The VideoLAN Forums

Windows 7 X86
VLC 2.2.4


Hello,

Every time I click a file to be played in VLC when I already have the player open, a new instance of the player starts playback despite specifically selecting the options to only allow one instance at a time.

This is quite frustrating.





Thank you.

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Are you sure it's another instance of VLC or a DirectX window ?
Look at the title of the window.

And/or reset the preferences:
https://wiki.videolan.org/VSG:ResetPrefs

Then you'll need to set the instance options again and to close and restart VLC.

Are you sure it's another instance of VLC or a DirectX window ?
Look at the title of the window.

And/or reset the preferences:
https://wiki.videolan.org/VSG:ResetPrefs

Then you'll need to set the instance options again and to close and restart VLC.

It's 100% a separate instance of VLC as that's the default player for the MP4 video format that is being played when this is occurring. I'm not running any games while this is taking place. I can literally click the same video file 10 times and it will open 10 different instances of VLC and then start playback.

When you suggest "resetting" the preferences, will this delete all of them or just clear that specific one?

I just spent an hour prior to noticing this problem configuring the player to perform as needed on that machine and would be greatly disappointed if I had to do so again especially when this should be functioning as intended since it was a fresh install.

It will reset all of the preferences, so make a backup before doing it.
But it will show you if something is wrong in the preferences.

It will reset all of the preferences, so make a backup before doing it.
But it will show you if something is wrong in the preferences.

I finally had the opportunity to reset the preferences as you stated by deleting the "vlc" folder in the appdata directory and there is no change in behaviour.

The exact same issue still remains...

I think the problem here is, in order to help you, people need to know how to replicate the problem. Those two "one instance" options have always worked for me.
Assuming after you close the VLC and reopen it, that the one instance options still remain checked, what I would look into is whether there is something messing with VLC.
One tool I use is the free Process Explorer from Microsoft.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysint ... s-explorer
It is a more sophisticated task manager. What I would do is start VLC, have it play a video and then start process-explorer. From the View menu, I would check "show lower pane" and for the lower pane view, then select dlls.
And then I would highlite VLC and review in the lower pane what dll files VLC is loading. In my case, since it is running on my Nvidia card, I see a Nvidia file, a bunch of VLC files, and Microsoft file, and nothing else. One file I have that doesn't belong there is Microsoft's EMET.dll. However, this file plays nice on VLC and provides some security in the event VLC tries to play malicious input. But if I was having problems, that would be the first file to go.

In particular I'm wondering if you have some kind of anti-virus that has a hook into VLC?

It will reset all of the preferences, so make a backup before doing it.
But it will show you if something is wrong in the preferences.

I think the problem here is, in order to help you, people need to know how to replicate the problem. Those two "one instance" options have always worked for me.
Assuming after you close the VLC and reopen it, that the one instance options still remain checked, what I would look into is whether there is something messing with VLC.
One tool I use is the free Process Explorer from Microsoft.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysint ... s-explorer
It is a more sophisticated task manager. What I would do is start VLC, have it play a video and then start process-explorer. From the View menu, I would check "show lower pane" and for the lower pane view, then select dlls.
And then I would highlite VLC and review in the lower pane what dll files VLC is loading. In my case, since it is running on my Nvidia card, I see a Nvidia file, a bunch of VLC files, and Microsoft file, and nothing else. One file I have that doesn't belong there is Microsoft's EMET.dll. However, this file plays nice on VLC and provides some security in the event VLC tries to play malicious input. But if I was having problems, that would be the first file to go.

In particular I'm wondering if you have some kind of anti-virus that has a hook into VLC?

So I had the opportunity to look into this again and it appears that it's an issue with that specific install as my personal machine does not have this problem yet has the same version of VLC installed.

The problem is I no longer have administrator access to the PC with the issue so I am not able to just reinstall the program.

If someone would be so kind as to inform me which plugin file is responsible for the single/multiple instance functionality, then I will copy it from my home PC into the directory on the machine with the problem and it should fix the issue.

Anyone know what file it is?

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