The VideoLAN Forums

Ok, I have used VLC almost exclusively since I discovered it and I've always been happy with playback of my downloaded films, but all of a sudden, I am getting a terrible problem...whenever I play my films through VLC they are constantly freezing (often, though not always, at about the same time). At first, my thoughts were maybe these files were corrupted in some way, and after playing other films resulted in the same problem, I thought to myself 'all these files can't possibly be corrupted can they....but what other reason is there?' However, I recently tried to play a film I downloaded many moons ago (which along with others, had played as well as can be in the past) and the exact same thing happened! Now, I am at a loss to explain what on earth is happening...

The downloads can't be all corrupted as the same problem is afflicting a download from a long time ago (which previously worked fine) and this is really frustrating for me, as I can no longer enjoy them Originally, I thought I it was maybe because I was using an older version of VLC than was available, but this has also been ruled out as using the latest VLC player ends in the same way. Also tried using Quicktime to no avail.

If anyone can please help me, greatly appreciated as i'm nearly tearing my hair out!

I'm on a mac and using VLC 1.1.10.1 Help please!

First of all, you'll want to reset VLC's preferences by deleting both a folder called "org.videolan.vlc" and a file named "org.videolan.vlc.plist" in ~/Library/Preferences

I think I am having the same problem as Milliva. VLC is freezing randomly when I am trying to watch videos. I deleted the folders that Felix Paul Kuehne suggested but the problem still occurred. Anyone know why this is happening and have any other suggestions?

Thanks for the reply. I've already done this (on numerous occasions) and still the problem persists. So surely this is not the problem?

Has anything changed in your system set up, at the time the issues started happening. Is this happening with all movies, or only certain ones, such as avi, mpeg, etc? Also, are you seeing anything of note in the VLC message window?

Nothing I think changed in my macs setup or anything when this problem started happening, and it does happen with whatever type the file may be, mp4, avi etc. Most of the time, I've simply exited VLC because it freezes for so long, I can't wait for any error messages (if any do come). However, one time when I left it running ages, it did come up with an error message and I saved it as well so I could reference it...unfortunately, my mac is not letting me open the message I saved (says it's maybe corrupted or the like ) but I remember the little window that came up said:

Errors and Warnings
File reading failed
VLC could not read the file

I can't access the longer report which as I mentioned I did save, but does this help at all? I don't know if this message would come up with any other files i've been playing (from burned DVD's or my hard drive). The problem still goes on, so frustrating being unable to play my films from both the DVD's and from those i've saved on my mac.

I am also facing this same problem all of a sudden. Everything was fine but just after one fine video I opened another and then it seems that it can not open any .mkv videos. I should tell all other video formats excluding .mkv are playing fine.

But then I think I will have to go for a demotion from VLC to Windows Media Player paired with K Lite Codec Pack , at this point of time that is the only option available.

Waiting for a fix soon from VLC Team.
Love you VLC but will have to ditch you.