Error Thrown:
ERROR: Postprocessing: ffmpeg not found. Please install or provide the path using --ffmpeg-location
Context: macOS Big Sur M1 Chip, using the open video downloader program GitHub release or Homebrew. This specifically was thrown at the end of downloading the video file and the audio file from a given URL. The two files remained separate as a result of the error, the video was playable normally, but audio was in a .webm format (unusable for most people).
Analysis: It is clear that a dependency is missing, or its path cannot be located. For macOS users like me, the first step after checking the app's preferences for a path set or dependency download function is to check for the given dependency in the system. Once checking using Homebrew, it became clear that several dependencies were missing.
Solution: Use a package manager like Homebrew to install the following in order of appearance below:
For people that are new to Homebrew, you need to run these commands or your Terminal app:
brew install ffmpeg
brew install youtube-dl
If you are told that these packages exist then please update them using the upgrade command
brew upgrade youtube-dl
brew upgrade ffmpeg