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Fix PyInstaller LD_LIBRARY_PATH contamination breaking FFmpeg on Linux - #766

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cdgriffith merged 9 commits into
cdgriffith:developfrom
anne-o-pixel:patch-2
Oct 21, 2026
Merged

cdgriffith merged 9 commits into
cdgriffith:developfrom
anne-o-pixel:patch-2

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@anne-o-pixel

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When running from a PyInstaller-built binary (e.g. the fastflix-bin AUR package), FFmpeg fails to launch with:
/usr/bin/ffmpeg: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libass.so.9: undefined symbol: FcConfigSetDefaultSubstitute

PyInstaller sets LD_LIBRARY_PATH to its bundled library directory at startup.

When FastFlix spawns /usr/bin/ffmpeg as a subprocess, FFmpeg inherits this contaminated path and loads the bundled libass.so (built for Ubuntu 24.04) instead of the system one, causing a symbol mismatch with the system fontconfig.

This affects any Linux distribution where the system library versions differ from those bundled in the PyInstaller binary.


Added a clean_env() helper in fastflix/shared.py that strips LD_LIBRARY_PATH from the environment when running in a frozen PyInstaller app.

This is applied to all subprocess calls (run, Popen) that invoke FFmpeg, FFprobe, or related tools

Add clean_env function to remove LD_LIBRARY_PATH from environment.
Added clean_env() to subprocess calls for feature checks.
Updated the run method to include a clean environment for subprocesses.
Pass cleaned environment to subprocess run for thumbnail generation.
Updated thumbnail generation to use a cleaned environment.
Updated thumbnail generation to use a cleaned environment.
@kode54

kode54 commented Aug 24, 2026

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Verified independently that this PR fixes the latest version on Arch. Arch's native built AUR package is still broken, but that's not your problem to deal with, unless you want to take that on as well.

@cdgriffith
cdgriffith changed the base branch from master to develop October 21, 2026 01:08
* Resolve shared.py conflict with the Go launcher detection added on develop
* Move clean_env to the Qt-free fastflix.resources (re-exported from fastflix.shared) so the conversion
  worker process does not import PySide6
* Restore PyInstaller's LD_LIBRARY_PATH_ORIG instead of always dropping LD_LIBRARY_PATH
* Apply clean_env to hdr10plus_tool calls, the crop preview retry, HDR10+ inject and xdg-open
* Add tests and changelog entry

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
@cdgriffith
cdgriffith merged commit 2cf808f into cdgriffith:develop Oct 21, 2026
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@cdgriffith cdgriffith mentioned this pull request Oct 21, 2026
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3 participants