ffmpeg (re)install fails on --enable-*

update: ffmpeg et al. built without errors with the same configure string as I was setting in the ffmpeg.rb formula file, in a session where I had exported the same PKG_CONFIG_PATH string, (which wasn't being picked up by brew despite being an env var in the session window where I was running brew reinstall -v ffmpeg --with-......)

update 2: for those with a similar problem, I was not aware that you can force your environmental vars to be passed to brew. I found this instruction on the liquidsoap issues site, where the poster was having the same errors where brew is asking whether PKG_CONFIG_PATH is set and everything is fine, the OP had tried everything, and the maintainer of liquidsoap was asking whether it was brew or him!

YMMV:

brew install --env=std ffmpeg --with-libass etc... 

Hi

Default ffmpeg builds fine in 100seconds, but no other options will install.

brew update
brew doctor

all fine, but running

brew reinstall ffmpeg --with-*

configure flags doesn't change what is compiled into the ffmpeg binary, in fact the configure command executed by brew is identical whatever brew reinstall --with-* command is executed.

eg.
brew reinstall -v ffmpeg --with-libass

installs nothing more than the default.

All libraries are present,

pkg-config --list-all

contains all of them, and

pkg-config --print-errors libass

shows no errors for example.

I changed the ffmpeg.rb script until I had convinced myself that the problem is real.

brew gist-logs ffmpeg 

produces
Error: HTTP 404 Not Found (expected 201)

Next I tried editing the formula

brew edit ffmpeg

to explicitly push --enable-* flags into the configure command, hard coding

args << "--enable-libass"

inside ffmpeg.rb formula, results in errors when executing

brew install -v ffmpeg

(./configure now has --enable-libass hard coded so no need to explicitly set --with-libass)

Error: libass not found using pkg-config

Changing PKG_CONFIG_PATH in my bash_profile makes no difference. My bash_profile has a script which generates a long list of the correct include locations, just to be sure, but this is not exposed to Brew's environment when building.

Can anyone throw any light on this, and it's solution please.

[tdsmith]

You can see a list of options that the Homebrew formula provides by running brew info ffmpeg.

Yes. (They come from the Formulas directory from the file called ffmpeg.rb that I mention having to edit)

None of them were being picked up by brew.

On 19 Aug 2015, at 05:00, tim smith notifications@github.com wrote:

You can see a list of options that the Homebrew formula provides by running brew info ffmpeg.

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[tdsmith]

I'm not sure from your description whether this is expected behavior or not because I'm not sure exactly what changes you made. Homebrew intentionally does not pass build-related environment variables into the build environment. superenv tries to configure the build environment so that only libraries which have been declared as a dependency with depends_on are visible to the build.

Initially no changes were made.

Even I followed the recommendation to enable the non free libaac by running the command given at the end of a default ffmpeg install

brew install ffmpeg

(With all the libraries ready present on my system) it failed. No extra library was added. That's definitely not expected behaviour.

I hacked the ffmpeg formula to see why there was no change because the output of the failed build wasn't informative. By customising the configure line manually I could see that it was libraries that couldn't be found.

This wasn't expected behaviour either as all the libraries are visible to pkgconfig and were in the pkg_config_path - indeed they were installed by brew.

So brew installs packages which are dependencies of other brew packages but brew later cannot allow those packages to be seen... I didn't think this was right at all. In the end I started to notice a trend

PKG_CONFIG_PATH??

So I just built it myself and it worked first time, I was using brew to manage dependencies but this time for some reason no dice.

On 19 Aug 2015, at 06:13, tim smith notifications@github.com wrote:

I'm not sure from your description whether this is expected behavior or not because I'm not sure exactly what changes you made. Homebrew intentionally does not pass build-related environment variables into the build environment. superenv tries to configure the build environment so that only libraries which have been declared as a dependency with depends_on are visible to the build.

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I should add I have the config.log if it would be of use.

On 19 Aug 2015, at 06:13, tim smith notifications@github.com wrote:

I'm not sure from your description whether this is expected behavior or not because I'm not sure exactly what changes you made. Homebrew intentionally does not pass build-related environment variables into the build environment. superenv tries to configure the build environment so that only libraries which have been declared as a dependency with depends_on are visible to the build.

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[tdsmith]

PKG_CONFIG_PATH will consist only of packages which have been declared as dependencies with a depends_on declaration. Packages declared as :optional will only be included in PKG_CONFIG_PATH if --with-[package-name] is provided to brew install on the command line. --with options provided to brew install will only be processed if Homebrew understands them; options are not directly passed through to configure.

Yes I've read the code of the ffmpeg.rb file

It's why I raise this as an issue

But the options I wanted were all in the file so it's moot.

On 19 Aug 2015, at 06:36, tim smith notifications@github.com wrote:

PKG_CONFIG_PATH will consist only of packages which have been declared as dependencies with a depends_on declaration. Packages declared as optional will only be included in PKG_CONFIG_PATH if --with-[package-name] is provided to brew install on the command line. --with options provided to brew install will only be processed if Homebrew understands them; options are not directly passed through to configure.

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[tdsmith]

Which behavior did you think was incorrect?

Ok maybe we are talking at odds.

installed "default" ffmpeg using brew

brew install ffmpeg

As my puter has been doing this a while it has a great deal of libraries so.. all the little green ticks were there when I ran

brew info ffmpeg

This is the output from ( the path is from memory so excuse me if it's incorrect)

/usr/local/Library/Formula/ffmpeg.rb 

so brew says "you have the libraries ready which ones do you want)

and yet using for instance (and from memory picking on brews own advice because of the license restrictions)

brew reinstall ffmpeg --with-faac

Fails to install libfaac, (you can choose any library supported by brew in this manner because we know it doesn't just pass all --enable-such-and-such through but has a list in ffmpeg.rb)

So does that sound as incorrect to you as it does to me?

On 19 Aug 2015, at 06:49, tim smith notifications@github.com wrote:

Which behavior did you think was incorrect?

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[tdsmith]

If brew reinstall ffmpeg --with-faac does not build against libfaac, yes, that is a bug. It works for me, though.

Can you share the output of brew gist-logs ffmpeg after running brew reinstall ffmpeg --with-faac?

[drewlustro]

I wanna throw in my hat here and note I've experienced similar recently (OS X 10.10.5).

Either --with-faac doesn't actually produce a faac enabled binary, or homebrew's notes when you type brew info ffmpeg don't reflect the used build options correctly.

Like, ill see a √ checkmark next to faac, but then homebrew will suggest that if I want faac support, i should reinstall with --with-fdk-aac

When ffmpeg is built with the gpl (and other licensing) flags turned on, does it automatically mess with the --enable-nonfree option?

[tdsmith]

homebrew's notes when you type brew info ffmpeg don't reflect the used build options correctly.

This is correct.

[drewlustro]

@tdsmith so that's a known issue?

[tdsmith]

That interface isn't intended to display what options were used for the build; it displays which possible dependencies are installed. If options were used you'd see something like this:

tim@rocketman$ brew info numpy
homebrew/python/numpy: stable 1.9.2 (bottled), HEAD
http://www.numpy.org
/usr/local/Cellar/numpy/1.9.2_1 (1379 files, 29M) *
  Built from source with: --with-python3

[drewlustro]

Ah i see. Anyhow, I experienced similar difficulty as OP.

Although the struggles with ffmpeg might actually be related to ffmpeg2theora, which complains quite a bit and borks when transcoding AAC to Theora and then finally blames ffmpeg.