# Problem installing Plots.jl (a FFMPEG issue)

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766>\
**Category:** New to Julia\
**Tags:** package\
**Created:** [September 14, 2019, 7:30pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766 "2019-09-14T19:30:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![aerdely](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/aerdely/32/37506_2.png) [@aerdely](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/aerdely)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 7:30pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/1 "2019-09-14T19:30:05Z")

</div>

After

```julia
import Pkg
Pkg.add("Plots")
Pkg.add("GR")
using Plots

```

I get the message:

FFMPEG not installed properly, run `] build FFMPEG`, restart Julia and try again

which I already did, but didn’t work. Any suggestions?

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**Author:** ![fredrikekre](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/fredrikekre/32/1688_2.png) [@fredrikekre](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/fredrikekre)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 7:47pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/2 "2019-09-14T19:47:50Z")

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What system are you on?

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**Author:** ![aerdely](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/aerdely/32/37506_2.png) [@aerdely](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/aerdely)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 7:48pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/4 "2019-09-14T19:48:54Z")

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It’s Windows 10

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**Author:** ![aerdely](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/aerdely/32/37506_2.png) [@aerdely](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/aerdely)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2019, 10:10pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/5 "2019-09-17T22:10:18Z")

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Ok, got it: nobody cares 😒

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**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2019, 6:04am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/6 "2019-09-18T06:04:27Z")

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Please note that not many here have access to a Windows machine, so it is harder to debug these things.

I would recommend that you open an issue for FFMPEG, but first check that it is not

[https://github.com/JuliaIO/FFMPEG.jl/issues/14](https://github.com/JuliaIO/FFMPEG.jl/issues/14)

Also, please don’t react like this just because your issue was not addressed promptly. Remember that this is open source software, and the other contributors are volunteering their time. If you invest your time in getting to the bottom of this issue, or providing a PR, it could be fixed quicker.

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**Author:** ![mkborregaard](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mkborregaard/32/556_2.png) [@mkborregaard](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mkborregaard)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2019, 6:32am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/7 "2019-09-18T06:32:31Z")

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This should not happen - I don’t know if it’s a change to the testing infrastructure in Plots, but Plots installation should not require you to have FFMPEG installed. Creating animations will, though.  
A solution to your problems right now would be to just install ffmpeg from here: [Download FFmpeg](https://ffmpeg.org/download.html) , which will allow you to do animations too.  
But we should find out what the actual problem is.  
The ideal solution would be to have ffmpeg be a binary defendency of Plots via BinaryBuilder but that’s tricky, or was the last time I checked.

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**Author:** ![mkborregaard](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mkborregaard/32/556_2.png) [@mkborregaard](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mkborregaard)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2019, 6:33am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/8 "2019-09-18T06:33:47Z")

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cf [https://github.com/JuliaPlots/Plots.jl/issues/2184](https://github.com/JuliaPlots/Plots.jl/issues/2184)

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**Author:** ![sdanisch](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/sdanisch/32/1406_2.png) [@sdanisch](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sdanisch)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2019, 9:09am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/9 "2019-09-18T09:09:45Z")

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Can you try `add FFMPEG#sd-download; build FFMPEG` ?

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**Author:** ![pfitzseb](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/pfitzseb/32/45566_2.png) [@pfitzseb](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/pfitzseb)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2019, 11:55am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/10 "2019-09-18T11:55:12Z")

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FWIW, I’ve seen that error a couple of times when trying to build documentation for packages that use Plots (but don’t necessarily have any animations). Haven’t really had time to debug this yet though.

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**Author:** ![aerdely](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/aerdely/32/37506_2.png) [@aerdely](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/aerdely)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 11:03pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/11 "2019-09-22T23:03:03Z")

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Thanks for your comments and suggestions. Nothing of the above worked out. I decided to quit trying to install `Plots.jl` since everything works fine with `Gadfly.jl` 🙂

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mkborregaard](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mkborregaard/32/556_2.png) [@mkborregaard](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mkborregaard)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2019, 6:45am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/12 "2019-09-23T06:45:54Z")

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If you’re happy with Gadfly then that’s great. Of course though no one should have any problems installing Plots, so it would be great if you can assist with the troubleshooting here. I’ve never seen this error myself so it’s nice to have an example from the wild. What happened Wyken you followed Simons suggestion from above?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![aerdely](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/aerdely/32/37506_2.png) [@aerdely](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/aerdely)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2019, 2:58pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/13 "2019-09-23T14:58:51Z")

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This is what I get:

 ![FFMPEG_error1](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/4/b/4bf27b973866c856102bc613508b648be92f6b32.png)  
and this:  
 ![FFMPEG_error2](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/3/5/3545f8f27c400a5c86e6dfc114ed940c9212ec05.png)  
and tried to build FFMPEG as suggested in the output and restart Julia but didn’t work either.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![staticfloat](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/staticfloat/32/34_2.png) [@staticfloat](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/staticfloat)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2019, 7:13am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/14 "2019-09-24T07:13:50Z")

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@aerdely; it looks to me like you’re having issues downloading things; your `curl` command has failed with a message about checking certificate revocation. Additionally, your Julia installation is using `C:\WINDOWS\System32\curl.exe`, which is a little unusual, usually we choose powershell on Windows, since it’s more typical for that to be available instead of `curl`.

Most likely, you have both a broken `powershell` _and_ `curl` installation on your system. Could you verify that one or the other actually works outside of Julia? If neither works outside of Julia, then you will just need to reinstall powershell for your version of Windows first, and then try again.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![aerdely](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/aerdely/32/37506_2.png) [@aerdely](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/aerdely)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2019, 5:01pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/15 "2019-09-24T17:01:32Z")

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I installed Julia through `julia-1.2.0-win64.exe` file, and accepted all the defaults from its wizard. I’ll check if I can modify the defaults or reinstall `curl` and/or `powershell`. Thank you.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mkborregaard](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mkborregaard/32/556_2.png) [@mkborregaard](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mkborregaard)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2019, 5:54pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/16 "2019-09-24T17:54:25Z")

</div>

Neither curl or powershell are installed by julia - but julia will assume you have (one of) them installed. So if powershell is broken in your system install, you will get problems with any julia package that has a binary (rather than source) dependency.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![js135005](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/js135005/32/8219_2.png) [@js135005](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/js135005)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2019, 7:27pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/17 "2019-09-24T19:27:30Z")

</div>

One other consideration is that on Windows, building FFMPEG (and some other packages) won’t work unless launched from something with administrative privileges. I do my package installs and updates from the REPL and I have changed the shortcut to the REPL to launch with “run as administrator”.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BeastyBlacksmith](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/beastyblacksmith/32/4741_2.png) [@BeastyBlacksmith](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/BeastyBlacksmith)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 1:23pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/18 "2019-09-26T13:23:15Z")

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I seem to run into a similar issue:

```julia
shell> ffmpeg -version
ffmpeg: symbol lookup error: /lib64/libvmaf.so.0: undefined symbol: _ZNSt7__cxx1119basic_ostringstreamIcSt11char_traitsIcESaIcEEC1Ev

shell> which ffmpeg
/usr/bin/ffmpeg

(v1.1) pkg> build FFMPEG
  Building FFMPEG → `~/.julia/packages/FFMPEG/bkWgb/deps/build.log`
┌ Error: Error building `FFMPEG`: 
│ ERROR: LoadError: Could not download https://github.com/JuliaPackaging/Yggdrasil/releases/download/Bzip2-v1.0.6-2/build_Bzip2.v1.0.6.jl to /usr/home/christ/.julia/packages/FFMPEG/bkWgb/deps/build_Bzip2.v1.0.6.jl:
│ ErrorException("")
│ Stacktrace:
│ [1] error(::String) at ./error.jl:33
│ [2] #download#89(::Bool, ::Function, ::String, ::String) at /usr/home/christ/.julia/packages/BinaryProvider/TcAwt/src/PlatformEngines.jl:498
│ [3] download(::String, ::String) at /usr/home/christ/.julia/packages/BinaryProvider/TcAwt/src/PlatformEngines.jl:485
│ [4] top-level scope at /usr/home/christ/.julia/packages/FFMPEG/bkWgb/deps/build.jl:46
│ [5] include at ./boot.jl:326 [inlined]
│ [6] include_relative(::Module, ::String) at ./loading.jl:1038
│ [7] include(::Module, ::String) at ./sysimg.jl:29
│ [8] include(::String) at ./client.jl:403
│ [9] top-level scope at none:0
│ in expression starting at /usr/home/christ/.julia/packages/FFMPEG/bkWgb/deps/build.jl:44
│ curl: symbol lookup error: curl: undefined symbol: curl_url_cleanup
└ @ Pkg.Operations /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.1/Pkg/src/Operations.jl:1075

julia> versioninfo()
Julia Version 1.1.1
Commit 55e36cc308 (2019-05-16 04:10 UTC)
Platform Info:
  OS: Linux (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
  CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz
  WORD_SIZE: 64
  LIBM: libopenlibm
  LLVM: libLLVM-6.0.1 (ORCJIT, ivybridge)

```

The first line is awkward because in a normal shell I get

```julia
christ@lbox152 deps > which ffmpeg
/usr/bin/ffmpeg
christ@lbox152 deps > ffmpeg -version
ffmpeg version 4.1.4 Copyright (c) 2000-2019 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 9 (GCC)

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sdanisch](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/sdanisch/32/1406_2.png) [@sdanisch](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sdanisch)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 1:40pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/19 "2019-09-26T13:40:54Z")

</div>

Did you try the newest version of FFMPEG?  
It shouldn’t depend on the system ffmpeg, so that should be irrelevant!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BeastyBlacksmith](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/beastyblacksmith/32/4741_2.png) [@BeastyBlacksmith](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/BeastyBlacksmith)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 1:44pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/20 "2019-09-26T13:44:26Z")

</div>

Thats on `FFMPEG v0.2.3` which should be the newest available version for julia 1.1.1 ( since I did a `]up` before).

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BeastyBlacksmith](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/beastyblacksmith/32/4741_2.png) [@BeastyBlacksmith](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/BeastyBlacksmith)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2019, 1:49pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/problem-installing-plots-jl-a-ffmpeg-issue/28766/21 "2019-09-26T13:49:20Z")

</div>

It really seems to be a curl issue, since I get the symbol lookup error also this way:

```julia
shell> curl --version
curl: symbol lookup error: curl: undefined symbol: curl_url_cleanup

```

while it also works on the system shell.

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