VLC suddenly stopped playing media files

[Varjak]

VLC suddenly stopped playing media files, including ones it had played previously.

I'm using VLC 2.2.1 on a Mac Mini with 10.6.8 Snow Leopard attached to an HD TV. I know this is an old OS, but I need to use it for a variety of reasons. I almost exclusively use this Mac for playing media on that TV and YouTube on the TV.

I used it last night and it played just as it always does, no problems. Today, I tried to play a different file as I usually do by double-clicking on it and nothing happens. After a brief moment, it gives me the main 'library' screen with the file in the playlist, but it won't play. I thought maybe the file was bad so I tried another one and it wouldn't play either. I tried playing a file using the contextual menus rather than double-clicking the file, but that didn't work either. I rebooted the Mac Mini and still had no luck. In some of these attempts, VLC hung and I had to use the hardware button to reboot the Mac. Oddly, when I tried to play the file I played last night, it actually played from the point I left off. It's the only file it still seemed to play.

I found an old thread that said something about deleting preferences by using 'reset all' in the 'Preferences' menu. If I have to use this, I will, but does it delete all my hotkeys and custom control set-ups? I ask, because for some reason, I had a hard time getting the hotkeys to 'take' when I was setting them up. They'd show in the list, but when I tried to use them they wouldn't work and they'd be gone from the hotkeys list when I went back to check. This happened a bunch of times before they were actually saved and functional.

Should I be using 2.2.8, which looks like the most updated version for Snow Leopard? One page shows 2.2.8 as the last version in that series, while another page only shows up to 2.2.5 for the 2.2.x series as shown here:

https://www.videolan.org/vlc/releases/

[dfuhrmann]

Yes, 2.2.8 is the latest version for VLC on Snow leopard (see also the list here: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html).

I cannot say much about your current problems, but indeed, resetting preferences might help.

[Varjak]

I think that I should probably upgrade anyway, so I will install 2.2.8 and I hope that will also solve my issues. Does anyone know if I install 2.2.8, if it will reset all my hotkeys, preferences, control panels, etc.? Thanks.

[dfuhrmann]

not by default.

[Varjak]

Thanks dfuhrmann for the responses. I installed 2.2.8 and it seemed to fix the problems without messing anything else up. Any particular reason this might have happened, with it not working all of a sudden? Just curious.