On Mac, installed FFmpeg 4.4.4, Audacity still doesn't accept M4A (AAC) file

Audacity Help Forum macOS
1

I see that others have posted about the same problem on Windows, but I have not seen posts about this on Mac.

I have FFmpeg 4.4.4 successfully installed under Mac OS 10.14.6. (I need other software that requires no higher than Mojave.)

But Audacity still refuses to open or accept a .m4a file, with the message “[filename] is an Advanced Audio Coding file. / Without the optional FFmpeg library, Audacity 3.4.0 cannot open this type of file.”

Help? Thanks!

2

Hi,
I still have the same problenm afrer updating Audacity and ffmpeg libray.
Here ara my logs. :

0:02:19: Audacity 3.2.2
20:02:19: sqlite3 message: (1) no such table: project in « SELECT 1 FROM project LIMIT 1; »
20:02:19: Error: dlopen(/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavformat.59.dylib, 2): no suitable image found.  Did find:
	/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavformat.59.dylib: cannot load ‘libavformat.59.dylib’ (load command 0x80000034 is unknown)
	/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavformat.59.16.100.dylib: cannot load ‘libavformat.59.16.100.dylib’ (load command 0x80000034 is unknown)
20:02:19: Error: dlopen(/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavformat.59.dylib, 2): no suitable image found.  Did find:
	/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavformat.59.dylib: cannot load ‘libavformat.59.dylib’ (load command 0x80000034 is unknown)
	/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavformat.59.16.100.dylib: cannot load ‘libavformat.59.16.100.dylib’ (load command 0x80000034 is unknown)
20:02:19: Error: dlopen(libavformat.59.dylib, 2): image not found
20:02:19: Error: dlopen(ffmpeg.59.64bit.dylib, 2): image not found
20:02:19: Error: dlopen(libavformat.58.dylib, 2): image not found
20:02:19: Error: dlopen(ffmpeg.58.64bit.dylib, 2): image not found
20:02:19: Error: dlopen(libavformat.57.dylib, 2): image not found
20:02:19: Error: dlopen(ffmpeg.57.64bit.dylib, 2): image not found
20:02:19: Error: dlopen(libavformat.55.dylib, 2): image not found
20:02:19: FFmpeg libraries loaded successfully from: /Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/ffmpeg.55.64bit.dylib
20:02:36: File name is /Users/fredericrufin/Movies/2023-10-05 17-20-00.mkv
20:02:36: Mime type is *
20:02:36: Opening with libav
20:02:36: Error: dlopen(/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavformat.59.dylib, 2): no suitable image found.  Did find:
	/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavformat.59.dylib: cannot load ‘libavformat.59.dylib’ (load command 0x80000034 is unknown)
	/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavformat.59.16.100.dylib: cannot load ‘libavformat.59.16.100.dylib’ (load command 0x80000034 is unknown)
20:02:36: Error: dlopen(/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavformat.59.dylib, 2): no suitable image found.  Did find:
	/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavformat.59.dylib: cannot load ‘libavformat.59.dylib’ (load command 0x80000034 is unknown)
	/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavformat.59.16.100.dylib: cannot load ‘libavformat.59.16.100.dylib’ (load command 0x80000034 is unknown)
20:02:36: Error: dlopen(libavformat.59.dylib, 2): image not found
20:02:36: Error: dlopen(ffmpeg.59.64bit.dylib, 2): image not found
20:02:36: Error: dlopen(libavformat.58.dylib, 2): image not found
20:02:36: Error: dlopen(ffmpeg.58.64bit.dylib, 2): image not found
20:02:36: Error: dlopen(libavformat.57.dylib, 2): image not found
20:02:36: Error: dlopen(ffmpeg.57.64bit.dylib, 2): image not found
20:02:36: Error: dlopen(libavformat.55.dylib, 2): image not found
20:02:36: FFmpeg libraries loaded successfully from: /Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/ffmpeg.55.64bit.dylib
3

Judging by the log you have FFmpeg 5 installed. This package is incompatible with 10.14

4

Thank you !
So, i have 1 questions :

  • is Audacity 3.2.2 compatible with Mojave ?
  • As documentation is sometimes confusing, could you tell me how to dowload and install the right Mojave compatible ffmpeg version ?
5

Any version of Audacity is compatible with Mojave, however it is recommended to download Intel version for older macOS versions.

For FFmpeg you can use ffmpeg_64bit_osx.pkg from https://lame.buanzo.org/

6

I tried using ffmpeg_64bit_osx.pkg, but now Audacity doesn’t find ffmpeg.64bit.dylib, as it is not inside /Library/Application Support/audacity/libs.
I’m trying now using brew…
So hard !

7

I had to go back to Audacity 2.0.6 as it seems to be the only compatible version with Mojave.
Everything is Ok now.
Thanks