ffmpeg is not being detected by Spyder

Question

Running almost every code from OpenAi gym in spyder by Anaconda (for instance this code: https://gym.openai.com/evaluations/eval_y5dnhk0ZSMqlqJKBz5vJQw ) I run into the following error message:

DependencyNotInstalled: Found neither the ffmpeg nor avconv executables. On OS X, you can install ffmpeg via 'brew install ffmpeg'. On most Ubuntu variants, 'sudo apt-get install ffmpeg' should do it. On Ubuntu 14.04, however, you'll need to install avconv with 'sudo apt-get install libav-tools'.

However when I type brew install ffmpeg in terminal, I get Warning: ffmpeg-3.2 already installed and nothing happens.

Any ideas on how to fix this error?

score 19 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 10 '16 at 16:56

19

You need to install a copy of ffmpeg that can be recognized by Anaconda. Please run this command in a terminal to do that

conda install -c conda-forge ffmpeg

answered Nov 10 '16 at 16:56

Carlos Cordoba

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can i do this through pip on windows somehow? I installed ffmpeg with pip but it doessnt seem to work – Xitcod13 Sep 20 '18 at 09:06
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If you install ffmpeg with pip, it means you installed the Python bindings for ffmpeg, not the ffmpeg package itself. – Carlos Cordoba Sep 20 '18 at 14:42
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Thanks. I fixed my problem by placing actual ffmpeg.exe file in the directory of my project. Now everything works fine – Xitcod13 Sep 20 '18 at 22:19
Also works fine for me after adding `ffmpeg` to path. See http://blog.gregzaal.com/how-to-install-ffmpeg-on-windows/ – stefanbschneider Sep 29 '19 at 16:45
@CGFoX, a lot of bad things can come up from that (like strange and unexpected segfaults), so that's not the best idea. – Carlos Cordoba Sep 30 '19 at 09:46
Why's that? Do you refer to adding `ffmpeg` to path or to installing it manually? – stefanbschneider Oct 01 '19 at 07:08
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To adding it to PATH, because the libraries that ffmpeg depends on are most probably not binary compatible with the ones provided by Anaconda. – Carlos Cordoba Oct 01 '19 at 14:36
CondaError: Cannot link a source that does not exist. C:\Users\keramatfar\Anacon da3\Scripts\conda.exe Running `conda clean --packages` may resolve your problem. – keramat Feb 01 '21 at 08:55
That could be solved by restarting your computer, but I'm not really sure. – Carlos Cordoba Feb 01 '21 at 20:13

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 29 '19 at 16:46

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Simply download and install ffmpeg and then add to path. After restarting the Jupyter notebook server, it worked for me.

See full instructions here: http://blog.gregzaal.com/how-to-install-ffmpeg-on-windows/

answered Sep 29 '19 at 16:46

stefanbschneider

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For me, when doing this, the error disappears but I get an 1kb sized video file that won't play using VLC. Any tips or tricks? – Stefan Jan 13 '21 at 16:39
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There was a bug in the OpenAI library (see here https://github.com/openai/gym/issues/1925 ). I fixed it manually and now it runs like a charm. This answer works for me. – Stefan Jan 14 '21 at 08:52

ffmpeg is not being detected by Spyder

2 Answers2