Troubles with 'media_player_mpy' - Unable to download 'ffmpeg.osx'

Comments

• Daniel

  December 2016

  High aseesa,

  That is weird. On the first run of media_player_mpy, OpenSesame needs to download a small package (ffmpeg.osx) that enables it to decode a wide array of video formats. This usually doesn't cause any trouble, but in your case it appears to not be able to download this file.
  Could it be that the computer on which OpenSesame is running on has a firewall which blocks the connection? Or the University network does so? I would try again from a different network/wifi connection before we dive into this deeper. The file only needs to be downloaded once, so when you succeed, you're set to use media_player_mpy from wherever you want.

  
• aseesa

  December 2016

  Hello Daniel, thank you for your quick response. I just tried it from another network and checked my firewall settings (although firewall is turned off it doesn't work) - and still get the same error messages.
  Is there anything I could do manually to incorporate the ffmpeg.osx package?
• Daniel

  December 2016

  Yes there is. You could try the following first. Start python and type:

  import imageio.plugins.ffmpeg
  imageio.plugins.ffmpeg.download()
  

  but this is what OpenSesame does, so it probably doesn't work.

  The alternative step is that you download ffmpeg yourself and place it in the right folder.
  You should be able to get ffmpeg.osx at https://github.com/imageio/imageio-binaries/raw/master/ffmpeg
  You copy the ffmpeg.osx to /Users/<your_username>/Library/Application Support/imageio/ffmpeg So to be clear, the last ffmpeg in this path is a folder, and in this folder you place the file ffmpeg.osx.
  If you fire up your experiment after doing this, it should now work and you should be able to play videos.

  
• aseesa

  December 2016

  Thank you so much, I can finally open the experiment.
  But I seem unable to reproduce audio stimuli in my experiment. (although I get no bugs...)
  Do you have a hint for me what might be wrong?
• Daniel

  December 2016

  No I would really need more information for that. Do you mean the video plays but there is no sound? Have you checked if play audio in the configuration panel is set to no by accident?
  If you a trying to play separate sound files: there is indeed some trouble with audio rendering on OSX, because the pygame mixer (which is used for audio) is very flakey to say at best. We are trying to find a more durable solution than pygame mixer, but until we have there is no easy way to fix audio playback on the mac. Sorry for the inconvenience.

  
• Noa

  February 2017 edited February 2017

  I got a similar problem when my computer was not connected to the internet. However, I did have ffmpeg.win.exe in some other location on my computer (in Psychopy libraries) . I did connect my computer to the internet and then OpenSesame would let me open and run my experiment. But when I checked whether ffmpeg.win.exe was downloaded again or copied - it didn't . It stayed the exact same place. Is it reasonable?

  I just hesitate whether I should download ffmpeg.osx from the above link? but I don't find the path you wrote @Daniel . Where else can it be put?

  (My problem is that the quality of the movies inside OS is worse than when I use Windows Media Player etc. The audio is OK but the visual stops and moves slowly. I am not sure whether it has anything to do with thee ffmeg or the media_player_mpy or it is related to anything else (avbin? what else could it be?)
• Johanna_

  February 2017

  Hi Daniel,
  I have the same problem as Aseesa and Noa described and I get a very similar error message (posted below). I have manually downloaded the ffmpeg.osx file but like Noa, I cannot seem to find the correct path to put it (I only have an Appdata folder, no "application support" and when I search for imageo I find nothing).

  The media_player_mpy plugin appears as an icon in the sidebar but it does not appear in my experiment and I get the error message I pasted below when I try to run the experiment.

  I am currently logged in with our institutional admin account and wanted to install the latest OS version to the computer's local environment so we could use OS outside the instutional network. Could this have something do to with the problems I have?

  On my other work computer (when I'm connected to the institution network and in my user environment) the plugin works beautifully and I have no issues with it all.

  Thank you in advance for any advice!
  Johanna

  File "C:\Program Files\OpenSesame\lib\site-packages\libopensesame\item_store.py", line 161, in new
  self.experiment, script, self.experiment.item_prefix())
  File "C:\Program Files\OpenSesame\lib\site-packages\libopensesame\plugins.py", line 360, in load_plugin
  item_module = import_plugin(plugin, _type=_type)
  File "C:\Program Files\OpenSesame\lib\site-packages\libopensesame\plugins.py", line 331, in import_plugin
  return imp.load_source(plugin, path)
  File "C:\Program Files\OpenSesame\share\opensesame_plugins\media_player_mpy\media_player_mpy.py", line 42, in
  import mediadecoder
  File "C:\Program Files\OpenSesame\lib\site-packages\mediadecoder__init__.py", line 6, in
  from mediadecoder.decoder import Decoder
  File "C:\Program Files\OpenSesame\lib\site-packages\mediadecoder\decoder.py", line 9, in
  from moviepy.video.io.VideoFileClip import VideoFileClip
  File "C:\Program Files\OpenSesame\lib\site-packages\moviepy\video\io\VideoFileClip.py", line 3, in
  from moviepy.video.VideoClip import VideoClip
  File "C:\Program Files\OpenSesame\lib\site-packages\moviepy\video\VideoClip.py", line 20, in
  from .io.ffmpeg_writer import ffmpeg_write_image, ffmpeg_write_video
  File "C:\Program Files\OpenSesame\lib\site-packages\moviepy\video\io\ffmpeg_writer.py", line 15, in
  from moviepy.config import get_setting
  File "C:\Program Files\OpenSesame\lib\site-packages\moviepy\config.py", line 38, in
  FFMPEG_BINARY = get_exe()
  File "C:\Program Files\OpenSesame\lib\site-packages\imageio\plugins\ffmpeg.py", line 52, in get_exe
  exe = get_remote_file('ffmpeg/' + FNAME_PER_PLATFORM[plat])
  File "C:\Program Files\OpenSesame\lib\site-packages\imageio\core\fetching.py", line 98, in get_remote_file
  _fetch_file(url, filename)
  File "C:\Program Files\OpenSesame\lib\site-packages\imageio\core\fetching.py", line 154, in _fetch_file
  os.path.basename(file_name))
  IOError: Unable to download 'ffmpeg.win32.exe'. Perhaps there is a no internet connection? If there is, please report this problem
• Johanna_

  February 2017

  UPDATE: It appears to have been an issue with the firewall of our institution (we just had to re-install OS outside the institution network). All good now
  Johanna
• DCube

  March 2017

  Evening Daniel,

  The proposed solution to copy paste the ffmpeg.exe file to the designated folder manually does not seems to work. After it did not work when I copy pasted it at the imageio area (which in my copy was under Lib not Library) as suggested, then I went ahead and copy pasted the ffmpeg.exe file to every folder within OpenSesame! It took me more than half an hour to paste the file manually to what should be at least a hundred subfolders of OS. Why are so many folders necessary anyway!!

  Anyway, I made sure that the file is there should OS need it. Then I also shut the firewall completely just in case it was blocking it. The problem persisted.

  I tried shutting down the firewall with other computers of the institution also, the result is the same.

  I opened a file named ffmpeg.py or so, and after reading some Python language I specifically directed OS to locate and execute the ffmpeg.exe file since it was ignoring it even when it was there, it still did not work.

  Are there any other solutions to this problem? My videos are MPG's, would converting them to other formats help perhaps?

  Please help as soon as you can because I need a working OS by the beginning of next week! A bit tight on time here!

  Regards
  DCube
• DCube

  April 2017

  Just tested it with the .mov extension video format. The problem persists...

  If ffmpeg.exe is this critical to OS functioning regarding experiments with videos, and considering that the file is both light in MB's and easy to get (i.e., free access), then maybe in future versions OS should come with its own ffmpeg.exe file that it would innately and independently from the internet install itself to the right location, wherever it may be (and I have tried all the folders).

  I have reproduced the problem on an old llaptop back home. I disabled all access to the internet thus OS now cannot open the experiment with videos without errors because ffmpeg.exe could not be downloaded from the internet. So now I do not have to travel to the institution to test various proposed solutions and waste a day. I can test the proposed solutions to this old llaptop of mine right here.

  So, I am waiting for some help in this regard. Will test all proposed solutions here until one works. This way others would know how to solve this problem also.

  Regards
  DCube
• DCube

  April 2017

  Thought I report this odd event, just in case it sparkles some solution ideas to the problem.

  Before I tried to reproduce the problem in that old llaptop, I initially tried it first on the brand new game station desktop that my kids use. I disabled the internet so as to block OS from getting access to the ffmpeg.exe file online. But the problem failed to be reproduced for some reason.

  Maybe somehow these new computers already have ffmpeg.exe installed somewhere else other than the internet that OS seems to be able to find by alternative/non-internet means. Basically, my OS experiment with videos opened and worked in that new gamestation computer regardless if there was an internet connection or not.

  Quite singular, is it not?

  Regards
  DCube
• Jarik

  April 2017

  Hi DCube,

  In a post above someone reports the error message includes "ffmpeg.win32.exe" instead of "ffmpeg.exe". Maybe that helps?

  Best,
  Jarik
• DCube

  April 2017

  Hi Jarik,

  Thank you for your reply.

  It is the same problem. The exact name of what I called "ffmpeg.exe" is ffmpeg.win32.exe. That file ffmpeg.win32.exe is what is missing and the computers in the institution cannot reach through the internet despite being online and the firewall being off. Copy pasting ffmpeg.win32.exe on all OS folders does not helps solve the problem and I still receive the message with errors when trying to run my OS that has commands to play video files.

  Thank you for your reply, Jarik. But unless someone provides a better solution I mind as well play the videos separately.

  DCube.
• Jarik

  April 2017

  It's a guess but you might want to try putting ffmpeg in the c:\windows\system32 folder.

  You could also see if the old VLC plugin still works.

  Best,
  Jarik
• DCube

  April 2017

  I just copied ffmpeg to the windows' System32 folder. The problem persists.

  What was the trick to use OS' old VLC plugin again?

  Thanks
  DCube
• Daniel

  April 2017 edited April 2017

  Hi DCube.
  I admit that the way this currently works is less than ideal. I haven't had a lot of time lately to dive into this problem, but it's high on my list of priorities to get fixed.
  The ffmpeg download functionality is actually provided by the underlying imageio library. It offers to set an environmental variable called imageio_ffmpeg_exe that points to the location where the ffmpeg binary can be found. We plan on integrating the ffmpeg binary this way in future versions of OpenSesame. More info can be found here:
  http://imageio.readthedocs.io/en/latest/envvariables.html

  So basically, you can place the ffmpeg library in any folder you like, as long as you start your OS experiment with a script containing:

  import os
  os.environ["IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE"] = "path/to/your/ffmpeg"
  

  Please let me know if this helps!

  
• DCube

  April 2017

  Morning Daniel.

  Glad to hear from you!

  If that command will fix it, then we are getting close to the solution because now it seems there is a script error. What I get now is that OS will not open for the following reasons:

  Failed to parse line "os.environ["imageio_ffmpeg_exe"] = "C:\Program Files\OpenSesame\Library\ffmpeg.win32.exe"". Is there a closing quotation missing?

  Below I get:

  raise ValueError, "No closing quotation"
  ValueError: No closing quotation.

  Upon reading some at the forum I noticed that this seems to be a type of syntax error. What I tried to do thus far is change from \ to / and vice versa, use the name of the disc C: which is OS(C:), remove it completely so the path starts from Program Files, and I decapitalised IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE.

  Another detail that I noticed is that you seem to be speaking of an "ffmpeg library" rather than the ffmpeg.win32.exe file. So I copied the ffmpeg.win32.exe file to an area that I know that there are other ffmpeg's with extensions like py and pyc, which may together seems like a "library" or a folder to OS. But the latest path to the proposed command mentioned above "C:\Program Files\OpenSesame\Lib\site-packages\imageio\plugins\ffmpeg" and "C:\Program Files\OpenSesame\Lib\site-packages\imageio\plugins\ffmpeg.win32.exe" did not work neither.

  This now is a typing error. I am typing something wrong. My OpenSesame folder is under C:\Program Files\Open Sesame . Can you tell me please what path sounds right to OS in order for it to alas open the darn ffmpeg.win32.exe file and enable videos to play in my experiments?

  To think, a whole experiment is stopped because of a path problem!

  Regards
  DCube
• DCube

  April 2017

  Latest update,

  Daniel, on your post you use double quotation marks (i.e., " ) while in your link it is with single quotation marks (i.e., ' ). Since this is a typing problem then I changed it to single quotation marks.

  The result is that now OS ignores the command to open ffmpeg.win32.exe manually entirely and the previous error of failing to load the plugin 'media_player_mpy' due to lack of internet connection shows up. So, it seems it is no longer a typing error with single quotation marks and the path is okay and yet ignored, while the same path is incorrect with double quotation marks.

  Perhaps a combination between double and single quotation marks is the matter then?

  DCube
• DCube

  April 2017 edited April 2017

  Tweaking around the quotation marks only made it worse. Now I am back to square one where OS ignores the command to open ffmpeg.win32.exe and searches it from the internet regardless what type of quotation marks or what path is used.

  Quite frustrating!
• DCube

  April 2017

  What a stubborn problem!

  OS seeks ffmpeg.win32.exe from the internet even when commanded specifically not to use the internet with the os.environ['IMAGEIO_NO_INTERNET'] = 'true'' command! This with single and double quotations!
• DCube

  April 2017

  Well, I am out of ideas! Unless the problem is fixed today I will have to remove the videos from OS tomorrow.

  DCube
• Daniel

  April 2017 edited April 2017

  Hi DCube,
  Sorry, but I have no time to look at it at such short notice.

  The fact that you get a message about mismatching quotations is probably due to a copy-paste mistake, or other kind of syntax error. I see that your Python statements contain quite some mistakes, so maybe you should brush up your Python knowledge first. For now, here are some tips:

  • In Python, you can either use single or double quotations to designate strings, as long as the opening and closing quotations match. This should thus not be the problem.
  • Keep in mind that you have to escape backslashes on Windows by entering them twice. So the path would become: "C:\\path\\to\\your\\ffmpeg" That should be the only change you need to make. If you leave away the C:\\, python will not look from the Program Files directory, but from the current working directory (os.getcwd()). You are also allowed to use forward slashes, so why that didn't work is a mystery to me.
  • Decapitalizing IMAGEIO_NO_INTERNET will break things. This should be in all caps.
  • In Python, a boolean value is written as True or False, so starting with a capital letter, and not encapsulated in quotes. os.environ['IMAGEIO_NO_INTERNET'] = 'true' is therefore wrong, because you are storing the string "true" in this variable, and not the boolean value True. os.environ['IMAGEIO_NO_INTERNET'] = True is thus the correct way to write this.

  
• DCube

  April 2017

  Hello Daniel.

  Here is what I just tried:

  import os
  os.environ["IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE"] = True

  import os
  os.environ["IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE"] = "C:\Program Files\OpenSesame\ffmpeg.win32.exe"

  These are put on page 20 as can be seen in Word file. The sticky problem persists. OS keeps on trying to download ffmpeg.win32.exe from the internet.

  Seems like solving this problem without the internet is hopeless. When will this bug be fixed in the upcoming version of OS?

  DCube
• Daniel

  April 2017 edited April 2017

  Hi DCube,
  I cannot tell when the problem will be fixed yet as I am busy with other work and currently don't have any time to look at this. I will give it a try as soon as I can.
  There are some mistakes in your code again. If you look at my previous post, I mentioned you have to escape all backslashes in a string by using a double backslash. You also have the wrong variable that specifies there is no Internet. You are using IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE instead of IMAGEIO_NO_INTERNET

  The correct code should be something like:

  import os
  os.environ["IMAGEIO_NO_INTERNET"] = True
  os.environ["IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE"] = "C:\\Program Files\\OpenSesame\\ffmpeg.win32.exe"
  

  Be sure to place this code before any media_player_mpy instances occur in your experiment.

  
• DCube

  April 2017

  Evening Daniel,

  I copied the content manually to my experiment before even "Video" is even mentioned, on the 1st page. The problem persists.

  DCube
• linguist_noob

  September 2017 edited September 2017

  Running OpenSesame on Mac OS X, I had the same error message as the original poster ("OError: Unable to download 'ffmpeg.osx'. Perhaps there is a no internet connection? If there is, please report this problem.") whenever I tried to add a media_player_mpy item to my experiment. I followed the link prvided by Daniel above and copied the ffmpeg.osx file into the /Users/<your_username>/Library/Application Support/imageio/ffmpeg folder.
  Now I could add the media_player_mpy item to the experiment without it crashing. But when I try to run the experiment with the video in it now, it crashes in the prepare phase of the video with the following error message (traceback):

  File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/libqtopensesame/misc/process.py", line 150, in run
      exp.run()
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/libopensesame/experiment.py", line 411, in run
      self.items.execute(self.var.start)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/libopensesame/item_store.py", line 91, in execute
      self.run(name)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/libopensesame/item_store.py", line 106, in run
      self[name].run()
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/libopensesame/sequence.py", line 51, in run
      self.experiment.items.run(_item)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/libopensesame/item_store.py", line 106, in run
      self[name].run()
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/libopensesame/loop.py", line 338, in run
      self.experiment.items.execute(self._item)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/libopensesame/item_store.py", line 90, in execute
      self.prepare(name)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/libopensesame/item_store.py", line 122, in prepare
      self[name].prepare()
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/libopensesame/sequence.py", line 124, in prepare
      self.experiment.items.prepare(_item)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/libopensesame/item_store.py", line 122, in prepare
      self[name].prepare()
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/share/opensesame_plugins/media_player_mpy/media_player_mpy.py", line 119, in prepare
      elif not self.player.load_media(path):
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/mediadecoder/decoder.py", line 162, in load_media
      self.clip = VideoFileClip(mediafile, audio=play_audio)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/moviepy/video/io/VideoFileClip.py", line 55, in __init__
      reader = FFMPEG_VideoReader(filename, pix_fmt=pix_fmt)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/moviepy/video/io/ffmpeg_reader.py", line 32, in __init__
      infos = ffmpeg_parse_infos(filename, print_infos, check_duration)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/moviepy/video/io/ffmpeg_reader.py", line 237, in ffmpeg_parse_infos
      proc = sp.Popen(cmd, **popen_params)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 711, in __init__
      errread, errwrite)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1343, in _execute_child
      raise child_exception
  OSError: [Errno 8] Exec format error
  

  Seems like the ffmpeg.osx file has got the wrong format?! I actually tried all Mac versions of the file on the Github page (always renaming them to ffmpeg.osx), but nothing helped.
  Google also tells me that this error occurs when running shell scripts if the shebang line (starting #!) isn't correct. Can that be translated to the situation within OpenSesame somehow?
• dec_labmanager

  February 2020 edited February 2020

  I had the same type of error when i tried to drag the visual stimuli button to my experiment. The first error was that it could not load open-sesame-plugin-media_player_py and the second dealt with ffmpeg.osx

  If it can help others, I used these commands in bash : pip install open-sesame-plugin-media_player_py, then brew upgrade ffmpeg (there, I had some issues with xcode and could not brew upgrade so I had to change the date of my laptop to the 1st of october 2019 to be able to do sudo xcodebuild -runFirstLaunch, then sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developerand then reset my clockwork to normal)

  After that, as explained above, I copied the file ffmpeg.osx/ffmpeg.osx.snowleopardandabove in /Users/<your_username>/Library/ApplicationSupport/imageio/ffmpeg

  and set the path within OpenSesame debugging window :

  import os

  os.environ["IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE"] = "/Users/<your_username>/Library/ApplicationSupport/imageio"

  And now it is working !!!!!! ? I hope it will help some of you

  
  

  PS: I am on MacOS Sierra
• dec_labmanager

  February 2020 edited February 2020

  But I have to do it everytime I open OpenSesame :

  import os

  os.environ["IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE"] = "/Users/<your_username>/Library/ApplicationSupport/imageio"

  
  

  Is it normal?
• PsyMel

  May 2020

  Hi, 

  I am using OpenSesame for the first time. I'm builting an experiment with images and videos. The first part with images running succesfully but the part with videos crash. To read video I'm using open-sesame-media_player_mpy and I've load the plugin following the instruction of this discussion. I have the same problem that dec_labmanager, I have to introduce this script everytime I open OpenSesame. The item run good but when I run my experiment, it crash and I receive this message : 

  Details

  • item-stack: experiment[prepare].new_media_player_mpy[prepare]
  • exception type: OSError
  • exception message: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
  • time: Wed May 6 17:27:07 2020

  Traceback (also in debug window)

    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/libqtopensesame/misc/process.py", line 157, in run
      exp.run()
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/libopensesame/experiment.py", line 456, in run
      self.items.execute(self.var.start)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/libopensesame/item_store.py", line 102, in execute
      self.prepare(name)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/libopensesame/item_store.py", line 142, in prepare
      self[name].prepare()
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/libopensesame/sequence.py", line 124, in prepare
      self.experiment.items.prepare(_item)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/libopensesame/item_store.py", line 142, in prepare
      self[name].prepare()
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/share/opensesame_plugins/media_player_mpy/media_player_mpy.py", line 119, in prepare
      elif not self.player.load_media(path):
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/mediadecoder/decoder.py", line 162, in load_media
      self.clip = VideoFileClip(mediafile, audio=play_audio)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/moviepy/video/io/VideoFileClip.py", line 91, in __init__
      fps_source=fps_source)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/moviepy/video/io/ffmpeg_reader.py", line 33, in __init__
      fps_source)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages/moviepy/video/io/ffmpeg_reader.py", line 256, in ffmpeg_parse_infos
      proc = sp.Popen(cmd, **popen_params)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 394, in __init__
      errread, errwrite)
    File "/Applications/OpenSesame.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1047, in _execute_child
      raise child_exception
  OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
  

  Somebody can help me, pleas ? I'm looking for in the forum and I have not see a solution...

  Thank you very much