The VideoLAN Forums

Since updating to 2.2.1 the behavior of the playlist window has become excruciatingly annoying & absurd. Resetting the settings did not solve the problem.

The width of the columns in the playlist window are not saved/remembered upon quitting & relaunching VLC- there is nothing new here (although this behavior is makes no sense & I can see no benefit of it- it just seems like it's not that important to the developers. Which is understandable), it is a bit odd that it does remember if I change the order of the columns or add/remove columns to be shown. I wonder how hard it would be to save the column widths as well?

The problem is the 'default' widths that are reverted to each time I run VLC. The 'length/time' column is way too large-it takes up most of the window, while the 'title' column is so narrow it's almost gone & nothing is shown at all!

Is anyone else experiencing anything like this?

As I stated originally, I "reset" the preferences- which for me means that I deleted the files in ~/Library/Preferences which correlate to VLC. Is there something I am overlooking/neglecting?

Does anyone have any suggestions which may help me or shed light on this matter? It seems incomprehensible that such ridiculous sizing of columns could be the default, yet I keep having to adjust the same two columns even after resetting (which I really hate because it's such a pain to reprogram 2/3 of the shortcuts to what I'm used to- the other settings are a pain too & it takes a while to get everything back to "normal" but they are not as crucial to me for basic use).

Since we can't have our custom widths retained, can we at least have reasonable default widths that are reverted to? Please?!

(This is under OS X 10.8.5)

I wonder how hard it would be to save the column widths as well?

They should be saved, and it works fine for me.

As I stated originally, I "reset" the preferences- which for me means that I deleted the files in ~/Library/Preferences which correlate to VLC. Is there something I am overlooking/neglecting?

This is the wrong way, and if you do that it gets even worse with newer OSX versions because these settings are heavily cached in the OS, and old values might be restored where you are not expecting this. Please see the VLC readme, or (the easy way), please just use the "reset" button in the preferences panel to reset all preferences.

As it works totally fine for me, please provide the exact steps how you can reproduce the issue. First, please try to reset the preferences the correct way.

Awesome! Thank you so much!!

I should have explained myself a bit more thoroughly. I was under the impression that the "Reset" button in the prefs panel didn't work in OSX (kind of like the "Play & Quit" setting). Someone told me that it was broken & that I had to do it manually a while back when I was having some other issues.
I was actually deleting more than just files from the Prefs folder. I was utilizing AppCleaner (which tracks files created by apps)- I'd move VLC to the trash & then reinstall it or just make a note of all the files it was going to remove & delete them myself. That explanation seemed too long for some reason when I originally posted.


Unfortunately my column widths are still not being saved (or reloaded) correctly. (After resetting the prefs, adjusting the playlist columns to my liking & relaunching VLC it does save which columns to display & their order, but not their widths. Resetting again returns things to the default.) Since it is working for you I have to conclude that the problem lies somewhere in my setup- whether some other preferences or who-knows-what other peculiarity. Maybe I'll stumble on something helpful or it will suddenly, inexplicably begin to work as expected. (This sort of thing happens from time to time- of course there is an explanation; but I am completely unaware of it.)

But I came up with a work around. I just changed the order of the columns so that the column that is always too narrow (of the default config) is set to show something I don't care about. It's not perfect, but until I figure out what's wrong or perform a fresh install of the OS on a new drive the next time I upgrade the OS, this is workable.

I really appreciate your help! Resetting the prefs the correct way seemed to resolve some other quirky, annoying behaviors that I'd been trying to make sense of.

Awesome! Thank you so much!!

I should have explained myself a bit more thoroughly. I was under the impression that the "Reset" button in the prefs panel didn't work in OSX (kind of like the "Play & Quit" setting). Someone told me that it was broken & that I had to do it manually a while back when I was having some other issues.

Well, this is definitely the wrong way of thinking. True, "play and quit" did not work in the past, but we fixed that already months (or years?) ago. I don't know exactly about the reset button, but we also fixed quite some stuff here, expecially for the reason mentioned: resetting prefs the usual way, i.e. deleting files, does not work anymore with modern OS version.
Try the stuff out - otherwise you will never know that it might be already fixed a long time ago.

I was actually deleting more than just files from the Prefs folder. I was utilizing AppCleaner (which tracks files created by apps)

IMNSHO, these tools are awful and should not be used.

Unfortunately my column widths are still not being saved (or reloaded) correctly. (After resetting the prefs, adjusting the playlist columns to my liking & relaunching VLC it does save which columns to display & their order, but not their widths. Resetting again returns things to the default.) Since it is working for you I have to conclude that the problem lies somewhere in my setup- whether some other preferences or who-knows-what other peculiarity.

Well, please be more precise: What columns do you want to show? In what order? What is the actual value not being saved?
Note that some colums have certain restrictions, like the small column in the beginning.

For sure, we cannot test all possible column combinations, so you need to be more detailed to determine if this is a general bug or a problem with your specific installation. You can also try the steps with a new user account, maybe that helps.

I have the exact same problem with the latest version (2.2.1 for OSX Yosemite 10.10.3)

I've tried resetting the settings through the preferences panel, but it doesn't fix anything.

If I quit and reopen VLC, the column widths will change randomly. The order and selection of columns is always preserved, only the size isn't. One column is always excessively large, with the others shrunk to accommodate it.

This is ruining an otherwise flawless app. I realize this probably only affects certain users, so I'll be more than happy to help troubleshoot this problem.

Same problem here: column widths are not saved and I have to reset them to a reasonable width each time I restart VLC.
I have enabled all columns.
The name (or title) column remains very large while all others shrink to only some pixels (or 1-2-mm), so you cannot read their contents, except for the last column, which, in my case, is the "URL" column. This one is wide enough, too.
I use a german (Mac) version.

Try the stuff out - otherwise you will never know that it might be already fixed a long time ago.

Thank you so much for the sound advise! And for your excellent, detailed assistance. It is greatly appreciated.

Well, please be more precise: What columns do you want to show? In what order? What is the actual value not being saved?
Note that some colums have certain restrictions, like the small column in the beginning.

For sure, we cannot test all possible column combinations, so you need to be more detailed to determine if this is a general bug or a problem with your specific installation. You can also try the steps with a new user account, maybe that helps.

I reset the preferences using the button as recommended (which worked as expected so far as I can tell). I also created a new user account (several times) hoping to resolve this issue. Nothing I have tried as worked, even after fresh OS installs on new drives. I even made a point to install VLC and test this out as one of the very first things I did after the installations completed.
I apologize for neglecting to respond or report on my (non-)progress. To be honest there didn't seem to be any gain or results from doing so.


Nonetheless, I have not given up hope. Perhaps this will help someone to identify the issue. And if nothing else, at least this post may serve to let other users know that this IS a persistent issue for some which has not yet been resolved or explained.

The order of the columns which I prefer is: # Duration Title Author Album
The symptoms I am experiencing exactly match those describing in the two preceding posts. This column selection and order is maintained on re-launch.
The problem is that the width of the columns is not preserved accurately, the widths are actually slightly different with each launch (they are also set to widths which I have never configured). The main problem is that the Duration column is always the widest, sometimes pushing the others beyond the window's right border, and the title column is always quite narrow sometimes the minimal possible width. The others vary as well, but usually not significantly or to the point of dysfunction.

So each time I launch VLC I need to adjust the Duration and Title column widths to something that makes sense.

I do not recall the original order of the columns at the moment, but if I had to guess it would seem that perhaps it is: # Title Duration Author Album because it seems as though the columns are being spaced in a way that would accommodate that column order. But basically, the column after the first usable column (which is #) is always excessively wide for me, the following is excessively narrow and the others are adjusted somewhat to "fit"—just as the other users described.

Really all I want to is be able to read the text in each column.

It would be fantastic if when the columns resized on their own they did so to accommodate the text of the cells in the column—I would be overjoyed with that type of unsolicited behavior. But what it actually does is illogical, nonsensical, unhelpful and frustrating.


I certainly can not rule out that this problem is unique to my system for some reason, although I don't seem to be alone with this issue (as attested by the posts above and several posts in the "Customizing Mac 2.0+ interface" thread).