Is VLC whacky or what?

[homerscousin]

This is more informational than a question. For the last month or more I have had problems with screen blanking every 10 minutes and sound not starting for maybe 30 seconds when a video is played. Pausing a video would delay the sound once it got going. I had Dolphin open once a good month ago just deleting files from my download folder. Right click, delete, one file at a time. After a dozen or so files the screen went blank for a second or 2, back on, off for 3, on for 10, off for 1 etc. Just random. I did my searching, adjusted every setting I could find, tried different combos and still the problem was there. So I started paying attention to the apps I had open for a pattern. It came down to Dolphin, Firefox, VLC, and Kaffeine I had open prior to screen blanking. Well, I quit using VLC about 10 days ago and have had 0 problems since. I know VLC has an advanced button for preferences and I think I tried anything obvious. Didn't help. Whenever I opened and used VLC and then closed it it seemed to affect system settings. And it wasn't limited to screen blanking at 10 minutes. I also had a video playing once and blank time was 30 seconds, and another at 4 seconds. VLC also does not want to run a playlist in order(for me anyway). I found a checkbox in the advanced settings titled something like 'play files randomly forever' and thought AH HA, problem solved. I unchecked it, clicked save, closed the app and reopend it. Tried playing a DVD again and it is still random. Checked the settings and that particular box is checked again. I could not uncheck it and get it to stick. I don't know people. I kinda don't care now. I just don't use VLC any more. Kaffeine works fine.

Has anyone seen similar effects?

[homerscousin]

Just a quick update. I haven't touched VLC in about 2 weeks now. Computer uptime is now over 9 days. No problems at all.

[hassan]

hmm. interesting. i always had troubles with using VLC. that is why i prefer to use GOM player. i am not sure if there a linuz version for gom player. i use windows 7 and ubuntu 12.04 at the moment

[DrHu]

I have usually found VLC to be pretty good, except in pulseaudio I sometimes was getting scratchy audio (changing the sound card settings improved it, output method...), video (movies) was OK

The only thing I would immediately suggest for any misbehaving application is..

• Set the app for defaults, in initially and test
• Whenever you make an application change, you might want to re-login (to get a fresh session for running that application
  --not always necessary, but you never know when it is, so it is good practice..
• Assign more RAM to the application
  --that helps with OpenOffice/LibreOffice and presumably any other application that is slower loading or is a bit slow in operating its own menus..

And typically, there is sometimes an interaction or a bug either in an application or in the newer kernel vs the application
--doesn't get resolved except via some system or developer fix or work-around..

[homerscousin]

Thank-you for posting some feedback on this subject. I discovered VLC years ago and ran it as my default video and audio player on Win xp for the last 5 or so years. No problems, until I moved to Linux. I was kinda hoping someone else had similar complaints so we could dig a bit deeper. It really doesn't matter because Kaffeine has taken its place. It's just why that baffels me.