OldFAQ

Answers to some common problems people encounter with VLC. More help is available in the

• Documentation
• FAQ
• Forum (search)

Problems playing files

WMV files

• The latest versions of WMV video (known as wmv3) are not supported by VLC. This format will be supported when the specs are made public - expected to be within a year. On some Windows systems they can be played now, as VLC will attempt to decode the files using software included with Windows.

Real Media files

• Realmedia files (.rm, .rpm, etc) are proprietary (ie, copyrighted) file formats, created by RealNetworks. Because of this, VLC can't support them at present.

QuickTime Files (.mov)

• Mov file doesn't play, but plays ok in QuickTime
  • open the url in QuickTime player
  • let it decide which datarate is best for your connection
  • let it play for a few seconds, then pause it
  • open the stream info, copy the url
  • open & save that one in VLC

Problems converting between file formats

Missing Audio and/or Video

• Certain containers (aka muxers) can only hold certain types of video and audio - look at Streaming features

Error Messages

Error messages can be viewed by selecting Messages from the View menu

main private error: no sout mux module matched "ts"

• This can be an error if libdvbpsi was not installed when vlc was compiled. To fix this error, install libdvbpsi; then re-compile vlc. libdvbpsi

main dialogs provider error: no dialogs provider module matched "any"

• The solution is found in the forum

Compiling VLC

How do I compile VLC?

• Look at how to compile VLC. There are pre-compiled (binary / executable) versions here.

Mozilla Firefox Plugin

• Debian: All you need is to download the vlc plugin package - mozilla-plugin-vlc (stable release)
• All Linux: To make the firefox plugin with the vlc player, you will first need the Firefox Development package (from: ubuntu ...). Then, when you compile, run ./configure with --enable-mozilla, and if needed with --with-mozilla-sdk-path=/path_to_firefox_sdk

Other Problems

AMR

• To use AMR, you'll need to compile vlc and ffmpeg with amr support yourself. This is because the amr license is not compatible with the vlc license.

ratDVD

• VLC does not support ratDVD

I only want one VLC player!

• To use the same VLC player for all the media files, go to Settings, Preferences