[Issue]: Default value for ffmpeg path is empty

[vova3379]

Please describe your bug

There was a similar bug (https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/7695) some time ago with a related fix (https://github.com/pdulvp/jellyfin-qnap/pull/12)

But I see Administration > Dashboard > Server > Playback > Transcoding > FFmpeg path is empty by default

my os: CentOS Linux release 7.9.2009 (Core)

daemon has access to FFmpeg and related key added to configuration

[root@server ~]# su -s /bin/bash jellyfin bash-4.2$ whoami jellyfin bash-4.2$ ffmpeg ffmpeg version 3.4.13 Copyright (c) 2000-2023 the FFmpeg developers built with gcc 4.8.5 (GCC) 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-44)

grep ffmpeg /etc/sysconfig/jellyfin ... JELLYFIN_FFMPEG_OPT="—ffmpeg=/usr/bin/ffmpeg"

jellyfin 9075 0.9 1.0 4804544 162208 ? Ssl 17:55 0:13 /usr/bin/jellyfin --restartpath=/usr/libexec/jellyfin/restart.sh --ffmpeg=/usr/bin/ffmpeg

packages versions below jellyfin-10.8.13-1.el7.x86_64 jellyfin-web-10.8.13-1.el7.noarch jellyfin-server-10.8.13-1.el7.x86_64

Version: 10.8.13

Environment

• OS: CentOS Linux release 7.9.2009 (Core)
• Virtualization: no
• Clients: jellyfin-web-10.8.13-1
• Browser: Firefox
• FFmpeg Version: ffmpeg version 3.4.13 Copyright (c) 2000-2023 the FFmpeg developers, built with gcc 4.8.5 (GCC) 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-44)
• Plugins: N/A

Jellyfin logs

[2023-12-10 18:22:33.594 +02:00] [ERR] [75] MediaBrowser.Providers.Movies.MovieMetadataService: Error in "ffprobe" System.InvalidOperationException: Cannot start process because a file name has not been provided. at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start() ... [2023-12-10 18:22:35.233 +02:00] [ERR] [70] Jellyfin.Server.Middleware.ExceptionMiddleware: Error processing request. URL "GET" "/videos/dd3503c0-b8d2-45b0-24f1-14cb4448e165/live.m3u8". System.ArgumentException: FFmpeg path not set.

empty ffmped path in web UI configuration (I can not also modify it - there is no magnifying glass opposite it as you can see)

[vova3379]

ok fixed issue by installing custom ffmpeg

https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-ffmpeg/blob/jellyfin/INSTALL.md

and change config to this

grep ffmpeg /etc/sysconfig/jellyfin (uncoment line below) JELLYFIN_FFMPEG_OPT="—ffmpeg=/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg"

and restart service

maybe the manual must be clear for Centos that you can not use ffmpeg from the package and you need to install custom ffmpeg

[WhiteyDude]

Echoing the same problem, this fix worked - thanks @vova3379 .

I suspect this is due to the recent security patching to disallow custom ffmpeg via the web UI. However I had my OS package based ffmpeg (/usr/bin/ffmpeg) specified in both encoding.xml and in /etc/sysconfig/jellyfin - neither worked.

Building this custom ffmpeg, ensuring the OPT is specified in /etc/sysconfig/jellyfin and restarting does appear to work. I also had to ensure the matching path was set in encoding.xml.

I am also running CentOS Linux release 7.9.2009 (Core) with the jellyfin-10.8.13 packages.

Hoping anyone in a situation like this comes across this when searching after their Jellyfin update breaks playback due to FFmpeg path not set.

Full steps:

git clone https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-ffmpeg.git
cd jellyfin-ffmpeg
./configure #Note you may wish to add some other flags here, the default is not great
make && make install
sed -i -e "/JELLYFIN_FFMPEG_OPT/s/^#//" /etc/sysconfig/jellyfin
sed -i -e "s/\/usr\/bin\/ffmpeg/\/usr\/local\/bin\/ffmpeg/g" /etc/sysconfig/jellyfin
sed -i -e "s/\/usr\/bin\/ffmpeg/\/usr\/local\/bin\/ffmpeg/g" /etc/jellyfin/encoding.xml
systemctl restart jellyfin

You might also want to add a -j X to your make, as libavcodec takes a long time to compile when running single threaded.

[WhiteyDude]

Ok, here's some extra commands for people kagiing this issue in the future. Here's the full configure line I ran to be as close as possible to system ffmpeg, as I had all sorts of problem with a standard ./configure (mostly around x264):

Here's what I had to do to get this configure running:

First, ffnvcodec (optional if you're not hardware accelerating):

git clone https://git.videolan.org/git/ffmpeg/nv-codec-headers.git
cd nv-codec-headers
vim Makefile # Update /usr/local to /usr and lib to lib64
make -C . install # Output should show ffnvcodec.pc being copied to /usr/lib64/pkgconfig
pkg-config --modversion ffnvcodec # Confirm it's there

Install dependancies:

yum install -y gnutls-devel ladspa-devel libass-devel libbluray-devel libdrm-devel gsm-devel libmodplug-devel lame-devel openjpeg2-devel opus-devel pulseaudio-libs-devel librsvg2-devel soxr-devel speex-devel libtheora-devel libvorbis-devel libv4l-devel vid.stab-devel vo-amrwbenc-devel x264-devel x265-devel xvidcore-devel zvbi-devel openal-soft-devel libgcrypt-devel libcdio-devel libcdio-paranoia-devel

Run the configure cd ../jellyfin-ffmpeg ./configure --arch=x86_64 --optflags='-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector-strong --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -grecord-gcc-switches -m64 -mtune=generic' --extra-ldflags='-Wl,-z,relro ' --extra-cflags=' ' --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-version3 --enable-bzlib --disable-crystalhd --enable-fontconfig --enable-gcrypt --enable-gnutls --enable-ladspa --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libcdio --enable-libdrm --enable-indev=jack --enable-libfreetype --enable-libfribidi --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-nvenc --enable-openal --enable-opengl --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --disable-encoder=libopus --enable-libpulse --enable-librsvg --enable-libsoxr --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libv4l2 --enable-libvidstab --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxvid --enable-libzvbi --enable-avfilter --enable-libmodplug --enable-postproc --enable-pthreads --disable-static --enable-shared --enable-gpl --disable-debug --disable-stripping --shlibdir=/usr/lib64 --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-swresample

Note I stripped out --enable-libmfx, --enable-libopencore-amrnb, --enable-libopencore-amrwb from the OS original, as I had issues with functional packages I could grab from yum, and didn't need these. I also removed vpx support, as I got the error of "no supported decoders found", despite installing the baresip vp8/vp9 packages - luckily I don't actually need vp8/vp9 support.

Note also I'm using epel and rpmfusion on top of base.

Then you should be good to make -j 6 && make install (for my 4 core machine, YMMV on -j)

As best as I can tell, jellyfin-ffmpeg doesn't have any pre-built binary, and given how CentOS is fading and the trend is to docker now (as mentioned in their blog post earlier linked), I doubt it will be any time soon.

Another note, I had some ld errors (/usr/bin/ld: libavutil/csp.o: relocation R_X86_64_32S against .rodata' can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC) when making - a make distclean` works wonders if you've already built in the directory!

[pdulvp]

In last releases, this field is empty