I am getting this error while converting .m4a files to .mp3

Question

I am getting this error while runnthe script as shown

TEST.py

from pydub import AudioSegment
wav_audio = AudioSegment.from_file("Broken Summer.m4a", format="m4a")

wav_audio.export("audio1.mp3", format="mp3")    

The error is as shown below

C:\Python\lib\site-packages\pydub\utils.py:170: RuntimeWarning: Couldn't find ffmpeg or avconv - defaulting to ffmpeg, but may not work
  warn("Couldn't find ffmpeg or avconv - defaulting to ffmpeg, but may not work", RuntimeWarning)
C:\Python\lib\site-packages\pydub\utils.py:198: RuntimeWarning: Couldn't find ffprobe or avprobe - defaulting to ffprobe, but may not work
  warn("Couldn't find ffprobe or avprobe - defaulting to ffprobe, but may not work", RuntimeWarning)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:/Users/karti/Documents/Python Programs/ChatApplication/deezer.py", line 13, in <module>
    wav_audio = AudioSegment.from_file("Broken Summer.m4a", format="m4a")
  File "C:\Python\lib\site-packages\pydub\audio_segment.py", line 685, in from_file
    info = mediainfo_json(orig_file, read_ahead_limit=read_ahead_limit)
  File "C:\Python\lib\site-packages\pydub\utils.py", line 274, in mediainfo_json
    res = Popen(command, stdin=stdin_parameter, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE)
  File "C:\Python\lib\subprocess.py", line 854, in __init__
    self._execute_child(args, executable, preexec_fn, close_fds,
  File "C:\Python\lib\subprocess.py", line 1307, in _execute_child
    hp, ht, pid, tid = _winapi.CreateProcess(executable, args,
FileNotFoundError: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified

Answer 1

I got the solution. If you have installed ffmpeg or ffmpeg-python. Uninstall it. As it will not work Run this command

pip uninstall ffmpeg
pip uninstall ffmpeg-python

Now go to this link https://ffmpeg.org/download.html

Download ffmpeg from here and Install it in C:\ffmpeg Then go to Environment Variables and in Path add a new path as - C:\ffmpeg\bin As this path contains ffmpeg.exe And That's it

Now suppose you have TEST.m4a file that you want to convert to TEST.mp3 Simply Copy and Paste the file name and run the below script. Note: The bewlo .py file should be in the same directory as TEST.m4a or otherwise you will need to add the correct path in 'CurrentFileName' variable Now Simply Create a .py File and paste this code

import subprocess

CurrentFileName = 'TEST.m4a'
FinalFileName = 'TEST.mp3'

try:
    subprocess.call(['ffmpeg', '-i', f'{CurrentFileName}', f'{FinalFileName}'])

except Exception as e:
    print(e)
    print('Error While Converting Audio')

ch = input('Press Enter to Close')

This worked Perfectly for me as I wanted. :) If I was not clear in the answer do let me know here or you can mail me - [email protected]

Answer 2

pip install ffmpeg before the operation.

pip install ffmpeg-python

Answer 3

Even after adding the dependency of ffmpeg most probably the file won't be read. Due to the fact that pydub doesnt read .m4a files. mainly because 'ffmpeg' does not support this type of files through the 'libav' library.

I am having troubles with this as well.