More avformat-55 problems

I’ve been trying upload an m4a file for about twenty minutes and I keep getting the avformat-55/ffmpeg error. I followed the instructions Audacity gives from the “Download” button in the Libraries, and they are totally useless (they instructed me to download LAME, which I apparently don’t need but downloaded and installed anyway). Then I found out I needed to download the ffmpegv222 or whatever, did that, and nothing happened. I downloaded the zip archive and installed that, and nothing happens. I downloaded it to multiple places and tried refinding it through Locate in the Preferences>Libraries, and nothing happened. I restarted Audacity a million times, and nothing changes.

I locate the avformat-55 file, hit okay, and nothing changes. Is there supposed to be more than 8 files in the ffmpeg folder? The contents of the ffmpeg folder are: avcodec-55.dll, avformat-55.dll, avutil-52.dll, libbz2-1.dll, libiconv-2.dll, libwinpthread-1.dll, license.txt, zlib1.dll. That’s it.

Here’s the logs:

18:10:55: Audacity 2.3.0
18:10:55: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries...
18:10:55: mLibAVFormatPath ('C:\Users\*****\Desktop\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit\avformat-55.dll') is not empty. Loading from it.
18:10:55: Looking up PATH environment variable...
18:10:55: PATH = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\iCLS Client\;C:\Program Files\Intel\iCLS Client\;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH\;C:\Users\*****\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;'
18:10:55: Checking that 'C:\Users\*****\Desktop\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit' is in PATH...
18:10:55: Warning: FFmpeg directory 'C:\Users\*****\Desktop\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit' is not in PATH.
18:10:55: Temporarily prepending ';C:\Users\*****\Desktop\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit' to PATH...
18:10:55: Checking for monolithic avformat from 'C:\Users\*****\Desktop\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit\avformat-55.dll'.
18:10:55: Error: Failed to load shared library 'C:\Users\*****\Desktop\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit\avformat-55.dll' (error 193: unknown error c1)
18:10:55: Loading avutil from ''.
18:10:55: Error: Failed to load shared library '.dll' (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
18:10:55: Loading avcodec from ''.
18:10:55: Error: Failed to load shared library '.dll' (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
18:10:55: Loading avformat from 'C:\Users\*****\Desktop\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit\avformat-55.dll'.
18:10:55: Error: Failed to load shared library 'C:\Users\*****\Desktop\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit\avformat-55.dll' (error 193: unknown error c1)
18:10:55: Returning PATH to previous setting...
18:10:55: Error: Failed to load FFmpeg libraries.
18:10:55: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries from system paths. File name is 'avformat-55.dll'.
18:10:55: Looking up PATH environment variable...
18:10:55: PATH = 'C:\Users\*****\Desktop\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit\FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\iCLS Client\;C:\Program Files\Intel\iCLS Client\;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH\;C:\Users\*****\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps'
18:10:55: Checking that '' is in PATH...
18:10:55: FFmpeg directory is in PATH.
18:10:55: Checking for monolithic avformat from 'avformat-55.dll'.
18:10:55: Error: Failed to load shared library 'avformat-55.dll' (error 193: unknown error c1)
18:10:55: Loading avutil from ''.
18:10:55: Error: Failed to load shared library '.dll' (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
18:10:55: Loading avcodec from ''.
18:10:55: Error: Failed to load shared library '.dll' (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
18:10:55: Loading avformat from 'avformat-55.dll'.
18:10:55: Error: Failed to load shared library 'avformat-55.dll' (error 193: unknown error c1)
18:10:55: Error: Failed to load FFmpeg libraries.
18:10:55: Error: Failed to find compatible FFmpeg libraries.

Any ideas? Sure wish this just worked and that the instructions were written a bit clearer for end users.

Welp, I’m guessing this is an unsolvable problem. Careful everyone! I’m trying to upload audio files recorded with Zoom, and this is the problem I have.

That’s because you are using an old version of Audacity. The current version is Audacity 3.1.3 (which includes LAME). I don’t recall if Audacity 2.3.0 includes LAME - probably not.

Audacity 2.3.0 requires 32-bit FFmpeg.
Audacity 3.1.3 requires 64-bit FFmpeg.