

When dynamic loading is disabled, LAME and FFmpeg will be loaded automatically if compatible versions are installed and there will not be a "Libraries" page in Preferences. Ubuntu / Debian based packages are often built with dynamic loading disabled. When you build Audacity from our source code, it should link to the installed FFmpeg headers. If required, you can also configure to enable or disable particular encoding/decoding libraries. Configure the build with -enable -shared so that it builds the necessary shared object library (.so) files. To build libav, obtain the source code from the libav project. To build FFmpeg, obtain the source code from the FFmpeg project. It is recommended to use a shared build, but Audacity will also work with a static build. A static build consists of a single libavformat library, whereas a shared build has at least three libraries (libavformat, libavcodec and libavutil). If you download a pre-built library, this might be either a "shared" or "static" build. You may download (or compile) and install a compatible version of the FFmpeg or libav library for your purposes then locate it in Libraries Preferences. In this case, no additional installation is required, to see diagnostic information about FFmpeg detection.Some distributions (including Ubuntu), include FFmpeg by default when Audacity is installed from the official distribution repository. You can also choose Help > Diagnostics > Show Log. button to obtain the correct library for your operating system. If you still see "not found", you may have installed the wrong libraries.

If a " Success" message indicates Audacity has now automatically detected valid FFmpeg libraries and asks if you want to detect them manually, click No, then OK to close Preferences.

To do this, access Preferences then the "Libraries" tab on the left:Īs seen in the image above, the "FFmpeg Library Version" will say "not found". If you installed FFmpeg while Audacity was running, or if you installed FFmpeg to a non-default location, Audacity will ask you to configure Preferences to locate the FFmpeg library.
