The VideoLAN Forums

Recently when showing a video, I would click on "File" or the "Bluetooth" and get strange graphics. The only way I could clear this was to "Force Quit" VLC. This happens in Firefox and Chrome.

I am running an iMac Mojave 10.14.6. I am not sure where the issue is. I would send screenshot but I am not sure how to.

Thanks

IF I turn dark off in preferences problem goes away.

Hi, this looks very difficult to diagnosis without more information, unfortunately :/

The graphics occur when a video is playing VLC. and is the active screen. The graphic replaces on any dropdown menus. Does this help. How can I send you a screen shot?

Charlie

Dark/Light mode doesn't change the behavior on mine.

Screen shots aren't capturing it for me - they look clean, while I get extensive tearing on some video playback, regardless of the hardware decoding selection.

What else can I give you to help solve this problem? Would reload of Mojave help?

Try creating a guest user and see if the issue goes away.

I'm also seeing this issue with the install of macOS 10.14.6.
The only open applications are Finder and Safari.

Issue is present in the following versions:
3.0.7.1
3.0.8-20190809-0651
4.0.0-20190809-0417-dev

Issue persists after removing prefs per https://wiki.videolan.org/VSG:ResetPrefs/ .
The page https://wiki.videolan.org/Report_bugs does not give me instructions on gathering log files for this issue unless there is a crash.
There is no crash.

I'm not finding a bug report.

Perhaps because this is a newly created account on the forum, I do not see how to attach a screen shot.
I have therefore uploaded a screenshot and a 3 second video showing the issue here easytospell.com/vlc/ .

I'm happy to provide log files, just let me know how to do so.

Also, this issue is not present in a test administrator account.
As this may be user specific, I removed all startup items in ‎⁨~/Library/LaunchAgents and Users & Groups, Login Items and restarted.
The issue persists.

Thank you for any information you have on this issue.

Does your Mac has a dedicated NVIDIA GPU? We get many reports of an issue that started happening on Macs with a dedicated NVIDIA GPU with VLC when updating to macOS 10.14.6.

I do not have a dedicated GPU:

Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac14,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i5
Processor Speed: 3.2 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 16 GB
Boot ROM Version: 139.0.0.0.0
SMC Version (system): 2.15f7

I do have further information!

I do not see the graphics issue when VLC has a non minimized window with no media selected.
I do not see the graphics issue when VLC is minimized, whether nor not media is playing or paused.

Also, were this an Apple issue, we would see this in other software rather than just VLC.
A search for 'macOS 10.14.6 video issues' or 'macOS 10.14.6 video glitch' shows no one having this issue outside of VLC users.

I do not have a dedicated GPU:

Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac14,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i5
Processor Speed: 3.2 GHz

Your 2013 iMac does have a dedicated GPU, the nVidia GeForce GT 755M.

AH!
I was under the impression that a "dedicated" GPU implied that there might be either a "discrete" or an "integrated" GPU, implying there was a choice and I could switch between these. Thanks for pointing out my mistake.

I have the same issue.
Several discussions in this forum about this problem.

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=150323&p=494650#p494650

ePirat says its an MacOS issue:

"This is an issue in macOS, I've reported it to Apple. Feel free to do the same, you can submit reports like these on https://feedbackassistant.apple.com
There is no quick fix we could do for this in VLC as far as I know and without further information by Apple about what is triggering this issue."

Issue persists in version 3.0.8 .

And I answer the statement that "This is an issue in macOS"
There is no evidence that that is the case:

Also, were this an Apple issue, we would see this in other software rather than just VLC.
A search for 'macOS 10.14.6 video issues' or 'macOS 10.14.6 video glitch' shows no one having this issue outside of VLC users.

Even more info!

The graphics distortion is not present when playing an audio only file.

Issue persists after updating macOS Mojave 10.14.6 Supplemental Update

Issue persists in version 3.0.8 .

And I answer the statement that "This is an issue in macOS"
There is no evidence that that is the case:

Also, were this an Apple issue, we would see this in other software rather than just VLC.
A search for 'macOS 10.14.6 video issues' or 'macOS 10.14.6 video glitch' shows no one having this issue outside of VLC users.

The fact that it works fine on different versions of macOS and with different hardware makes it an OS issue caused by the 10.14.6 update.

In fact, a program should never be able to cause such graphics corruptions at all. That this can happen is a bug in macOS, even if VLC
might be doing something "wrong".

Hi, the «issue» has been found and the fix is being written, but might or might not land in the 3.0 branch. The goal is to merge it in 3.0.9 but it might be to big for a change in the 3.0 branch.

Basically Apple broke a lot of behaviour and API through the deprecation of OpenGL, and we had to change the way the video output works for MacOSX.

In fact, a program should never be able to cause such graphics corruptions at all. That this can happen is a bug in macOS, even if VLC
might be doing something "wrong".

Yes, especially for an operating system with a compositor :/

I am experiencing this issue as well.

I suspect the culprit is VLC making calls to deprecated OpenGL features that Apple is slowly killing. Or not, I am not a programmer and have no idea what I'm talking about.

However, no other application I use (this is a full range of apps like Photoshop, After Effects, Cinema 4D, Unity) NO OTHER app has this issue, so therefore the issue is with VLC using a feature no longer supported or an erroneous call to an unsupported feature on specific GPUs.

The workaround is quite simple:


Open your video file, then minimize the video into the dock.

You will now be able to access all the menu bar features as you normally would without the glitches, such as enabling a subtitle track or video effects.

cheers

Hi, the «issue» has been found and the fix is being written, but might or might not land in the 3.0 branch. The goal is to merge it in 3.0.9 but it might be to big for a change in the 3.0 branch.

Basically Apple broke a lot of behaviour and API through the deprecation of OpenGL, and we had to change the way the video output works for MacOSX.

In fact, a program should never be able to cause such graphics corruptions at all. That this can happen is a bug in macOS, even if VLC
might be doing something "wrong".

Yes, especially for an operating system with a compositor :/

Good to read (I saw this after posting my comment)

VLC should not be using deprecated protocols like OpenGL or Bocce, Metal is the new OpenGL, I know this is unfair.

Hi
Unfortunately maintaining opengl. d3d9, d3d11, wayland, x11, vulkan output is already really time consuming and it doesn't put the bugs in common. Having metal on top of that might be too much. We're looking around MoltenVK to have vulkan output on MacOSX instead.

The same thing happens using 5kplayer.

Fix revealed today at [url]https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=150323[/url].

Really enjoyed VLC. However this problem stunk and just stood around too long.

Give ElMedia player a look.

thanks for fixing this with 3.0.10 .