Chief_Engineer wrote:I'm pleased to say this is now working fine -- it seems when I was set up with admin privileges, not all admin priveleges are created equal!
I did not have the privilege to install the FFmpeg into the necessary root folders. Once that was corrected, I ran a script file to delete the old installations, then re-installed the FFmpeg, then went to preferences and searched for it again. Audacity discovered the file immediately, and all works fine now. Thank you so much for the assistance!
There are several inter-related problems with FFmpeg on OS X 10.6.4. First, we don't autodetect the library as we do for LAME, where you just export as an MP3 and it works without going into Preferences. This means we get potential runtime conflicts if there other versions of FFmpeg on the system.
Then, we install FFmpeg and LAME into /usr/local/lib. This is standard for a library on OS X, and It's understandable if you might have to give the admin password to install the libraries, but you should not (and did not used to) need more privileges than that. Installing FFmpeg into /usr/local/lib thus means if Audacity doesn't find FFmpeg when you press "Locate" in its Preferences, you again have to be logged in as an administrator to be able to navigate to it using "Browse" in "Locate FFmpeg".
Then there seem to be significant permissions issues with OS X 10.6.4 (especially but not exclusively if you upgrade to 10.6.4 from a previous OS X version). Go > Utilities > Disk Utilities > Verify Disk and Repair Permissions often doesn't fix this, nor even
sudo chmod -R 755 /usr/local/lib/audacity
if some reports are to be believed. I've had several reports this week of people with brand new Macs on 10.6.4 who have /usr (or /usr/local/lib) locked out with "no entry" when you show those folders in Finder. This means that even if Audacity detects FFmpeg or LAME, it says it cannot open the library when you try to use it. A potted version of the solution is to mark the locked folder in FInder, hit CMD+I (Apple+I), then in the window that opens, add rights for the admin or other groups to read the folder. I wonder if this was essentially Chief_Engineer's problem?
Further, on the basis of what two users have told me, Apple support reps are saying it's wrong to install libraries in /usr, and that they should be in the "Applications" folder because OS X 10.6.4 now read-locks /usr. Is that line really correct, or are the reps really covering for the well-publicised permissions problems that 10.6.4 can create?
Gale
I tried to set Enable=1 in audacity.cfg, but that did not help.