Won't Build on Ubuntu 13.10 x64

[161chihuahuas]

I have been trying for days to get Node-Webkit to build, so that I can create a custom version of libffmpegsumo.so to enable support for h.264 video.

I followed the instructions here in the wiki page several times. I had to modify the build_install_deps.sh, to allow me to run it on 13.10 since the version is not included in the supported list. This was fine, I just had to install some packages manually.

Syncing using gclient and ./build/gyp_chromium content/content.gyp both complete successfully.

I modify the the lines in build_ffmpeg.sh as you state in the wiki ...

add_flag_common --enable-decoder=aac,h264,mp3
add_flag_common --enable-demuxer=mp3,mov
add_flag_common --enable-parser=aac,h264,mpegaudio

Then I run the build using ninja:

ninja -C out/Release nw -j4

It does it's thing and get almost completely finished before it dies at:

cc1plus: all warnings being treated as errors
[9268/9901] CXX obj/content/browser/accessibil...ontent_browser.browser_accessibility_manager.o
ninja: build stopped: subcommand failed.

Now, even though I don't get the nw executable from this, it does in fact give me libffmpegsumo.so, so I figured I should be able to use this with the latest pre-built binary.

Nope. It behaves exactly as before. I tried numerous times with numerous different versions of Chrome and Chromium, just taking their copy of libffmpegsumo.so, but when I use theirs, my app simply crashes after about 2 seconds with no output.

This is a showstopper for me and it's extremely frustrating, because I have read the Node-Webkit documentation and the referenced Chromium documentation up and down to try and get this to work and I am at a complete loss. 😓

What am I missing? Or where can I acquire a proper working copy of libffmpegsumo.so for the lastest version of node-webkit that includes the GPL licensed h.264 and mp3 support?

Your help is very much appreciated!

[161chihuahuas]

I realized that I had not enabled the resource loader's support in src/net/base/mime_util.cc, so I went back through and added the proprietary codecs to the list of common codec (I assume this is what I'm supposed to do here):

// A list of media types: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_media_type
// A comprehensive mime type list: http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/winmime.php
// This set of codecs is supported by all variations of Chromium.
static const char* const common_media_types[] = {
  // Ogg.
  "audio/ogg",
  "application/ogg",
#if !defined(OS_ANDROID)  // Android doesn't support Ogg Theora.
  "video/ogg",
#endif

  // WebM.
  "video/webm",
  "audio/webm",

  // Wav.
  "audio/wav",
  "audio/x-wav",

  // MPEG-4.
  "video/mp4",
  "video/x-m4v",
  "audio/mp4",
  "audio/x-m4a",

  // MP3.
  "audio/mp3",
  "audio/x-mp3",
  "audio/mpeg",
};

...

// List of supported codecs when passed in with <source type="...">.
// This set of codecs is supported by all variations of Chromium.
//
// Refer to http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/Video_type_parameters#Browser_Support
// for more information.
//
// The codecs for WAV are integers as defined in Appendix A of RFC2361:
// http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2361
static const char* const common_media_codecs[] = {
#if !defined(OS_ANDROID)  // Android doesn't support Ogg Theora.
  "theora",
  "vp9",  // TODO(tomfinegan): Move vp9 back down with vp8 once VP9 is supported
          // on Android. https://crbug.com/285016
#endif
  "vorbis",
  "vp8",
  "1",  // WAVE_FORMAT_PCM.
  "avc1",
  "mp4a"
};

So, I (maybe incorrectly) assume this should give me what I want since I made the corresponding changes to build_ffmpeg.sh. But still, I always receive this error:

[9268/9901] CXX obj/content/browser/accessibil...ontent_browser.browser_accessibility_manager.o
ninja: build stopped: subcommand failed.

Every time I try to build, without fail. Has anyone else experienced this?

[161chihuahuas]

also worth noting that i receive this error with or without modification to the source.

... sorry for the comment barrage.

[161chihuahuas]

Update:
I was able to get a successful build after disabling the -Werror flag in /src/build/common.gypi on line 2768.

From

# Enable -Werror by default, but put it in a variable so it can
# be disabled in ~/.gyp/include.gypi on the valgrind builders.
  'variables': {
    'werror%': '-Werror',
    'libraries_for_target%': '',
}

...to...

# Enable -Werror by default, but put it in a variable so it can
# be disabled in ~/.gyp/include.gypi on the valgrind builders.
  'variables': {
    'werror%': '',
    'libraries_for_target%': '',
}

It successfully runs my application, but unfortunately I'm faced with still no playback of mp4 files. Now that I (somehow) have a successful build, I suppose I have missed something that needs to be adjusted differently.

I think I've reached a dead end here. 😒

[rogerwang]

The instructions need to be updated: you need to patch the ffmpeg repo (or define the branding gyp variable to Chrome, didn't try it)

diff --git a/ffmpeg.gyp b/ffmpeg.gyp
index ac059f0..1b0424c 100644
--- a/ffmpeg.gyp
+++ b/ffmpeg.gyp
@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@
       ['chromeos == 1', {
         'ffmpeg_branding%': '<(branding)OS',
       }, {  # otherwise, assume Chrome/Chromium.
-        'ffmpeg_branding%': '<(branding)',
+        'ffmpeg_branding%': 'Chrome',
       }],
     ],

and follow Short Directions in README.chromium (might be optional)

[161chihuahuas]

@rogerwang thanks so much, I will give it a shot!

[kirkegaard]

@gordonwritescode Did you ever figure this one out? I have a build that will play h264 video but not aac audio. Im not sure if aac is something different or included in the mpeg4 codec?

[161chihuahuas]

@kirkegaard I never did get back around to aac support :( sorry

[xaiki]

it looks like you don't need to build all of chrome/chromium/node-webkit for this
you can ninja -C out/Release ffmpeg

I'm getting a lot smaller libffmpegsumo.so that seems to be lacking symbols from the Debian distributed one.

@xaiki: The reason for this is that in recent commits to Chromium they have moved from using FFMpeg to decode AAC to a embedded AAC decoder; hence why there are so many symbols missing

[kirkegaard]

Oh so that might be the reason why i can get h264 to work but not aac, since its not in the ffmpegsumo file anymore? Would it be possible to update the library included in node-webkit so we at least can have aac support?

@kirkegaard: I'm working on a full ffmpeg compile now for node-webkit. Should appear in a fork very soon.

[kirkegaard]

@Xeoncore That would be amazing! Thank you!

@kirkegaard: First comes porting in AAC, AC3 and H264/265. Once thats done and works, I'll move on to supporting some new containers like AVI. Theoretically Chrome already supports XviD because all XviD is is a MPEG4

[xaiki]

@Xeoncore i'm working on the exact same thing !