Conflict with ffmpeg-kit-react-native

[RemyNtshaykolo]

❗ FFmpeg library conflict between react-native-audio-api (FFmpeg 7) and ffmpeg-kit-react-native (FFmpeg 6)

Hi,
First of all, thank you for the work on react-native-audio-api — this issue appears when I use your library together with ffmpeg-kit-react-native.

I'm trying to use react-native-audio-api alongside ffmpeg-kit-react-native, but since 2025 the official ffmpeg-kit binaries are no longer available, I downloaded alternative binaries from another repository, following these resources:

• https://medium.com/@nooruddinlakhani/resolved-ffmpegkit-retirement-issue-in-react-native-a-complete-guide-0f54b113b390
• https://gist.github.com/tobobo/c251ddefcba8b97ec8f44fca57fb281e

I created a minimal repo that reproduces the behavior:
👉 https://github.com/RemyNtshaykolo/react-native-audo-api-ffmpeg

---

🧪 How to reproduce

On branch ffmpeg-lib-conflict, run:

yarn
yarn pc          # prebuild
yarn i-17        # install on iPhone 17 simulator

💥 Error during prebuild (pod install)

I get the following CocoaPods conflict:

The 'Pods-reactnativeaudioapiffmpeg' target has frameworks with conflicting names:
libavcodec.xcframework, libavformat.xcframework, libavutil.xcframework, libswresample.xcframework

This happens because:

• react-native-audio-api includes FFmpeg 7 xcframeworks
• ffmpeg-kit-react-native includes FFmpeg 6 xcframeworks with the same names

Both libraries try to provide identically named FFmpeg frameworks → CocoaPods detects conflicting frameworks.

---

🛠️ Attempted fix

I did not modify anything inside react-native-audio-api itself.

Instead, on another branch (ffmpeg-lib-update), I edited the ffmpeg-kit-plugin.js script used by ffmpeg-kit-react-native, which patches the ffmpeg-kit podspec, and removed the overlapping FFmpeg 6 frameworks there:

  s.vendored_frameworks = [
      'ffmpeg-kit-ios-full-gpl-latest/.../libswscale.xcframework',
-     'ffmpeg-kit-ios-full-gpl-latest/.../libswresample.xcframework',
-     'ffmpeg-kit-ios-full-gpl-latest/.../libavutil.xcframework',
-     'ffmpeg-kit-ios-full-gpl-latest/.../libavformat.xcframework',
      'ffmpeg-kit-ios-full-gpl-latest/.../libavfilter.xcframework',
      'ffmpeg-kit-ios-full-gpl-latest/.../libavdevice.xcframework',
-     'ffmpeg-kit-ios-full-gpl-latest/.../libavcodec.xcframework',
      'ffmpeg-kit-ios-full-gpl-latest/.../ffmpegkit.xcframework'
    ]

Then:

yarn
yarn pc
yarn i-17

→ Pod install succeeds and the project builds.

---

❌ But the app crashes on launch

When I open the app on iOS, it immediately crashes:

Symbol not found: _av_opt_set_chlayout
Referenced from: .../reactnativeaudioapiffmpeg.debug.dylib
Expected in: .../Frameworks/libavfilter.framework/libavfilter

---

🔍 Root cause (as far as I understand)

• react-native-audio-api bundles FFmpeg 7.x
• ffmpeg-kit-react-native is built on FFmpeg 6.0

By removing some of the FFmpeg 6 libraries from the ffmpeg-kit podspec:

• ffmpeg-kit-react-native ends up being linked at runtime against the FFmpeg 7 frameworks provided by react-native-audio-api
• FFmpeg 7 introduces breaking API changes (e.g. _av_opt_set_chlayout) compared to FFmpeg 6
  → some symbols expected by ffmpeg-kit are missing in the FFmpeg 7 libs
  → runtime crash at app startup

---

❓ Question

Since react-native-audio-api uses FFmpeg under the hood, I’d like to know if you have already run into this kind of situation when:

• using react-native-audio-api together with ffmpeg-kit-react-native, or
• combining react-native-audio-api with another library that also ships its own FFmpeg frameworks.

More specifically:

• Have you ever seen this FFmpeg version conflict before with react-native-audio-api + ffmpeg-kit-react-native?
  • If yes, how did you (or other users) resolve it?
• If not, do you have any idea or recommendation on how this could be solved?

Any guidance or suggestions would be greatly appreciated

[michalsek]

Hey, in theory you could try to build FFmpeg 6 and try to link it against react-native-audio-api

here is our helper repository, that you might want to check out as a base: https://github.com/software-mansion-labs/rn-audio-libs/blob/main/ffmpeg_setup.sh

if successfully built, you can then patch the script that fetches them and replace with your own version
https://github.com/software-mansion/react-native-audio-api/blob/main/packages/react-native-audio-api/scripts/download-prebuilt-binaries.sh

but we can't guarantee we don't use any FFmpeg 7.x specific API

Another possibility is that we could finish setup for no-ffmpeg / no-external libs builds of react-native-audio-api, if the drawback of limited decoding formats is ok for you

We are slowly going towards this anyway :)

[RemyNtshaykolo]

Hey, in theory you could try to build FFmpeg 6 and try to link it against react-native-audio-api

here is our helper repository, that you might want to check out as a base: https://github.com/software-mansion-labs/rn-audio-libs/blob/main/ffmpeg_setup.sh

if successfully built, you can then patch the script that fetches them and replace with your own version https://github.com/software-mansion/react-native-audio-api/blob/main/packages/react-native-audio-api/scripts/download-prebuilt-binaries.sh

but we can't guarantee we don't use any FFmpeg 7.x specific API

Another possibility is that we could finish setup for no-ffmpeg / no-external libs builds of react-native-audio-api, if the drawback of limited decoding formats is ok for you

We are slowly going towards this anyway :)

Thank you for the insights that was very useful

[mdydek]

option for no ffmpeg build will be added in #813