflicts were found.

I think calf-plugins was somewhat marked as a candidate for the 'autoremove' process.
I can't find in my command history any reference to its deletion.

However there are two versions of calf-plugins available to install:

$ apt list calf-plugins -a 

calf-plugins/bionic 0.90.1-1~bionic1 amd64
calf-plugins/bionic 0.0.60-5 amd64

And its reverse dependencies are:

$ apt-cache rdepends calf-plugins
calf-plugins
Reverse Depends:
  pulseeffects
  calf-ladspa
  ubuntustudio-audio-plugins
  multimedia-audio-plugins

It may got removed automagically or it may got installed in its prehistoric version by calf-ladspa.
I don't know.

Here my complete list of pulseeffects dependencies and their versions:

dconf-gsettings-backend/bionic,now 0.26.0-2ubuntu3 amd64 [installed]
libatkmm-1.6-1v5/bionic,now 2.24.2-3 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libboost-filesystem1.72.0/bionic,now 1.72.0-0.2~bionic1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libc6/bionic-updates,bionic-security,now 2.27-3ubuntu1.2 amd64 [installed]
libcairomm-1.0-1v5/bionic,now 1.12.2-3 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libgcc1/bionic,now 1:9-20190428-1ubuntu1~18.04.york0 amd64 [installed]
libglib2.0-0/bionic-updates,bionic-security,now 2.56.4-0ubuntu0.18.04.6 amd64 [installed]
libglibmm-2.4-1v5/bionic,now 2.56.0-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-0/bionic-updates,now 1.14.5-0ubuntu1~18.04.1 amd64 [installed]
libgstreamer1.0-0/bionic-updates,now 1.14.5-0ubuntu1~18.04.1 amd64 [installed]
libgtk-3-0/bionic-updates,now 3.22.30-1ubuntu4 amd64 [installed]
libgtkmm-3.0-1v5/bionic,now 3.22.2-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libpangomm-1.4-1v5/bionic,now 2.40.1-4 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libpulse0/bionic,now 1:12.2-9~bionic1 amd64 [installed]
libsigc++-2.0-0v5/bionic,now 2.10.0-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libsndfile1/bionic-updates,bionic-security,now 1.0.28-4ubuntu0.18.04.1 amd64 [installed]
libstdc++6/bionic,now 9-20190428-1ubuntu1~18.04.york0 amd64 [installed]
pulseaudio/bionic,now 1:12.2-9~bionic1 amd64 [installed]
gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad/bionic-updates,now 1.14.5-0ubuntu1~18.04.1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
gstreamer1.0-plugins-good/bionic-updates,now 1.14.5-0ubuntu1~18.04.1 amd64 [installed]
gir1.2-gst-plugins-bad-1.0/bionic-updates,now 1.14.5-0ubuntu1~18.04.1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio/bionic-updates,now 1.14.5-0ubuntu1~18.04.1 amd64 [installed]
gstreamer1.0-adapter-pulseeffects/bionic,now 4.7.2-3~bionic2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
calf-plugins/bionic,now 0.90.1-1~bionic1 amd64 [installed]
zam-plugins/bionic,now 3.9~repack3-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
rubberband-ladspa/bionic,now 1.8.1-7ubuntu2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
liblilv-0-0/bionic,now 0.24.2~dfsg0-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
mda-lv2/bionic,now 1.2.2~dfsg0-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
lsp-plugins-lv2/bionic,now 1.1.15-1~bionic1 amd64 [installed]
lsp-plugins/bionic,bionic,now 1.1.15-1~bionic1 all [installed]
gstreamer1.0-convolver-pulseeffects/bionic,now 4.7.2-3~bionic2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
gstreamer1.0-crystalizer-pulseeffects/bionic,now 4.7.2-3~bionic2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
gstreamer1.0-autogain-pulseeffects/bionic,now 4.7.2-3~bionic2 amd64 [installed,automatic]

I don't know why if calf-plugins is a dependency of pulseeffects it can be removed without warning.

[wwmm]

Now that it is clear what happened I think we can close this.

[arighi]

I'm experiencing this exact problem right now in Ubuntu 20.10, tried to uninstall/reinstall calf-plugins & lsp-plugins-lv2, no success. Any suggestion?

[wwmm]

@arighi the first step is getting logs. Kill the current PulseEffects instance with the command pulseeffects -q and restart it in debug mode G_MESSAGES_DEBUG=pulseeffects pulseeffects. As your Ubuntu version is different from the one here I suggest you open a new issue.