Question

Unexpected error: No such file or directory: 'ffprobe', while using pydub in Digital Ocean

I have an app that processes audio files and converts them to ‘wav’ format. This works locally on my Mac, however in DigitalOcean, when recording audio, i get the below error, followed by a 500:

warn("Couldn't find ffprobe or avprobe - defaulting to ffprobe, but may not work", RuntimeWarning) Unexpected error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'ffprobe'

Not sure why this error arises because pydub works correctly when I run the application locally


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Bobby Iliev
Site Moderator
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May 13, 2025

Hey there,

That error means ffprobe isn’t installed on your DigitalOcean server.

It works locally because your Mac has it by default, but for Droplets, you’ll need to install it manually.

Just SSH into your Droplet and run:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install ffmpeg -y

That’ll install both ffmpeg and ffprobe, and your pydub audio processing should work just like it does locally.

Let me know if you’re still getting errors after that!

- Bobby

KFSys
Site Moderator
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May 13, 2025

Heya,

The error you’re seeing on your DigitalOcean server:

Unexpected error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'ffprobe'

means that the pydub library is trying to use ffprobe to process audio files, but ffprobe (a tool that comes with ffmpeg) is not installed on your DigitalOcean server.

Run the following commands on your droplet:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ffmpeg -y

This will install both ffmpeg and ffprobe, and pydub will then be able to use them.

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