Bash Script -- ffmpeg not being invoked as expected

Question

I'm working on a bash script to convert my music library to ogg* but executing the right command is somehow eluding me. This is the line that should accomplish it:

ffmpeg -i "${file}" -f flac pipe:1 | oggenc - -o "${NEWOGGFILE}"

In fact, if I copy the output of this line, it encodes as expected:

echo "ffmpeg -i \"${file}\" -f flac pipe:1 | oggenc - -o \"${NEWOGGFILE}\""

E.g.:

ffmpeg -i "./Music/Oldies/Sam Cooke/23 Shake.m4a" -f flac pipe:1 | oggenc - -o "/mnt/Primary/Audio_OGG_Cache/./Music/Oldies/Sam Cooke/23 Shake.ogg"

But, when I run the script, ffmpeg gives me error messages, including: Unable to find a suitable output format for 'pipe:1' pipe:1: Invalid argument Parse error, at least 3 arguments were expected, only 1 given in string 'al Warmups/Voice Lessons To Go - V1 Vocalize & Breath/01-05- 123454321.mp3'

So, how is the first line not executing the command if the second line echos it correctly? The complete script is as follows:

#!/bin/bash
pushd "${1}"

find ./ | while read file
do
  BASENAME=`basename "${file}"`
  NEWOGGFILE=${2}`dirname "${file}"`/${BASENAME%.*}.ogg
  NEWFILE=${2}`dirname "${file}"`/${BASENAME}

  # Ignore directories, and don't re-copy existing files.
  if [ ! -d "${file}" ] && [ ! -f "${NEWFILE}" ] && [ ! -f "${NEWOGGFILE}" ]; then
    mkdir -p "`dirname "${NEWFILE}"`"
    # m4a, mp3, and flac get converted
    if [ "${file##*.}" = "flac" ]; then
      oggenc "${file}" -o "${NEWOGGFILE}"
    elif [ "${file##*.}" = "m4a" ] || [ "${file##*.}" = "mp3" ]; then
      ffmpeg -i "${file}" -f flac pipe:1 | oggenc - -o "${NEWOGGFILE}"
    # any other remaining types of files (typically album art) are copied directly.
    else
      cp "${file}" "${NEWFILE}"
    fi
  else
    echo "${NEWFILE}" already exists.
  fi
done

popd

*In a separate, cached directory; don't have a heart attack, audiophiles!

Answer 1

There's something odd going on with the command line - whether it is a file-system problem or something more elementary (like unprintable characters in a directory name).

The error message "Unable to find a suitable output format for pipe:1" is due to the previous "-f flac" being ignored.

I have tried renaming an mp3 to your stated problem filename, and running the script, only to find it was fine (up until oggenc didn't like encoding flac from stdin).

I recommend (as don_crissti suggested) adding -loglevel debug to the command line, and then trying to isolate the files or directories that are causing problems by running the script on a subset of directories to determine what is really going on. (At debug level, ffmpeg even reports what it interpreted the command line as)

Answer 2

the ffmpeg error

Invalid argument Parse error, at least 3 arguments were expected, only 1 given in string

is fixed by adding

ffmpeg -nostdin

by default, ffmpeg is interactive, which is not helpful when scripting ffmpeg

see also How to force ffmpeg into non-interactive mode