Why would daylight saving time change (we fell back in Australia overnight) cause EasyEffects not to start?

[ak2766]

Last night I was streaming music from radio.garden before retiring for the night. When I got up this morning, EasyEffects refuses to start. I get the following error no matter the form of the command I run:

$ > flatpak run --branch=stable --arch=x86_64 --command=easyeffects com.github.wwmm.easyeffects --gapplication-service
Qt: Session management error: Could not open network socket
QIODevice::write (QLocalSocket): device not open

$ > flatpak run --branch=stable --arch=x86_64 --command=easyeffects com.github.wwmm.easyeffects
Qt: Session management error: Could not open network socket
QIODevice::write (QLocalSocket): device not open

$ > flatpak run com.github.wwmm.easyeffects
Qt: Session management error: Could not open network socket
QIODevice::write (QLocalSocket): device not open

Ubuntu version

$ > cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS"
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION_ID="24.04"
VERSION="24.04.4 LTS (Noble Numbat)"
VERSION_CODENAME=noble
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://help.ubuntu.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/"
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy"
UBUNTU_CODENAME=noble
LOGO=ubuntu-logo

$ > sudo apt update | grep -Ev '^[GHI][eig][tn]'

WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.

Fetched 627 B in 9s (72 B/s)
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
All packages are up to date.

EasyEffects version

$ > flatpak info com.github.wwmm.easyeffects

Easy Effects - Simple audio effects

          ID: com.github.wwmm.easyeffects
         Ref: app/com.github.wwmm.easyeffects/x86_64/stable
        Arch: x86_64
      Branch: stable
     Version: 8.1.8
     License: GPL-3.0-or-later
      Origin: flathub
  Collection: org.flathub.Stable
Installation: system
   Installed: 92.3 MB
     Runtime: org.kde.Platform/x86_64/6.10
         Sdk: org.kde.Sdk/x86_64/6.10

      Commit: fae29ef6669791d4f41a84e9f07e6c1ec45318276ff4b1871574fd2907b8c214
      Parent: 9e4c6c10a79f916f9f5d50836074e2adc4203e9bcbe9a4bb3631e74dd138d258
     Subject: Merge pull request #229 from flathub/v8.1.8 (50e599394aaa)
        Date: 2026-04-02 21:32:39 +0000

$ > flatpak update com.github.wwmm.easyeffects
Looking for updates…

Nothing to do.

Pipewire

$ > systemctl --user status pipewire*
● pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2026-04-05 11:28:51 AEST; 1h 17min ago
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire.socket
   Main PID: 2561258 (pipewire)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 76707)
     Memory: 13.3M (peak: 15.7M)
        CPU: 471ms
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pipewire.service
             └─2561258 /usr/bin/pipewire

Apr 05 11:28:51 akstpx1g5.anroet.com systemd[4992]: Started pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service.

● pipewire-pulse.socket - PipeWire PulseAudio
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire-pulse.socket; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2026-04-05 11:28:51 AEST; 1h 17min ago
   Triggers: ● pipewire-pulse.service
     Listen: /run/user/1000/pulse/native (Stream)
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/app.slice/pipewire-pulse.socket

Apr 05 11:28:51 akstpx1g5.anroet.com systemd[4992]: Listening on pipewire-pulse.socket - PipeWire PulseAudio.

● pipewire-pulse.service - PipeWire PulseAudio
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire-pulse.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2026-04-05 11:28:51 AEST; 1h 17min ago
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire-pulse.socket
   Main PID: 2561263 (pipewire-pulse)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 76707)
     Memory: 10.7M (peak: 15.8M)
        CPU: 455ms
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pipewire-pulse.service
             └─2561263 /usr/bin/pipewire-pulse

Apr 05 11:28:51 akstpx1g5.anroet.com systemd[4992]: Started pipewire-pulse.service - PipeWire PulseAudio.

● pipewire.socket - PipeWire Multimedia System Sockets
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire.socket; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2026-04-05 11:28:51 AEST; 1h 17min ago
   Triggers: ● pipewire.service
     Listen: /run/user/1000/pipewire-0 (Stream)
             /run/user/1000/pipewire-0-manager (Stream)
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/app.slice/pipewire.socket

Apr 05 11:28:51 akstpx1g5.anroet.com systemd[4992]: Listening on pipewire.socket - PipeWire Multimedia System Sockets.

Any ideas?

PS: Audio playback is fine. It's just that now there's no effects and I have to crank up the volume much higher than when EasyEffects is in effect.

[ak2766]

I've already tried logging off/in and also restarting GDM service (gdm) to no avail. I'd really like to understand what is causing the issue before I consider a reboot.

[wwmm]

You are probably seeing #4958. Manually deleting Qt's lockfile should make things work again. As far as I know the issue only happens inside Flatpak's sandbox for reasons that are still to be found.

[ak2766]

Thanks so much for that speedy response. I'm ashamed I didn't search in issues - I got a serious case of tunnel vision seeing that the only thing I could think of was the DST change this morning.

I'm glad though that you had this at your finger tips and took the time to respond - and on Easter Sunday at that - 🙏🙏🙏.

I appreciate your time.

PS: This is the first time this has happened for me so must be a rare occurrence hence hard to troubleshoot.