Pydub unable to locate ffprobe

Question

Here is the link to a similar question to this: Pydub (WindowsError: [Error 2] The system can not find the file specified) Although in this one the problem is with ffmpeg, which I solved by setting the absolute path.

After setting the absolute path for converter and/or ffmpeg with either:

AudioSegment.converter = r'C:\ffmpeg\bin'

or

AudioSegment.ffmpeg = r'C:\ffmpeg\bin'

I still get this error:

C:\Program Files\Python36\lib\site-packages\pydub\utils.py:193: RuntimeWarning: Couldn't find ffprobe or avprobe - defaulting to ffprobe, but may not work warn("Couldn't find ffprobe or avprobe - defaulting to ffprobe, but may not work", RuntimeWarning) Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:/Users/Sean/Desktop/vp/encode_audio/m4a_to_wav.py", line 4, in song = AudioSegment.from_file("pines.m4a", "m4a") File "C:\Program Files\Python36\lib\site-packages\pydub\audio_segment.py", line 660, in from_file info = mediainfo_json(orig_file) File "C:\Program Files\Python36\lib\site-packages\pydub\utils.py", line 263, in mediainfo_json res = Popen(command, stdin=stdin_parameter, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE) File "C:\Program Files\Python36\lib\subprocess.py", line 707, in init restore_signals, start_new_session) File "C:\Program Files\Python36\lib\subprocess.py", line 990, in _execute_child startupinfo) FileNotFoundError: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified`

I have ffmpeg in my path envvar. I also have libav in my path envvar, and installed libav and then pydub in the order specified at https://github.com/jiaaro/pydub#dependencies.

Nothing I'm doing appears to be working, so any ideas or solutions would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

I had the same problem, but I solved it five minutes ago.

Here is the solution:

1. Download ffmpeg file into your computer and install it.

2. Pass the system path of the ffmpeg file location.

(¥ means \)

I put the file into C:\\ffmpeg\\ffmpeg\\bin\\ffmpeg.exe

(Attention: This is after I changed the filename)

from pydub import AudioSegment
AudioSegment.converter = "C:\\ffmpeg\\ffmpeg\\bin\\ffmpeg.exe"
AudioSegment.ffmpeg = "C:\\ffmpeg\\ffmpeg\\bin\\ffmpeg.exe"
AudioSegment.ffprobe ="C:\\ffmpeg\\ffmpeg\\bin\\ffprobe.exe"

Put these lines after the import sentence.

At last, reboot your computer

I have suffered from this problem very much, but the problem is solved now.

Answer 2

To add on to @Gopesh Kwandelwal's answer

sudo apt install ffmpeg

an alternative is to have Anaconda or Miniconda installed, then use:
conda install ffmpeg

This worked for me when inside a custom environment, and didn't even require restarting the kernel, let alone restarting the computer. (I couldn't comment on that thread b/c I don't have enough reputation).