Not sure if this is the right place to report this, but anyway, here goes:

Since the 8th of January there is a new version downloadable at https://ffbinaries.com/

Now, when our downloader lib (running on Windows) gets the latest version, the zip file also contains a folder which apparently seems to be for OSX systems:

Apart from it not making any sense, it also breaks the unzipper of the downloader lib, because it appears that it is running without creating subfolders when necessary.

As a workaround we now create the sub-folder and the file correctly unzips. However, to avoid future support issues it may make sense to package the windows version on its own.

Hi there. I ran into an issue where the package tries to create the bin folder: https://github.com/vot/ffbinaries-node/blob/master/ffbinaries-lib.js#L25, so it can ensure there is a destination to use here: https://github.com/vot/ffbinaries-node/blob/master/ffbinaries-lib.js#L303. Since I am using an asar package, it's not able to create a directory within the package itself. So i get a ENOTDIR error.

In my case i am specifying a destination to ffbinaries.downloadFiles, so I'm wondering if creating the bin directory should be invoked at function call time, instead of initialization time.

Anyways thanks for this package, it's been awesome for a small audio tool i've been wanting to make.

Hello.

The request module has been deprecated so I have made a fork that replaces it with axios.
All tests are passing and during the practical use no issues were spotted.
So I wanted to know whether or not you'd allow such a change to your original module so that I would know should I open a pull request or not?

Hi, guys.

Thank you for maintaining this awesome package!

I tried to use this package in an environment that it doesn't have write access to home directory ( Lambda function on Localstack), and got this error.

"ENOENT: no such file or directory, mkdir '/home/sbx_user1051/.ffbinaries-cache'

I have write access to /tmp directory, so changed LOCAL_CACHE_DIR manually then it worked.

Can it support changing cache directory officially?

for example, like

import { setCacheDir, downloadBinaries } from 'ffbinaries'

setCacheDir('/tmp/.ffbinaries')
downloadBinaries(["ffmpeg"])

Or, just for my usecase, it is enough to set through environment variables like FFBINARIES_CACHE_DIR="/tmp/.ffbinaries".

I was testing deployment with your module because I am including it with my rtsp-cam-tester node app. I was testing various configurations and came across an error, which could very well be my fault. When my app loads, I called .clearCache() which did not throw an error. Later, when my app did some checking to see if ffmpeg is available and initiates a download via your module, it throws an error

internal/streams/legacy.js:59
      throw er; // Unhandled stream error in pipe.
      ^

Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/Users/kevinGodell/.ffbinaries-cache/ffmpeg-3.4-osx-64.zip.part'

So it seems that the cache was cleared, but when trying to download a fresh copy, it tried to look for the cache and did not find it. Otherwise, great module. Thanks. I don't really need this fixed. I just came across it when doing some testing that would not occur in production for me.

P.S. The main reason I am using your module vs the other ffmpeg modules is that yours gives me the control I needed to install only if i needed to. I found it impossible to package ffmpeg with my app when using "pkg."

Hi, since you are already using the prebuilt binaries from https://www.johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/ could you include arm64 binaries as well with the automatic downloader? Currently I had to manually download them and they work fine, atleast with mStream.

Hi, thank you very much for this and related packages. It's great and easy to use.

I have only one issue with way errors are handled, because in case there is no internet (or some other error occurres) in listVersions and getVersionData functions, process.exit(1) is used. It makes it impossible for gracefully handling these errors programatically. I'm creating Electron app and without using child process or somehow overriding process.exit method it's not possible to keep the application from exiting.

I'm happy to create PR myself if I know it's going to be merged.

Hi,

Seems like ffbinaries.com is down right now
It would be a good idea to enable proper caching on cloudflare?
Our app build depends on this to work...

Without changing anything on my end, I'm running my code again after a few months and getting Couldn't connect to ffbinaries.com API. Check your Internet connection.

I looked into what's reporting this, it's this line:

Logging the err variable from there gives me:

"Error: certificate has expired
    at TLSSocket.onConnectSecure (_tls_wrap.js:1331:34)
    at TLSSocket.emit (events.js:210:5)
    at TLSSocket._finishInit (_tls_wrap.js:804:8)
    at TLSWrap.ssl.onhandshakedone (_tls_wrap.js:618:12)"

Which doesn't make any sense to me since I can access the url fine from Chrome/Postman. I'm getting the latest version of ffmpeg and ffprobe, and I've checked the url, it's correct. The url it's requesting is "https://ffbinaries.com/api/v1/latest"

Maybe the redirect has something to do with it? Anyway, I replaced the request function with fetch and it does work without issue, so maybe you could fix it that way.

This is what I cooked up real quick:

    fetch(API_URL + url).then(r => r.text().then(body => {

            var parsed;

            try {
                parsed = JSON.parse(body.toString());
            } catch (e) {
                return callback(errorMsgs.parsingVersionData);
            }

            RUNTIME_CACHE[version] = parsed;
            return callback(null, parsed);
        }).catch(e => console.warn('json err', e))
    ).catch(e => console.warn("fetch err", e))

No proper error checks here though.

I'm using node 16.20.0

First things first: thank you for your brilliant effort of making this available!

I am trying to get this running for a small electron app that I make for a friend of mine. I would like it to install ffmpeg on the first startup.

I am on OS X, node v6.9.1.

I couldn't get ffbinaries-node to download anything in my project, so I thought I test your examples.

When trying to run your examples, I get the following problems:

01-basic-usage.js

> node examples/01-basic-usage.js

Directories
 LOCAL_CACHE_DIR: /Users/caillou/.ffbinaries-cache
 CWD: /Users/caillou/tmp/ffbinaries-node
------------------------------------
Getting version data: latest
------------------------------------
Downloading binaries for osx-64:
err No versionUrls!
data undefined

02-listing-versions.js

> node examples/02-listing-versions.js

error Couldn't get valid data.

03-get-version-metadata.js

> cd examples
> node 03-get-version-metadata.js
Getting version data: 3.2
------------------------------------
error Couldn't get valid data.

Do you know what I am doing wrong?

Currently, arm64 architecture Linux is not supported

I am trying to use ffprobe to parse my files for processing but they return a file error, same goes for ffmpeg.
When i overwrite the executables with my regular ffmpeg it works like it's supposed to.

The executables downloaded by this package are half the size of my ffmpeg executables.

ffbinaries-node ffmpeg.exe: 67,081,216 bytes
ffbinaries-node ffprobe.exe: 6,993,152 bytes

Official ffmpeg.exe: 94,240,768 bytes
Official ffprobe.exe: 94,134,272 bytes

Source: https://github.com/BtbN/FFmpeg-Builds/releases/download/autobuild-2021-04-21-12-38/ffmpeg-n4.4-5-ge3fb0f0c88-win64-gpl-4.4.zip

The results from the linux executables are as expected.

Here the error which I get:

Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, rename '/home/runner/.ffbinaries-cache/ffmpeg-4.4.1-linux-64.zip.part' -> '/home/runner/.ffbinaries-cache/ffmpeg-4.4.1-linux-64.zip'
at Object.renameSync (node:fs:1030:3)
at Request._callback (/home/runner/work/minigames/minigames/node_modules/ffbinaries/ffbinaries-lib.js:287:15)
at Request.self.callback (/home/runner/work/minigames/minigames/node_modules/request/request.js:185:22)
at Request.emit (node:events:513:28)
at Request.emit (node:domain:552:15)
at Request. (/home/runner/work/minigames/minigames/node_modules/request/request.js:1154:10)
at Request.emit (node:events:525:35)
at Request.emit (node:domain:552:15)
at IncomingMessage. (/home/runner/work/minigames/minigames/node_modules/request/request.js:1076:12)
at Object.onceWrapper (node:events:627:28)

Is it currently possible to provide a download progress callback in the downloadFiles method? Just want to make sure I didn't miss something in the docs, before I hack around on it.

When using the API, I get following error - below the error is the gulp-task I use.
Using Windows 7 (64bit) - node 7.0.0 - ffbinaries 0.1.5

Error:

SCHELPEY@AKDGPORT6348 C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4
> gulp build --prod
[14:37:39] Using gulpfile C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\gulpfile.js
[14:37:39] Starting 'build'...
[14:37:39] Starting 'build:clean'...
[14:37:39] Finished 'build:clean' after 33 ms
[14:37:39] Starting 'copy:data'...
[14:37:39] Starting 'copy:ffmpeg'...
Trying to download FFMPEG for windows-64 to C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\app\lib\ffmpeg...
Directories
 LOCAL_CACHE_DIR: C:\Users\SCHELPEY/.ffbinaries-cache
 CWD: C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4
------------------------------------
[14:37:39] 'copy:ffmpeg' errored after 868 μs
[14:37:39] TypeError: path must be a string or Buffer
    at Object.fs.mkdirSync (fs.js:846:18)
    at _ensureDirSync (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\node_modules\ffbinaries\ffbinaries-lib.js:20:9)
    at Object.downloadFiles (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\node_modules\ffbinaries\ffbinaries-lib.js:274:3)
    at Gulp.<anonymous> (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\gulp\tasks\copy\copy.ffmpeg.js:15:31)
    at module.exports (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\node_modules\orchestrator\lib\runTask.js:34:7)
    at Gulp.Orchestrator._runTask (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\node_modules\orchestrator\index.js:273:3)
    at Gulp.Orchestrator._runStep (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\node_modules\orchestrator\index.js:214:10)
    at Gulp.Orchestrator.start (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\node_modules\orchestrator\index.js:134:8)
    at runNextSet (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\node_modules\run-sequence\index.js:86:16)
    at Gulp.onTaskEnd (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\node_modules\run-sequence\index.js:75:5)
[14:37:39] 'build' errored after 50 ms
[14:37:39] TypeError in plugin 'run-sequence(copy:ffmpeg)'
Message:
    path must be a string or Buffer
Stack:
TypeError: path must be a string or Buffer
    at Object.fs.mkdirSync (fs.js:846:18)
    at _ensureDirSync (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\node_modules\ffbinaries\ffbinaries-lib.js:20:9)
    at Object.downloadFiles (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\node_modules\ffbinaries\ffbinaries-lib.js:274:3)
    at Gulp.<anonymous> (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\gulp\tasks\copy\copy.ffmpeg.js:15:31)
    at module.exports (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\node_modules\orchestrator\lib\runTask.js:34:7)
    at Gulp.Orchestrator._runTask (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\node_modules\orchestrator\index.js:273:3)
    at Gulp.Orchestrator._runStep (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\node_modules\orchestrator\index.js:214:10)
    at Gulp.Orchestrator.start (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\node_modules\orchestrator\index.js:134:8)
    at runNextSet (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\node_modules\run-sequence\index.js:86:16)
    at Gulp.onTaskEnd (C:\Dev\Repos\Kdg.Xtl4\node_modules\run-sequence\index.js:75:5)
[14:37:39] Finished 'copy:data' after 68 ms

Gulp Task:

The gulp task is seperated, inside plugins is ffbinaries named as ffmpeg. It spits out the correct platform for me, as you can see in the logs above. The outputfolder gets generated ok as well. I think the error resides somewhere in downloadFiles but I'm a bit lost.. Will try this on linux as well and report when I know more.

module.exports = (gulp, plugins) => {
    return () => {
        const platform = plugins.ffmpeg.detectPlatform();
        const outputFolder = plugins.path.resolve(plugins.path.join(plugins.config.paths.dest.lib, 'ffmpeg', '\\'));
        console.log(`Trying to download FFMPEG for ${platform} to ${outputFolder}...`);
        return plugins.ffmpeg.downloadFiles(platform, outputFolder.toString(), () => {
            console.log('Downloaded binaries for ' + platform + ' to ' + outputFolder + '.');
        });
    };
};

Would be open to submitting a PR for it

Found this module while looking for a way to convert mp4 to mp3, and it seemed useful. But I can't seem to get it to actually download anything?

var ffbinariesPlatform = ffbinaries.detectPlatform();

createDirectory('./ffbinaries'); // Creates directory
 
ffbinaries.downloadFiles(ffbinariesPlatform, {destination:'./ffbinaries'}, () => {
  	console.log('Done');
});

This seems to work, as it does log Done as expected. But nothing is saved to the ffbinaries folder. The folder exists, and no errors are thrown. Just doesn't seem to want to download the binaries there (or anywhere).

I just ran into an unusual situation, but did come up with a remedy for it. I was playing with deploying my ffmpeg-streamer app on a remote ubuntu server and ran into a little trouble.

I made a respawn app to keep track of ffmepg-streamer which will respawn it 10 seconds after if it exits due to crashing or somebody pressing the x button on it. Works surprisingly well and only took about 5 minutes to make. After running the process in the command line and sending it to the background with a trailing & (./respawn-linux-x64 ./ffmpeg-streamer-linux-x64 3000 &) and exiting the ssh terminal, it seemed that some permissions were lost and execSync could no longer check the version. Returned some type of cryptic EIO i/o write error.

I dug deep and tried many options with various versions of child processes such as execFileSync and spawnSync. The problem seems to originate from execSync and execFileSync using a shell, while spawnSync does not.

For line 412, I propose to make a small change which seems a little cleaner than the try catch:

    // check version
    if (result.found && result.isExecutable) {
      var stdout = childProcess.spawnSync(result.path, ['-version']).stdout;
      // if stdout.length === 0, then we must have stderr instead
      if (stdout.length) {
        result.version = stdout.toString().split(' ')[2];
      }
    }

spawnSync actually returns an object with properties such as output, stdout, stderr, etc. I just check stdout.length to make sure it is filled with something other than an empty buffer array of length 0. Verified this works for me on windows, mac, and ubuntu 17.

If this looks good to you, I could just make a PR. Let me know. Thanks.

I was just thinking about how i am using your module. Before starting a download of ffmpeg, I first check to see if there is a copy in the current directory(and check if it is executable). If not found there, I run a command to see if it is in PATH by calling ffmpeg -version and parsing the output to get the version number. If not found there, I then use your module to install fresh copy.

It could be a good addition if you incorporated that utility function to check for existence of binary.

const binary = ffbinaries.findBinary('ffmpeg');

//returns null if not found in the usual location, current dir, home dir, PATH, ...
if (binary) {
    console.log(binary.path, binary.version, ...etc)
}

I kinda do this starting about here. I also have to check process.pkg because I am packaging it into executable using nodejs module "pkg" and it does not give the correct running cwd when using process.cwd().