Adapt Learning Community: ffmpeg installation not working

I have installed Adapt on a system to try it out and generally it works with two exceptions,one of which is that ffmpeg isn't working. I believe it is used to display the asset manager thumbnails.
My design colleague who is putting Adapt through its paces would like the thumbnails viewable.

I downloaded the ffmpeg zip package,unzipped it, copied it to the user location and then in the Environment Variables added the following path to the existing paths:

C:\Users\User Name\AppData\Local\Programs\ffmpeg-win64-static\bin;%PATH%

Can anyone help?

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I had a look at that and the linked article.

Doing stuff with the registry put me off.

When I try:

ffmpeg -h in the command prompt the command is not recognised. But if I navigate to the ffmpeg folder it works, so the command isn't available from all folders.

BTW I also tried adding the path to the System environment variables as well, but that made no difference.

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Made a little progress...

There does seem to be a registry entry.
Haven't changed that.

However I simplified the Environment Variable to just point to the bin directory, rebooted and then tried the ffmpeg -h command.

This time it worked.

So it seems like a problem with the %PATH% parameter at the end that is stopping it working.

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Just realised that %PATH% isn't required if the path is added to the Path environment variable via the Windows interface. It's only needed when using the Command Line option.

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I think I might be going down a dead end with this.

I believe ffmpeg is working now however I am not sure a thumbnail is expected to show for each asset!??!

Below is a screen shot of some of the assets we have 'uploaded' (with the names cropped), I think we were expecting a thumbnail image for each one, however I am aware a 'thumbnail' does appear on the right of the browser window when an asset is selected.

Should each asset icon have a thumbnail even when not selected?

PS - Just seen a video of Adapt being used which does show icons for each asset. So I still have a problem.
I'm guessing it is now that Adapt isn't picking up the path set in the environmental variables.

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Yes it should be showing thumbnails of the uploaded asset. Looks like it hasn't been installed properly as yet.

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I have run out of ideas getting it working with Adapt.
ffmpeg -h works fine from the command line no matter which directory i'm in.
This also suggests the Path is set correctly.

The only user on this system is admin, so it should be available to Adapt.

Can't see any javascript errors being reported by the browser in the developers console.

Is there anything I can check in Adapt to make the problem more visible?
Such as checking something in Chromes developers tools??

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I have found that I had Node 7.2.1 installed. Thought I had 8.12.0 installed, so have used Nodist to download the latest stable version, rebooted and checked again. It's now running 8.12.0, but the result is no different. Got the same problem.

Will check other software versions.

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Any thumbnail created before ffmpeg is installed will not be shown, if installed correct, after restart, they should.

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Ah thanks for that important info. Hope it helps others.

Unfortunately before I saw your reply I decided to re-install Adapt, I hope now I'm not making things worse!

I'll just have to see how it goes.

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Reading Briar Angs post about Adapt installation - It triggered a thought in my little brain - I think in the list of inputs at installation time I and my colleague decided to answer NO for the ffmpeg installation, because it was optional.

I'm guessing that although we subsequently decided to install it, Adapt has a flag set somewhere to say it isn't installed.

I'll try re-installing Adapt and answer YES this time.

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Finally got ffmpeg working and the thumbnails now appear.

To sum up:

Be sure to install the correct version of Node.
Install Grunt.
Make sure you say yes to ffmpeg installation when asked in the Adapt installation process.

Also you can set the Path for the ffmpeg via System Control Panel (Windows 10), instead of using Setx.

System Control Panel > Advanced System Settings > Advanced > Environment Variables... > System variables > Path > Edit

Remember to only add the path from drive letter to the ffmpeg folder and don't include ;%PATH% at the end.

(Don't replace any existing paths in the Path environment variable, just add a new path to the existing list in the variable for ffmpeg)

Finally I think John Niezen made an important point about thumbnails only appearing after ffmpeg is installed and Adapt is run again, previously uploaded media won't show up as thumbnails.

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