The VideoLAN Forums

Posted: **04 Aug 2015 17:34**

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):

Code: Select all

> 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

Posted: **05 Aug 2015 11:39**

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

Posted: **16 May 2019 10:07**

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.

Posted: **16 May 2019 11:07**

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

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