The VideoLAN Forums

Hi there,

Advanced File Open appears to be broken in vlc 3.0.6 on macOS, at least for certain files.

For certain files (particularly anime and music from Japan), it is common to upload the content as a mkv file with the video and 2.0 FLAC audio. A separate .mka file is also uploaded containing the surround sound audio (eg. a dts track).

In vlc 2.2.8, I can easily play this content with surround sound by using the "Advanced File Open" command. I select the .mkv file as the file to open and select the .mka file using the "Play another media synchronously" option. This works for several .mkv/.mka combinations I have, playing back the surround sound from the .mka file synced to the video from the .mkv file as it should.

With vlc 3.0.6, the same "Advanced File Open" sequence above does not work. I can see the second audio track from the .mka file correctly listed in the Audio menu [Main 5.1 Japanese], but if I select it, no sound is outputted. The debug message is "error - main - module not functional", followed by "failed to create audio output".

vlc 3.0.6 can open and play the .mkv file (with stereo audio) using the standard "Open File" command.
vlc 3.0.6 can open and play the .mka file using the standard "Open File" command (surround sound, no picture of course).

ie. vlc 3.0.6 can play each file separately but cannot play them synchronously. Again, synchronous playback of the same files works just fine in vlc 2.2.8.

I've tried this on 2 different macs - a mid-2011 iMac running macOS High Sierra (10.13.6) and a 2018 Mac mini running macoOS Mojave (10.14.3).

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank-you.

Please share those 2 files.

Hi Jean-Baptiste,

Thanks for getting back to me so promptly.

I sent you links to the file I'm testing via PM.

Please let me know if there is anything more I can do to assist.

I am getting the same issue with VLC version 3.0.7 Vetinari (3.0.6-223-g5fc4822ace) installed from RPM Fusion. Can share my .mkv & .mka files if you need.

UPD: By the way, VLC doesn't find .mka file with the same name as .mkv automatically (it did in previous versions).

Just a quick bump to note that Advanced File Open is still broken in vlc 3.0.16. I was reminded of the issue today when I went to playback a mkv/mka combination. Details as in the first post above.