compiling ffmpeg for Mac OSX High Sierra 10.13

Question

Hello I made an electron app that uses ffmpeg to combine audio and renders video, it works fine on windows, linux, and modern mac osx computers, but a user has reported to me that on an older version of mac osx such as High Sierra 10.13, the way that I have setup ffmpeg does not work.

I have a virtual machine with High Sierra v10.13 where I install RenderTune-mac.dmg from my RenderTune releases page , then I download 2 audio files and the image from this link . I open RenderTune, and try render a video. My command to combine the audio files into a single mp3 works fine, but when I try to combine that mp3 with the image file, the ffmpeg build I have packaged with my electron app fails with this error:

Command was killed with SIGABRT (Aborted): /Applications/RenderTune.app/Contents/Resources/ffmpeg -loop 1 -framerate 2 -i /Users/martin/Downloads/R-3777978-1344032418-8379.jpeg.jpg -i /Users/martin/Downloads/output-871140.mp3 -y -acodec copy -b:a 320k -vcodec libx264 -b:v 8000k -maxrate 8000k -minrate 8000k -bufsize 3M -filter:v scale=w=1920:h=1954 -preset medium -tune stillimage -crf 18 -pix_fmt yuv420p -shortest /Users/martin/Downloads/concatVideo-871140.mp4
ffmpeg version git-2021-03-24-13335df Copyright (c) 2000-2021 the FFmpeg developers
  built with Apple LLVM version 10.0.1 (clang-1001.0.46.4)
  configuration: --pkgconfigdir=/Users/martinbarker/Documents/projects/rendertune-0.5.0/workspace/lib/pkgconfig --prefix=/Users/martinbarker/Documents/projects/rendertune-0.5.0/workspace --pkg-config-flags=--static --extra-cflags='-I/Users/martinbarker/Documents/projects/rendertune-0.5.0/workspace/include -mmacosx-version-min=10.10' --extra-ldflags='-L/Users/martinbarker/Documents/projects/rendertune-0.5.0/workspace/lib -mmacosx-version-min=10.10' --extra-libs='-lpthread -lm' --enable-static --disable-securetransport --disable-debug --disable-shared --disable-ffplay --disable-lzma --disable-doc --enable-version3 --enable-pthreads --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-avfilter --enable-filters --disable-libxcb --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --disable-libass --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libx264
  libavutil      56. 66.100 / 56. 66.100
  libavcodec     58.128.100 / 58.128.100
  libavformat    58. 69.100 / 58. 69.100
  libavdevice    58. 12.100 / 58. 12.100
  libavfilter     7.107.100 /  7.107.100
  libswscale      5.  8.100 /  5.  8.100
  libswresample   3.  8.100 /  3.  8.100
  libpostproc    55.  8.100 / 55.  8.100
Input #0, image2, from '/Users/martin/Downloads/R-3777978-1344032418-8379.jpeg.jpg':
  Duration: 00:00:00.50, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1758 kb/s
  Stream #0:0: Video: mjpeg (Progressive), yuvj444p(pc, bt470bg/unknown/unknown), 590x600 [SAR 1:1 DAR 59:60], 2 fps, 2 tbr, 2 tbn, 2 tbc
Input #1, mp3, from '/Users/martin/Downloads/output-871140.mp3':
  Metadata:
    title           : My Little Grass Shack
    album           : Our Hawaii - A Collection Of Personal Favorites
    artist          : Society Of Seven
    track           : 11
    encoder         : Lavf58.69.100
  Duration: 00:06:25.59, start: 0.025057, bitrate: 320 kb/s
  Stream #1:0: Audio: mp3, 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 320 kb/s
    Metadata:
      encoder         : Lavc58.12
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (mjpeg (native) -> h264 (libx264))
  Stream #1:0 -> #0:1 (copy)
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
[swscaler @ 0x7fbad9167600] deprecated pixel format used, make sure you did set range correctly
[libx264 @ 0x7fbad9040400] using SAR=2681/2679
dyld: lazy symbol binding failed: Symbol not found: ____chkstk_darwin
  Referenced from: /Applications/RenderTune.app/Contents/Resources/ffmpeg
  Expected in: /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib

dyld: Symbol not found: ____chkstk_darwin
  Referenced from: /Applications/RenderTune.app/Contents/Resources/ffmpeg
  Expected in: /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib

    at makeError (/Applications/Render…eca/lib/error.js:59)
    at handlePromise (/Applications/Render…/execa/index.js:114)
    at async file:/Applicat…js/newindex.js:1323

These files will render fine on windows/linux and recent mac versions. In order to package ffmpeg in my electron app on mac computers I had to build a custom sandboxed version with no dynamically linked libraries. I have a.sh file that automatically downloads ffmpeg and builds it with all the necessary flags for mac computers. https://github.com/MartinBarker/RenderTune/blob/master/buildffmpeg.sh Inside this.sh file is where I compile ffmpeg using these flags:

./configure \
    --pkgconfigdir="$WORKSPACE/lib/pkgconfig" \
    --prefix=${WORKSPACE} \
    --pkg-config-flags="--static" \
    --extra-cflags="-I$WORKSPACE/include -mmacosx-version-min=${MACOS_MIN}" \
    --extra-ldflags="-L$WORKSPACE/lib -mmacosx-version-min=${MACOS_MIN}" \
    --extra-libs="-lpthread -lm" \
        --enable-static \
        --disable-securetransport \
        --disable-debug \
        --disable-shared \
        --disable-ffplay \
        --disable-lzma \
        --disable-doc \
        --enable-version3 \
        --enable-pthreads \
        --enable-runtime-cpudetect \
        --enable-avfilter \
        --enable-filters \
        --disable-libxcb \
        --enable-gpl \
        --enable-nonfree \
        --disable-libass \
        --enable-libfdk-aac \
        --enable-libmp3lame \
        --enable-libx264 

If I try to run this script in my High Sierra VM, it fails with this message:

Unknown option "-extra-libs=-lpthread"

if I remove that flag it fails with a different message:

Unknown option "--enable-static"

I need this flag in order to release my electron app on the mac apple store, can anyone help me compile a static version of ffmpeg that works on old versions like High Sierra 10.13 as well as works on modern mac os systems?

Answer 1

You'll need multiple versions if you are supporting multiple OSes and their various versions. I successfully compiled FFmpeg on High Sierra 10.13 by compiling AdoptOpenJDK and then compiling FFmpeg 2.8 . I used homebrew manually and will now automate it to use network requests to download static versions.