Remember Position

[Pezzy]

Hi all.

I used to keep up with all the latest releases of VLC Media Player and update to the latest one, but at one point I went back to an older release because.........

You know how there's that modification you can do where you add an "Extensions" folder and add a "lua" file to it? And then when you're playing a video you click on "View" in the Menu, and then there's a choice for you called "Remember Position"? This way, after closing out VLC Player, and the next time you launch it and go back to that same video - and click on Remember Position - you can go back to the same place where you left off.

The version I'm using now is 2.0.7. It was one of the versions after this that the "Remember Position" feature would no longer work. Does anyone know if the most recent version can utilize the Remember Position feature again?

Thanks for any info.
Pez

[mederi]

The resume feature is already implemented in VLC-2.2: http://nightlies.videolan.org

[Pezzy]

Hi mederi; thanks for the reply.

I went to the link you gave. It appears as though what's listed there are like "beta" versions of the software; their nickname is "Nightly Builds" Anyway, I clicked on the one for Windows 64 bit; it's build 3.0, correct? I tried it, and on the "View" menu, there was something called "Remember file position", or maybe it was "Remember position file"......not sure. Regardless, it didn't work. I played a video, clicked on the View menu/ Remember....... then Exited out of the player, re-launched it, played the video, clicked on View/ Remember.......... did not work.

Besides the link you gave, you mention that the resume feature "is already implemented in VLC 2.2"; remember I mentioned I'm using version/ build 2.0.7? It was sometime after this version that the "Remember position" didn't work anymore. Are you saying, then, that starting with version 2.2 that feature was brought back? Should I try 2.2? Because that feature sure didn't work with that "Nightly Build" 3.0

Pez

[mederi]

There is 32 bit version you could try. You do not need to install any Lua script. The VLC Extension Lua script Remember position does not work in VLC-2.1+ versions (removed "vlc.var.add_callback()" functionality). It is also mentioned on its page. There is also a good description of the new feature in the last comment there:

Feature added to VLC nightlies!
I'm happy to inform users that this feature has been added to the latest nightlies of VLC 2.2.0-rc2. I have tested it on the Intel-based Mac version and it works quite well, media will resume where you left it off. However, since it's still beta, it's not 100%. It won't resume if you only watched the first few seconds of a video and it won't resume if you were on the last few seconds of a video. Please confirm.

It is "recently played items" related feature built into VLC. If you play one of the recently played media file, then the [Continue] button should appear on the screen for a while.

[rseiler]

I just tried 2.2 RC2 and then the latest 2.2 RC2 nightly (on Windows, not Mac), and I can't seem to make this feature work. Tested with AVI and MP4.

Is it enabled by default? If not, where is it?

Thanks

[MichaelIsGreat]

Warning: capitals are used only to highlight important words and ideas.

On 27/02/2015, I downloaded version 2.2.0 64-bit for Windows 7, as I had read that, at last (!!), the desktop version had implemented the really very basic function called resume playback, a feature that has been asked FOR MANY YEARS so far for the VLC Media Player and it is implemented basically in every single audio and video media player existing on the planet.

When I installed this new version, I did not do a full reboot of Windows 7 but I really do not think that it is necessary at all to have this resume playback work properly.

To my huge disappointment, I am sad to report that this very basic feature "resume playback" to resume any audio or video playback where you left it after listening to it DOES NOT WORK AT ALL irrespective of how long you listen to an audio or video file!! And I say that despite the fact that I read that it would supposedly work on many articles. I tried everything: re-installed VLC, you name it basically, all to no avail!!!!!

I would rather have not seen this basic feature listed if it was not fully working 100% or at least 99.9% of the time because I cannot tell you how huge a disappointment it is to see it NOT working after many attempts at making it work!

[rseiler]

I'm beginning to wonder if it's Mac-only (and Qt, whatever that is--Quicktime?), since the News file just mentions:
-Support to continue media playback where it was left off for Qt and OS X

And the screenshot here is from a Mac:
https://www.videolan.org/vlc/releases/2.2.0.html

Do you ever actually see that dialog? I don't.

Above, there's mention of a possible tie-in with "Recently played items," but I've also yet to find that.

[Mister Floppy]

One way it works:

1. Start "VLC media player"
2. Play a video by selecting "Media" and "Open File" / pressing "Ctrl" and "O"
3. Exit "VLC media player"
4. Next time you play the same video by re-starting "VLC media player" and opening it again or double-clicking / right-cllicking it and selecting "Open with VLC" in the OS' file explorer, a small window at the top appears for a short time asking if you would like to resume from the last posiion.

On my system, I have made "VLC media player" my default media player for almost all video file extensions, and thus I would like to avoid step 1, 2 and 3.

It would be great to resume a video that previously has been played directly by double-clicking it in the OS' file explorer.

Is this also possible, maybe by adding a new action for the corresponding video file extension through the OS' dialog (currently, there are two options: "Open with VLC media player" and "Add to VLC media player playback list", but both don't have the desired effect in this context)?

Furthermore, it would be great if we could get an option to make "Resume from last position" the default behaviour.

EDIT: After some testing for a while, it seems that the method described above is not reliable, sometimes it works, other times it doesn't; starting a video from the "Recent items" ALWAYS works, though. But sorry, to me that's much too complicated

[bensmith]

The remember position/resume playback feature of version 2.2.0 is not working for me either on two different Windows PC's. Both running Windows 7. One has the x32 version of VLC 2.2.0 running the other the x64 version of VLC 2.2.0 running. When VLC 2.2.0 installed on both PC's yesterday it "upgraded" the existing installation. Neither prior version of VLC on these two PC's indicated there was an upgrade when running Help -> Check Upgrade to get the 2.2.0 version. Both older versions indicated they were up to date.

Have tried starting media (all MP4 video files) from a variety of different ways, VLC 2.2.0 on both PC's always starts at the beginning. No dialog box/window is seen asking to resume position or resume playback.

[Mister Floppy]

The remember position/resume playback feature of version 2.2.0 is not working for me either on two different Windows PC's. Both running Windows 7. One has the x32 version of VLC 2.2.0 running the other the x64 version of VLC 2.2.0 running. When VLC 2.2.0 installed on both PC's yesterday it "upgraded" the existing installation. Neither prior version of VLC on these two PC's indicated there was an upgrade when running Help -> Check Upgrade to get the 2.2.0 version. Both older versions indicated they were up to date.

Have tried starting media (all MP4 video files) from a variety of different ways, VLC 2.2.0 on both PC's always starts at the beginning. No dialog box/window is seen asking to resume position or resume playback.

Did you try it the way I described in my post above, too? FYI: I'm still using Windows XP Professional (32 bit) and installed VLC v2.2.0 over an already installed older version of it without any problem on all my computers.

EDIT: After some testing for a while, it seems that the method described above is not reliable, sometimes it works, other times it doesn't; starting a video from the "Recent items" ALWAYS works, though. But sorry, to me that's much too complicated

[bensmith]

Did you try it the way I described in my post above, too? FYI: I'm still using Windows XP Professional (32 bit) and installed VLC v2.2.0 over an already installed older version of it without any problem on all my computers.

EDIT: After some testing for a while, it seems that the method described above is not reliable, sometimes it works, other times it doesn't; starting a video from the "Recent items" ALWAYS works, though. But sorry, to me that's much too complicated

Of course. Tried the following ways:

• Double click on the file in Windows Explorer launches into VLC.
• Open VLC, choose File Open and open file.
• Open VLC choose Open Recent Media and select file.
• Right click on file with Windows Explorer and select Open With and select VLC.
• Select Start, select VLC from pinned list of start items, select Recent then select one of the recent video files.

None of those ways worked. The video files (tried multiple video files) always starts at the beginning.

Even uninstalled VLC, deleted the VideoLan folders, ran CCLeaner and Glary Utilities to clean up the registry, reinstalled VLC 2.2.0 x32 version and the remember position still does not work on my Windows 7 Home Premium x64 PC.

[Mister Floppy]

Tried the following ways:

...
[*]Open VLC choose Open Recent Media and select file.
...
None of those ways worked. The video files (tried multiple video files) always starts at the beginning.

Okay, then I would assume it's OS related, if you play one of the recently played media files under Windows XP, then the "Resume playback" option definitely appears in a box on top of the screen for a while. But for me that's not the preferred way I'm viewing videos...

[rseiler]

Working here on Win10 after following the above steps, which also populates my Open Recent Media menu (always blank before).

Unfortunately, as alluded to above, unless this works for files that are *initially* opened the way that everyone opens them--by clicking them in Explorer--it's not of much use.

Files opened that way should also be listed in Open Recent Media.

[bensmith]

It is now hit or miss whether the button shows up for continuing playback where last left off. Sometimes I see it sometimes not. Its not consistent every time when launching the same file from explorer or when opening the file from within VLC. It wasn't until I ran a .MOV file repeatedly that I actually saw the dialog box for playing from last location for the first time, and even then it doesn't appear consistently.

Obviously something is wrong if others are experiencing the same sporadic working of this feature and its not necessarily OS specific.

[Mister Floppy]

Okay, with version 2.2.1, the "Remember position" option in VLC finally does work properly - congratulations and thank you very much!

However, because I'm using the media player remotely via a remote control, I would like to add some suggestions for improving this functionality:

Please

- add an option to make "Resume from last position" the default behaviour
- add a customizable duration for the pop-up dialog box
- add a customizable hotkey for "Resume from last position"
- add a command line option for "Resume from last position"

Furthermore, it would be great if "Resume from last position" could work even when the media player is started from the command line with the following options:
--fullscreen --overlay --video-on-top --vout directx --intf dummy --dummy-quiet
(that is the way I'm particularly using it with the remote control in my media center environment)

Thank you in advance!

Regards,
Mister Floppy

[rseiler]

Thanks for pointing that out, as it wasn't mentioned in the detailed release notes for 2.2.1. It works now when opening files via Explorer. Also, the "recent media" menu is also populated now when opening files in this way.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

- add an option to make "Resume from last position" the default behaviour
- add a customizable duration for the pop-up dialog box
- add a customizable hotkey for "Resume from last position"
- add a command line option for "Resume from last position"

Furthermore, it would be great if "Resume from last position" could work even when the media player is started from the command line with the following options:
--fullscreen --overlay --video-on-top --vout directx --intf dummy --dummy-quiet
(that is the way I'm particularly using it with the remote control in my media center environment)

1) file a bugreport
2) no
3) Why not.
4) same as 1)
5) not possible.

[midgo]

I updated to the latest version and lost the ability to remember last position.

I installed the plug in found here and now it works.

http://vlcsrposplugin.sourceforge.net/

Hope this helps:)