[BUG] Transcodes fail with ffmpeg exit code 8

[asandhu3]

Before opening an issue, please confirm:

• The stream works in VLC/another player
• I've read the Browser Codec Support, Supported Stream Types and Troubleshooting sections in the README
• I've tried enabling "Force Proxy" for CORS issues
• I've tried enabling "Force Audio Transcode" for audio codec issues
• I've tried enabling "Force Remux" for video playback issues

Describe the bug
Streams that require transcodes fail with ffmpeg exit code 8. This occurs with both CPU and GPU (nvidia) encoding.

Source Type

• Xtream Codes
• M3U Playlist

Stream Information (if applicable)

• Audio Codec (if known): Unknown
• Video Codec (if known): Unknown

To Reproduce
2. Select channel
3. See error

Expected behavior
Channel plays.

Console/Server Logs

[Probe] Probing: https://*****.m3u8...
[Probe] Failed: ffprobe exited with code 1: [https @ 0x55f95f5e3f00] Stream ends prematurely at 51, should be 18446744073709551615
11:33:03 AM https://*****.m3u8: Input/output error
11:33:03 AM [TranscodeSession ed1bad77fc006644] Starting session for: https://*****.m3u8
11:33:03 AM [TranscodeSession ed1bad77fc006644] Audio: ITU mix (unknown 0ch -> Stereo AAC)
11:33:03 AM[TranscodeSession ed1bad77fc006644] Command: ffmpeg -hide_banner -loglevel warning -user_agent Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/123.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 -probesize 5000000 -analyzeduration 5000000 -fflags +genpts+discardcorrupt -err_detect ignore_err -reconnect 1 -reconnect_streamed 1 -reconnect_delay_max 3 -i https://*****.m3u8 -map 0:v:0 -map 0:a:0? -vf scale=-2:2160 -c:v libx264 -preset veryfast -crf 18 -profile:v high -level 4.1 -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a aac -ar 48000 -b:a 192k -af pan=stereo|FL=FL+0.707*FC+0.707*BL+0.5*LFE|FR=FR+0.707*FC+0.707*BR+0.5*LFE,aresample=async=1 -f hls -hls_time 4 -hls_list_size 0 -hls_flags independent_segments+append_list -hls_segment_type mpegts -hls_segment_filename /app/transcode-cache/ed1bad77fc006644/seg%04d.ts /app/transcode-cache/ed1bad77fc006644/stream.m3u8
11:33:04 AM [FFmpeg ed1bad77fc006644] [in#0 @ 0x55dc51519240] Error opening input: Server returned 4XX Client Error, but not one of 40{0,1,3,4}
11:33:04 AM [FFmpeg ed1bad77fc006644] Error opening input file https://*****.m3u8
11:33:04 AM [FFmpeg ed1bad77fc006644] Error opening input files: Server returned 4XX Client Error, but not one of 40{0,1,3,4}
11:33:04 AM [TranscodeSession ed1bad77fc006644] FFmpeg exited with code 8
11:33:18 AM [TranscodeSession ed1bad77fc006644] Cleaned up session directory
11:33:18 AM [Transcode] Starting transcoding for: https://*****.m3u8
11:33:18 AM [Transcode] Using User-Agent: chrome
11:33:18 AM [Transcode] Using binary: ffmpeg
11:33:18 AM [Transcode] Full command: ffmpeg -hide_banner -loglevel warning -user_agent Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/123.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 -probesize 2000000 -analyzeduration 3000000 -fflags +genpts+discardcorrupt+nobuffer -err_detect ignore_err -max_delay 2000000 -reconnect 1 -reconnect_streamed 1 -reconnect_delay_max 3 -seekable 0 -i https://*****.m3u8 -map 0:v:0 -map 0:a:0? -c:v copy -c:a aac -ar 48000 -b:a 192k -af aresample=async=1:min_hard_comp=0.100000:first_pts=0 -fps_mode passthrough -async 1 -max_muxing_queue_size 2048 -f mp4 -movflags frag_keyframe+empty_moov+default_base_moof+faststart -flush_packets 1 -
11:33:19 AM [FFmpeg] [in#0 @ 0x559aa7dff080] Error opening input: Server returned 4XX Client Error, but not one of 40{0,1,3,4}
11:33:19 AM Error opening input file https://*****.m3u8.
11:33:19 AM Error opening input files: Server returned 4XX Client Error, but not one of 40{0,1,3,4}
11:33:19 AM [Transcode] FFmpeg exited with code 8

Environment

• Deployment: Docker
• OS: Debian
• Browser: Firefox

[tsuharesu]

Just wanted to share how I solved this on my end in case anyone else runs into it while trying to run nodecast-tv inside WSL 2.
My error started different from OP, but with the same FFmpeg error in the end:

[FFmpeg ae1610608a029971] Unrecognized option 'rc'.
[FFmpeg ae1610608a029971] Error splitting the argument list: Option not found
[TranscodeSession ae1610608a029971] FFmpeg exited with code 8

This usually happens because the bundled static FFmpeg binary doesn't map correctly to the WSL 2 hardware virtualization layer, causing it to choke on specific rate control (-rc) arguments meant for GPU acceleration.

How I Fixed It

1. Install FFmpeg directly in your WSL distro (e.g., Ubuntu):

sudo apt update && sudo apt install ffmpeg -y

2. Point the app to the system binary:
   Create a .env file at the root of the project with:

FFMPEG_PATH=/usr/bin/ffmpeg

After restarting the app, everything works flawlessly!