We followed every step in the PDF document to the T. We deleted the entire ffmpeg install, installed it fresh with version 2.5.2. put the absolute path into the video settings, uploaded a video. Video stays in pending forever. Deleted the video from pending, instantly the video shows up in the activity stream, no thumbnail. It plays when you click on it though!

Hi Geof,

You have installed the new version of FFMPEG but you have not compiled it. :)

Here are some things to point you in the right direction. I have removed anything that is identifiable to your server

Here is your install

[~]# ffmpeg -version
ffmpeg version git-2014-12-30-eee9b7a Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the FFmpeg developers
built on Dec 30 2014 12:41:42 with gcc 4.4.7 (GCC) 20120313 (Red Hat 4.4.7-11)
configuration: 
libavutil      54. 15.100 / 54. 15.100
libavcodec     56. 19.100 / 56. 19.100
libavformat    56. 16.102 / 56. 16.102
libavdevice    56.  3.100 / 56.  3.100
libavfilter     5.  6.100 /  5.  6.100
libswscale      3.  1.101 /  3.  1.101
libswresample   1.  1.100 /  1.  1.100
[~]# whereis ffmpeg
ffmpeg: /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg

ffmpeg version 1.2.6-7:1.2.6-1~trusty1
built on Apr 26 2014 18:52:58 with gcc 4.8 (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1)
configuration: --arch=amd64 --disable-stripping --enable-avresample --enable-pthreads --enable-runtime-cpudetect --extra-version='7:1.2.6-1~trusty1' --libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr --enable-bzlib --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libfreetype --enable-frei0r --enable-gnutls --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-librtmp --enable-libopencv --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-libpulse --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-vaapi --enable-vdpau --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-zlib --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-libcdio --enable-x11grab --enable-libx264 --shlibdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu --enable-shared --disable-static
libavutil      52. 18.100 / 52. 18.100
libavcodec     54. 92.100 / 54. 92.100
libavformat    54. 63.104 / 54. 63.104
libavdevice    53.  5.103 / 53.  5.103
libavfilter     3. 42.103 /  3. 42.103
libswscale      2.  2.100 /  2.  2.100
libswresample   0. 17.102 /  0. 17.102
libpostproc    52.  2.100 / 52.  2.100

Admin: tell him it looks like the problem with no options showing like his is during build of ffmpeg

PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$HOME/ffmpeg_build/lib/pkgconfig" ./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --extra-cflags="-I$HOME/ffmpeg_build/include" --extra-ldflags="-L$HOME/ffmpeg_build/lib" --bindir="$HOME/bin" --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --enable-libfdk_aac --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264

that works
Me: does that mean that libx264 is enabled now?

Admin: but when make and then make install - all kinds of depreciated errors happen
Me: oh.

Admin: no its not enabling - thats what im trying to explain
Me: ah! I get it now.
Me: I will post your exact words to him. then he will know exactly what you said

Admin: im not sure if its a library issue or something else

We are ripping our hair out on this. Can you please fix it? I'm sure with your experience you can do it. You have our server and site info.

Hi Geof,

I'm sorry but we cannot work on customers servers. Dependency issues can take many hours to resolve. I would suggest that you contact a server administrator from the company that is supplying the VPS to Assist you

Then you should put together a simple price for assistance on servers so people can use your product. We have spent 2 weeks trying to figure out this FFMPEG issue and have had zero results. I have had 5 different administrators work on this and so far now have been able to solved the problem.

Hi Geof,

I actually spent my entire new years day (on my day off) to see if i could resolve this. I built a centos 6.6 amazon cloud server and then installed and compiled FFMPEG on it. I hit dependency issues on every build, i started at 8am and stopped at around 11:30. FFMPEG is nothing short of a temperamental component that totally drives me crazy, many hours of my life have been spent on this over the years but there is nothing else that is even remotely close to what it can do. On an ubuntu Linux i can get it running in minutes.

if you can give me 3-4 more days i am happy to keep trying and also consult our server admins (who are on holidays until Monday) What i would like to do is write a clear guide that will work on centos that you, me and all future users can use to install FFMPEG without an issue.

Please let me know if you can wait a bit more so i can see what i can do. if i can build and compile it on centos with a step 1 step 2 type of guide then we will all stop going bald :)

i think you'll get your 3 or 4 days whether I like it or not hahaaha

I'm glad to hear that you can easily get it working in minutes on Ubuntu. Now I have some direction on which instance type to use on amazon when we move the site later. thank you for sharing that. If ubuntu is that much easier, then we have a better reason to go that direction. right now we're experimenting with redhat 7.

We had another developer look at our server and give us a list of things to fix, in detail. So we fixed them. This was the final message.

[/home/provideo]# ffmpeg
ffmpeg version 2.2.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the FFmpeg developers
built on Apr 13 2014 13:00:18 with gcc 4.4.6 (GCC) 20120305 (Red Hat 4.4.6-4)

So, we uploaded another video. 13mb size. It's still not processing. We've had 5 people look at this problem without any resolution.

Can you take a look at the server and see if there's anything you see that is wrong or whatever?

We seem to have successfully compiled ffmpeg but still videos do not process. They are still in pending videos. What's next?

ffmpeg version 2.2.1
built on Apr 13 2014 13:00:18 with gcc 4.4.6 (GCC) 20120305 (Red Hat 4.4.6-4)
ffmpeg version 2.2.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the FFmpeg developers
built on Apr 13 2014 13:00:18 with gcc 4.4.6 (GCC) 20120305 (Red Hat 4.4.6-4)
configuration: --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib64 --shlibdir=/usr/lib64 --mandi r=/usr/share/man --enable-shared --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-gpl --enabl e-version3 --enable-postproc --enable-avfilter --enable-pthreads --enable-x11gra b --enable-vdpau --disable-avisynth --enable-frei0r --enable-libopencv --enable- libdc1394 --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libnut --enable-libopenco re-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-librtmp --enab le-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx2 64 --enable-libxavs --enable-libxvid --extra-cflags='-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_F ORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -m64 -m tune=generic -fPIC' --disable-stripping
libavutil 52. 66.100 / 52. 66.100
libavcodec 55. 52.102 / 55. 52.102
libavformat 55. 33.100 / 55. 33.100
libavdevice 55. 10.100 / 55. 10.100
libavfilter 4. 2.100 / 4. 2.100
libswscale 2. 5.102 / 2. 5.102
libswresample 0. 18.100 / 0. 18.100
libpostproc 52. 3.100 / 52. 3.100

This is the most unrewarding, non-functional thing I have ever had to deal with in Joomla. I have had 5 different developers look at this ffmpeg situation and still not resolution. It doesn't seem to matter what we do or do not do. Videos are stuck in pending. they do not come out. the do not process. We have compiled and recompiled so many times we lost count. i have no clue where to go next.

I decided to stop using ffmpeg and switch to zencoder. that did not work also. I went through the setup video, everything. It is NOT my first time using Amazon S3. I have several buckets running various policies on Wowza streaming servers too. In spite of the zencoder and S3 integration, still videos do not process. They are stuck in pending videos. I ensured that the cronjob was properly loaded with the correct URL, still no result. the ONLY time a video shows up in the activity stream is AFTER I delete the video from pending videos, manually. then, the video won't have a thumbnail.

I have tried this one two separate websites now with the same result on both sites. How can this be an ffmpeg problem when it doesn't work with zencoder either?

I'm totally stumped.

Hi Geof,

lets stick with the FFMPEG at the moment.

1. From the screenshot of the compiled ffmpeg it does look correct BUT when i look on the server using #ffmpeg -v it does not show the same information. what cmd was run at terminal to get that result?

2. it looks like there is a typo in the complied build --enable-libx2 64 This should be --enable-libx264 libx264 is a critical codec. You will see the typo in reply #114013 you posted
This must be fixed to move forward

2. After it is recompiled check this

An important note: If you are upgrading ffmpeg on your server and you use a local copy of php.ini file in your cpanel you will need to check that it does not need to be updated after any ffmpeg server updates
Ffmpeg adds  extension = "ffmpeg.so" into the servers master php.ini file so if your local copy isn’t updated, video conversion will not work

I switched to zencoder in desperation. Tomorrow morning i'm going to get blasted by stupider people all because this system is not functioning and here we are asking more questions instead of fixing things. Zencoder does not work on this system either. It does not function on two different sites. Neither ffmpeg nor zencoder work.

I have no changed anything. I will turn off the zencoder stuff and wait yet another day for somebody who knows this better than me to work on it. Tomorrow I will tell the site owner that it's not my fault. Not sure what else I could possibly say since i'm powerless it seems.