Can VLC open Linux symbolic links (symlinks)?

[Emerson Prado]

Hi all,
I noticed I can't open symlinks in VLC, either from the file browser, neither from the command line. The error messages are as follows (translated from Portuguese):

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> cvlc "/home/familia/Música/Ro40/Iron Maiden - Wasted Years.mp3" VLC media player 2.2.1 Terry Pratchett (Weatherwax) (revision 2.2.1-0-ga425c42) [0000000000b06518] dummy interface: using the dummy interface module... [00007fefb8000e68] filesystem access error: cannot open file /home/familia/Música/Ro40/Iron Maiden - Wasted Years.mp3 (No such file or directory) [00007fefb8000e68] core access error: File read error [00007fefb8000e68] core access error: VLC could not open the file "/home/familia/Música/Ro40/Iron Maiden - Wasted Years.mp3" (File or directory not found). [00007fefbc000ac8] core input error: open of `file:///home/familia/M%C3%BAsica/Ro40/Iron%20Maiden%20-%20Wasted%20Years.mp3' failed [00007fefbc000ac8] core input error: The entry could not be opened [00007fefbc000ac8] core input error: VLC can't open MRL 'file:///home/familia/M%C3%BAsica/Ro40/Iron%20Maiden%20-%20Wasted%20Years.mp3'. Check error messages for details.

If I try the real file the symlink points to, VLC plays it correctly. The error does not depend of path, spaces and special chars in the file name.

Is that the normal behaviour? I see the Windows version can't play links, so maybe the Linux version doesn't do it either, but I prefer to ask.
Best regards,
Emerson

More details:

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> cat /etc/lsb-release DISTRIB_ID=LinuxMint DISTRIB_RELEASE=2 DISTRIB_CODENAME=betsy DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="LMDE 2 Betsy" > uname -r 3.16.0-4-amd64 > dpkg -l vlc Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold | Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend |/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad) ||/ Nome Versão Arquitectura Descrição +++-==============-============-============-================================= ii vlc 1:2.2.1-dmo1 amd64 multimedia player and streamer

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

VLC can follow symbolic links. The path you provided just does not exist.

[cosmo6666]

I'm running Ubuntu 16.04, VLC 3.0.6 Vetinari.

1. I have a directory: /ttg which contains a bunch of symlinks. However, when I select 'open directory' in VLC, it doesn't even show the directory.
2. I put a symlink in /tmp. When I select 'open directory', it finds /tmp, but doesn't find the symlink I put in /tmp.
3. I put a symlink in /home/myuser. When I select 'open directory' and open /home/myuser, it finds the symlink, but when I open it, VLC cant resolve it, and shows it as empty. (Its actually got a half-dozen subdirectories in it.)
4. If I try to 'choose' the symlink, VLC goes into an infinite error loop, which requires me to use a kill -9 in order to get VLC to die.

All of the above tests succeed with no problems using VLC 2.2.2 Weatherwax.
The significant difference? VLC 3.0.6 Vetinari was installed by way of a snapd package.

[unidan]

Hi, if i'm not wrong, snap packages are sandboxed, so you probably need some additional settings to be sure your symlink is accessible.