Azure server not letting me use a NuGet package - azure

Question

I have a website hosted by Azure that includes a Web API which I'm using to develop an android app. I'm trying to upload a media file to the server where it's encoded by a media encoder and saved to a path. The encoder library is called "Media Toolkit" which I found here : https://www.nuget.org/packages/MediaToolkit/1.0.0.3
My server side code looks like this:
[HttpPost]
[Route("upload")]
public async Task<HttpResponseMessage> Upload(uploadFileModel model)
{
var result = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK);
if (ModelState.IsValid)
{
string thumbname = "";
string resizedthumbname = Guid.NewGuid() + "_yt.jpg";
string FfmpegPath = Encoding_Settings.FFMPEGPATH;
string tempFilePath = Path.Combine(HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/video"), model.fileName);
string pathToFiles = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/video");
string pathToThumbs = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/contents/member/" + model.username + "/thumbs");
string finalPath = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/contents/member/" + model.username + "/flv");
string resizedthumb = Path.Combine(pathToThumbs, resizedthumbname);
var outputPathVid = new MediaFile { Filename = Path.Combine(finalPath, model.fileName) };
var inputPathVid = new MediaFile { Filename = Path.Combine(pathToFiles, model.fileName) };
int maxWidth = 380;
int maxHeight = 360;
var namewithoutext = Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(Path.Combine(pathToFiles, model.fileName));
thumbname = model.VideoThumbName;
string oldthumbpath = Path.Combine(pathToThumbs, thumbname);
var fileName = model.fileName;
try
{
File.WriteAllBytes(tempFilePath, model.data);
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
}
using (var engine = new Engine())
{
engine.GetMetadata(inputPathVid);
// Saves the frame located on the 15th second of the video.
var outputPathThumb = new MediaFile { Filename = Path.Combine(pathToThumbs, thumbname + ".jpg") };
var options = new ConversionOptions { Seek = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0), CustomHeight = 360, CustomWidth = 380 };
engine.GetThumbnail(inputPathVid, outputPathThumb, options);
}
Image image = Image.FromFile(Path.Combine(pathToThumbs, thumbname + ".jpg"));
//var ratioX = (double)maxWidth / image.Width;
//var ratioY = (double)maxHeight / image.Height;
//var ratio = Math.Min(ratioX, ratioY);
var newWidth = (int)(maxWidth);
var newHeight = (int)(maxHeight);
var newImage = new Bitmap(newWidth, newHeight);
Graphics.FromImage(newImage).DrawImage(image, 0, 0, newWidth, newHeight);
Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap(newImage);
bmp.Save(Path.Combine(pathToThumbs, thumbname + "_resized.jpg"));
//File.Delete(Path.Combine(pathToThumbs, thumbname));
using (var engine = new Engine())
{
var conversionOptions = new ConversionOptions
{
VideoSize = VideoSize.Hd720,
AudioSampleRate = AudioSampleRate.Hz44100,
VideoAspectRatio = VideoAspectRatio.Default
};
engine.GetMetadata(inputPathVid);
engine.Convert(inputPathVid, outputPathVid, conversionOptions);
}
File.Delete(tempFilePath);
Video_Struct vd = new Video_Struct();
vd.CategoryID = 0; // store categoryname or term instead of category id
vd.Categories = "";
vd.UserName = model.username;
vd.Title = "";
vd.Description = "";
vd.Tags = "";
vd.Duration = inputPathVid.Metadata.Duration.ToString();
vd.Duration_Sec = Convert.ToInt32(inputPathVid.Metadata.Duration.Seconds.ToString());
vd.OriginalVideoFileName = model.fileName;
vd.VideoFileName = model.fileName;
vd.ThumbFileName = thumbname + "_resized.jpg";
vd.isPrivate = 0;
vd.AuthKey = "";
vd.isEnabled = 1;
vd.Response_VideoID = 0; // video responses
vd.isResponse = 0;
vd.isPublished = 1;
vd.isReviewed = 1;
vd.Thumb_Url = "none";
//vd.FLV_Url = flv_url;
vd.Embed_Script = "";
vd.isExternal = 0; // website own video, 1: embed video
vd.Type = 0;
vd.YoutubeID = "";
vd.isTagsreViewed = 1;
vd.Mode = 0; // filter videos based on website sections
//vd.ContentLength = f_contentlength;
vd.GalleryID = 0;
long videoid = VideoBLL.Process_Info(vd, false);
return result;
}
else
{
throw new HttpResponseException(Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.NotAcceptable, "This request is not properly formatted"));
}
}
When the debugger hits the line using (var engine = new Engine()) I get 500 internal server error thrown. I don't get this error testing it on the iis server. Since it works fine on my local server and not on the azure hosted server, I figured it had to do with the Azure service rather than an error in my code. If so is the case then how would I be able to get around this issue? I don't want to use azure blob storage as it would require a lot of changes to my code. Does anyone have any idea what might be the issue.
Any helpful suggestions are appreciated.

Answer 1

Server.MapPath works differently on Azure WebApps - change to:
string pathToFiles = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~//video");
Also, see this SO post for another approach.