Troubleshooting Common Issues
-There are many common issues you may encounter when using FFmpeg. This section is here to provide some possible explanations and solutions.For more general solutions to issues regarding download, installation, and other possible questions or issues, please refer to the FFmpeg FAQ. +
There are many common issues you may encounter when using FFmpeg. This section is here to provide some possible explanations and solutions. For more general solutions to issues regarding download, installation, and other possible questions or issues, please refer to the FFmpeg FAQ.
Before delving into some specific error messages and what may cause them, there are a few general tips you can follow to help make sure your files are doing what you want them to.
First, always check that the output file actually opens, plays, looks, and/or sounds the way you intended it to. It is possible that FFmpeg will create an output file that, on the surface, looks correct, but upon further inspection, there may be inconsistencies with the codec, extension, or other file information, depending on what you intended to do with the file.
-Second, always be certain that the file extension you are using for your output files is the intended extension. Within FFmpeg, certain extensions default to certain codecs, such as .mp4 encoding to H.264. You always want to make sure that your extension coincides with your intended codec. A list of extensions and codec defaults can be found here.
.mp4 encoding to H.264. You always want to make sure that your extension coincides with your intended codec. A list of extensions and codec defaults can be found here.
General Error Messages
"Error: No such file or directory"
There are a few reasons why this error may be appearing. First, check to make sure that you are in the correct directory. It can be easy to lose track of where your files are actually stored, especially on a personal computer. If you are working on a personal computer, the easiest way to do this is to check where your files are. When working with MacOS, for example, files are often stored in the downloads or documents folders. To change your directory from home to this specific directory, use the command cd followed by your desired folder. For downloads, it would look like this: cd downloads
There are a few reasons why this error may be appearing. First, check to make sure that you are in the correct directory. It can be easy to lose track of where your files are actually stored, especially on a personal computer. If you are working on a personal computer, the easiest way to do this is to check where your files are. When working with macOS, for example, files are often stored in the downloads or documents folders. To change your directory from home to this specific directory, use the command cd followed by your desired folder. For a folder named downloads, it would look like this: cd downloads
After you have ensured that you are in the correct directory, and the error is still occurring, check that your argument is formatted correctly. If you are copying and pasting from a separate document or ffmprovisr directly, there may be typos or missing spaces.
If the error message includes other parts of the command, such as a flag, that indicates where your typo or missing space may be, as in this example, where the -c flag has not been separated from the file name:
This error often comes from a mistake in the formatting of the command. If you are trying to use certain filters, such as “hflip,vflip,” make sure that you remove the quotation marks, as they are not part of the filter argument. This is not always the case, as quotation marks are used with filtergraphs to indicate the beginning and end of a filtergraph. Forgetting to remove the quotation marks on certain filters may prompt FFmpeg to run the command as a filtergraph, resulting in an error message like this one:
To avoid this error, check whether the filter you are using requires quotation marks or not. Similar to other errors, oftentimes writing out the entire command, rather than copying and pasting, is beneficial to check for these formatting errors.
-Also between the two example errors above, there is one difference that can be helpful to pinpoint when trying to troubleshoot. For the first error, “option not found” refers to the use of quotation marks in a filter that did not require them, thus making the command an unidentifiable option to FFmpeg and making it impossible to differentiate between certain flags in the argument. For the second error, “filter not found” also refers to the use of quotation marks in a command that did not require them, but this time FFmpeg read the argument as a filtergraph due to the quotation marks. For more information regarding filtergraphs, check out the filtergraph section.
+Also between the two example errors above, there is one difference that can be helpful to pinpoint when trying to troubleshoot. For the first error, “option not found” refers to the use of quotation marks in a filter that did not require them, thus making the command an unidentifiable option to FFmpeg and making it impossible to differentiate between certain flags in the argument. For the second error, “filter not found” also refers to the use of quotation marks in a command that did not require them, but this time FFmpeg read the argument as a filtergraph due to the quotation marks. For more information regarding filtergraphs, check out the filtergraph section.
Streams
In addition to the possible errors encountered due to typos and improper formatting, some error messages can occur due to inconsistencies with the file streams. Inside each file, there can be numerous streams for audio, video, subtitles, and other file information.
It is possible, when creating output files, to accidentally attempt to use a filter while also asking FFmpeg to copy the file streams directly. Be mindful of where you are trying to put a file’s streams, as filtering and streaming cannot be done together due to the re-encoding of streams that filters must do.