The VideoLAN Forums

I began to notice that when opening a video in windows explorer while VLC was already running, it would create a new instance instead of loading into the instance already opened. I have the program set to only allow a single instance, and went into settings to confirm this. Every video I clicked on however would still open a new instance of VLC. I looked in my Task Manager and that's when I noticed several (4 at first) processes of vlc.exe running. I ended them all and VLC worked as normal, only opening a single instance.

The weird thing is that it keeps happening though and I am unsure why. It will be fine for awhile, but then when I decide to come back to my computer several hours or a day later and begin opening videos, I have to go into task manager and end extra vlc.exe processes so that it will stick to one instance. Sometimes it's just 2 processes running but I've seen as many as 6 at once, It never seems to happen when I am actively watching videos, but if I leave one paused for a long time or come back to using videos after awhile it seems to occur. I really have no frame of reference to say under what circumstances it is occurring except that it is very frequent, I am seeing it at least daily.

Any idea of possible solutions?

From Tools - Preference
From Interface tab, tic "Allow only one instance" and "Use only one instance when started from file manager".

From Tools - Preference
From Interface tab, tic "Allow only one instance" and "Use only one instance when started from file manager".

These options are already selected, it's not an instance problem, I only have multiple instances launch when there is more than one VLC process running which happens to the best of my knowledge on it's own. If only a single process of VLC is active, it will maintain a single instance as expected.

Why don't you try to reset everything clean?
Click windows start button. Then "All apps". Then unfold "Videolan".
Then click "VLC media player - reset preferences and cache files:.

Windows 10 Pro, 64bit. At times VLC will keep leaving running background processes when I turn it off. Also it will ignore my "Allow only one instance" choice and start opening new copies when I click on audio files (I'm using Total Commander) instead of switching to the last file I click on. At other times (like immediately after running "reset preferences and cache files") it will behave normally. Probably all this started after a recent Windows update, as it was working fine until then. I first observed messages of "Oops VLC media player just crashed" when I click on an audio file, and following a "No" answer it executes the file normally! This also happens at times, and not at others. So I updated VLC from 2.2.2 to 2.2.4 but nothing changed.

The running background process seems to end when the execution of the audio file I interrupted by closing VLC comes to its end. I am counting the time it takes for the background process to terminate by itself and it seems equal with the time left for the audio file to terminate (somewhere on the background). So the issue seems to be that the close VLC (x) button doesn't terminate the execution of the running file. Even so, this doesn't explain why at times clicking on a second audio file -while one is running- will start a new copy of VLC in spite of my "one instance only" setting.

I have the same problem, only since I updated a couple of days ago and the Allow only one instance check box is ticked, yet everytime I open a new media file and new instance of VLC runs

Bonjour,
anyone found a fix for this, I'm having the same problem. Everything is setup to allow only one instance but no matter how I open a video file, it keeps opening in a new instance?

Anyone?

same problem here, quite annoying

I, too, am having this issue as well as VLC seemingly ignoring various other settings (it refuses to embed video, despite it being selected.) I've tried resetting preferences and caches as well as uninstalling. I've tried going to my %appdata% folder and setting it to read-only and then back. I've also tried running VLC as an administrator and then disabling and re-enabling the settings, but to no avail.

I'm running Windows 7 Professional, Service Pack 1, in Danish.

Have any of you had any luck?

Advanced setting in playlist: Enqueue items into playlist when using one instance mode, that should stop it from opening another app.

Most people don't pay attention when somebody necros an old thread, and especially when it's off topic. This started as multiple background processes, now we're talking about multiple instances?

give up some more information and maybe someone can help.

Warluck, you say "same problem"(as multiple background processes), but you're describing something different. Please be specific and someone can probably help. You're having a problem with the GUI functionality?

borlosky, what's the problem? background processes, or GUI settings?

Soda, you're mentioning 1. background processes, 2. vlc ignoring settings, 3. problems with resetting? 4. other stuff.

So, guys, what is it? I'll help you work it out.