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#1 2026-08-21 12:02:38

Pixol
Member
Registered: 2026-08-14
Posts: 8

Audacity not seeing ffmpeg

Audacity stopped seeing ffmpeg library. Even when I select libavformat.so through preferences it still says FFmpeg library not found

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#2 2026-08-21 12:14:12

arojas
Developer
From: Spain
Registered: 2011-10-09
Posts: 2,300

Re: Audacity not seeing ffmpeg

Post actual, literal errors, do not paraphrase.

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#3 Yesterday 08:57:10

Pixol
Member
Registered: 2026-08-14
Posts: 8

Re: Audacity not seeing ffmpeg

Okay? When I import video file to convert to audio it says:
"Could not oppen file x: Incorrect filetype" I then get another error:
"x is an Advanced Audio Coding file. Without the optional FFmpeg library, Audacity cannot open this type of file. Otherwise, you need to convert it to supported audio format such as WAV or AIFF". Audacity, lame and ffmpeg are present and updated to their latest version. I reinstalled them just in case with pacman -Syu

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#4 Yesterday 15:13:13

Lone_Wolf
Administrator
From: Netherlands, Europe
Registered: 2005-10-04
Posts: 15,346

Re: Audacity not seeing ffmpeg

After getting that error message, please run (as root/with root rights))

# journalctl -b  | curl -s -H "x-random;" --upload-file - 'https://paste.c-net.org/'

It will upload the journal for your current boot to a public pastebin and output a link, post that link.


Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

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#5 Today 04:34:59

Pixol
Member
Registered: 2026-08-14
Posts: 8

Re: Audacity not seeing ffmpeg

Lone_Wolf wrote:

After getting that error message, please run (as root/with root rights))

# journalctl -b  | curl -s -H "x-random;" --upload-file - 'https://paste.c-net.org/'

It will upload the journal for your current boot to a public pastebin and output a link, post that link.

https://paste.c-net.org/xbgb67cuvnoy

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#6 Today 06:50:02

seth
Member
From: Won't reply 2 private help req
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 77,488

Re: Audacity not seeing ffmpeg

audacity was rebuilt after the ffmpeg 9 update but maybe you updated into the gap?

pacman -Qs 'audaci|ffmpeg'

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#7 Today 07:03:10

Pixol
Member
Registered: 2026-08-14
Posts: 8

Re: Audacity not seeing ffmpeg

seth wrote:

audacity was rebuilt after the ffmpeg 9 update but maybe you updated into the gap?

pacman -Qs 'audaci|ffmpeg'

local/audacity 1:3.7.8-4 (pro-audio)
    A program that lets you manipulate digital audio waveforms
local/ffmpeg 2:9.0.1-1
    Complete solution to record, convert and stream audio and video
local/ffmpegthumbnailer 2.3.0-2
    Lightweight video thumbnailer that can be used by file managers
local/qt6-multimedia-ffmpeg 6.11.2-1
    FFMpeg backend for qt6-multimedia

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#8 Today 07:06:46

seth
Member
From: Won't reply 2 private help req
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 77,488

Re: Audacity not seeing ffmpeg

"no"

LD_DEBUG=libs audacity

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#9 Today 07:28:37

Pixol
Member
Registered: 2026-08-14
Posts: 8

Re: Audacity not seeing ffmpeg

seth wrote:

"no"

LD_DEBUG=libs audacity

https://paste.c-net.org/AlexiIgnore

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#10 Today 07:59:16

mpan
Member
Registered: 2012-08-01
Posts: 1,639
Website

Re: Audacity not seeing ffmpeg

Pixol is not the only one with this issue. Audacity seem to not be able to use ffmpeg. Similar errors for other filetypes that would require ffmpeg to extract audio. I also encountered one that mentions libavformat.so directly, but despite my attempts since OP started the thread, I can’t recall how I initially produced it.

Setting path to the library directly in the preferences changes nothing: Audacity still can’t find it.

Versions: audacity 1:3.7.8-4, ffmpeg 2:9.0.1-1.

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#11 Today 08:18:02

seth
Member
From: Won't reply 2 private help req
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 77,488

Re: Audacity not seeing ffmpeg

libav doesn't show up in the LD_DEBUG, you might have to trigger the plugin by trying to open a relevant file.
Maybe also "LD_DEBUG=libs,files audacity" …

wrt mpan's comment most likely incompatible API?

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#12 Today 09:13:53

Pixol
Member
Registered: 2026-08-14
Posts: 8

Re: Audacity not seeing ffmpeg

seth wrote:

you might have to trigger the plugin by trying to open a relevant file.

The log stops at line

transferring control: audacity

Last edited by Pixol (Today 09:14:49)

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#13 Today 12:26:50

seth
Member
From: Won't reply 2 private help req
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 77,488

Re: Audacity not seeing ffmpeg

Err… we'll have to see the entire ld debug log to make any sense out of what's going on smile
Assuming the issue is the volume:

LD_DEBUG=libs,files audacity > /tmp/ld.debug 2>&1
cat /tmp/ld.debug | nc termbin.com 9999

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#14 Today 13:22:03

Pixol
Member
Registered: 2026-08-14
Posts: 8

Re: Audacity not seeing ffmpeg

seth wrote:

Err… we'll have to see the entire ld debug log to make any sense out of what's going on smile
Assuming the issue is the volume:

LD_DEBUG=libs,files audacity > /tmp/ld.debug 2>&1
cat /tmp/ld.debug | nc termbin.com 9999

Maybe I'm doing something wrong but I'm pretty sure that volume is not the issue here. It's just that after audacity completely boots the log stops. Regardless I ran those two commands. In parallel in two separate terminals(I assume that's what I was supposed to do)
https://termbin.com/l38a

Last edited by Pixol (Today 13:22:39)

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#15 Today 14:37:30

seth
Member
From: Won't reply 2 private help req
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 77,488

Re: Audacity not seeing ffmpeg

The volume of the output procuded by LD_DEBUG lol
libav still doesn't show up at all, so we'll raise the volume once more:

strace -f -o /tmp/audacity.strace audacity # try to open a relevant file to get the ffmpeg complaint
# you might actually first check
du -h /tmp/audacity.strace # and pot compress it
cat /tmp/audacity.strace | nc termbin.com 9999

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#16 Today 15:44:08

Pixol
Member
Registered: 2026-08-14
Posts: 8

Re: Audacity not seeing ffmpeg

seth wrote:

The volume of the output procuded by LD_DEBUG lol
libav still doesn't show up at all, so we'll raise the volume once more:

strace -f -o /tmp/audacity.strace audacity # try to open a relevant file to get the ffmpeg complaint
# you might actually first check
du -h /tmp/audacity.strace # and pot compress it
cat /tmp/audacity.strace | nc termbin.com 9999

I'm not sure how to upload compressed file to termbin so I uploaded it to drive
https://drive.proton.me/urls/W82GMW98MW#drI32TyvkDNJ

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#17 Today 16:02:02

seth
Member
From: Won't reply 2 private help req
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 77,488

Re: Audacity not seeing ffmpeg

170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/bin/../lib/audacity/libavformat.so.62", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/lib/glibc-hwcaps/x86-64-v3/libavformat.so.62", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/lib/glibc-hwcaps/x86-64-v2/libavformat.so.62", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/lib/libavformat.so.62", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/bin/../lib/audacity/libavformat.so.61", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/lib/libavformat.so.61", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/bin/../lib/audacity/libavformat.so.60", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/lib/libavformat.so.60", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/bin/../lib/audacity/libavutil.so.61", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/lib/libavutil.so.61", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 15
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/bin/../lib/audacity/libavutil.so.61", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/lib/libavutil.so.61", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 15
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/bin/../lib/audacity/libavcodec.so.63", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/lib/libavcodec.so.63", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 15
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/bin/../lib/audacity/libavformat.so.62", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/lib/libavformat.so.62", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/bin/../lib/audacity/libavformat.so.61", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/lib/libavformat.so.61", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/bin/../lib/audacity/libavformat.so.60", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/lib/libavformat.so.60", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/bin/../lib/audacity/libavformat.so.62", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC <unfinished ...>
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/lib/libavformat.so.62", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/bin/../lib/audacity/libavformat.so.61", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/lib/libavformat.so.61", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/bin/../lib/audacity/libavformat.so.60", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
170965 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/lib/libavformat.so.60", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)

It doesn't look for libavformat.so.63 (unlike avcodec and avutil didn't update)

This very much smells like audacity was updated against an older ffmpeg and needs a rebuild.

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#18 Today 16:06:41

seth
Member
From: Won't reply 2 private help req
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 77,488

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