The VideoLAN Forums

always on top fails after update and restart on windows 7 and nvidia driver update
used to work and now it dont, it in view menu. please help fix this it is important that it is always on top when option enabled!

I'm also having this problem on Windows 10 Pro (64 bit) with Intel HD Graphics 4000 and version 3.0.3 Vetinari of VLC Media Player

Actually, this problem seems intermittent. Started a new instance of VLC and 'Always on Top' worked for a while. Then at some point over the next hour it stopped working. Closing and restarting didn't fix the issue. But this morning I started a new instance and it's working again.

Weird. No idea.

What were the benefits of moving the feature to "View" ?
This is a long-established function that's been in VLC at its old place for a very long time.
Isn't the use of it supposed to put VLC on top showing Videos while One's doing other things ?
Since the move it has never worked for me.
If the function doesn't work at its new place I don't see the advantage of moving it.

Always on top as been extended to be activated when playing music, hence the move of menu. Implementation wise we haven't changed the way we tell window to put the interface on top.

I'm having the same issue as user: gabhan@gabhan.com

This is also happening to me, and i'm not sure exactly when it started. But it did not start at the moment i installed VLC 3.0.3. It took some time after that.
Actually it started right after both Fences and DisplayFusion released new versions. So i suspected Displayfusion, and i even talked to the creator on his forums, and he tested it and could not find anything wrong.

After a short while it just started working again, all by itself. Then another version of Displayfusion released and the always on top started failing again.

Does anyone else here use Displayfusion? or is this a coincidence on my part?

As Fabled writes, “always on top” functions poorly also in 3.0.4.
I used 4.0.0 for more than a month where it worked flawlessly so I've installed it as a default to [Program Files]
and then used a zip to install 3.0.4 in [Program Files (x86)] since playback speed in 4.0.0
when used in slow mode starts to stutter as soon as it shifts to a new track,
but maybe this was fixed in 4.0.0-20180905-0536 ? at a first try it seems so.

I just installed VLC 4.0 Beta to see if it helped just like Vaganza said. And it does. It instantly fixed the issue. Thanks for the tip!

Actually vlc 4 beta has another problem. When i chose always on top, the control panel is not showing when in fullscreen. Once i turn off always on top, it's back.

Another bug found! dam you need a reward program... when i have loop turned on and theres an error the player attempts to play it over and over endlessly in a loop instead of preventing the loop, this is a silly bug! a simple fix is to not have a silly popup on errors all you need is an error osd and a menu for past errors if one wants to see past errors! simple and dont attempt to carry on playing if theres an error just stop!!!

OK. I'm back to give an update. I have written several posts in this thread already.

Since i wrote here the last time i have bought an entirely new computer, and i am still running Windows 10 Pro. And now i have installed VLC 3.0.7.1. The Always on top still have issues.
BUT!. I just discovered a "freak fix" by accident. Since i was out of ideas on how to fix this crap when it happens i sort of just grabbed VLC in the frame and just moved it around on screen,
i don't think i ever thought about it, i were just sort of fed up and just sat there moving the frame around while i was thinking. Suddenly all the windows i had opened in the background disappeared,
just like i pressed "show desktop". But i didn't press "Show desktop". I only moved VLC around on the screen for a bit.

Now, after i tagged off "Always on top" and Tagged it back on again, It works again.

And now I'm on a brand new computer with brand new Windows installation with a brand new version of VLC. I mean, wtf!

I'm still suspecting DisplayFusion. Because this is starting to get really weird.

This issue is absolutely killing me. It's intermittent. Sometimes when I dump everything in the %appdata% art folder, I can get the always on top to work again, but other times even that fails. I've read that reenabling the feature in the preferences using Run as administrator helps to make it stick, but that doesn't always work either. It's more likely to turn on when you click a video file than an audio one, that's for sure, but even that's not a sure thing. Toggling always on top off and on does absolutely nothing when it's not working.

*edit* I just tried the Show desktop trick and toggled always on top and suddenly it came back. Well, hopefully that will work regularly in my arsenal of tricks.

I'm sick to death of this issue. I guess the next radical step would be a massive downgrade back to the last time it worked (which was probably years ago).

Also, 4.0.0 inexplicably will not start on my computer and gives me error messages, so that option seems to be dead for me. The last time I tried that upgrade I got it to start up exactly once (except it was after a bunch of start fails) and then it reverted to its old error. I'll have to stay in the 3 edition.

I keep hoping a beta will finally fix the problem (not that I haven't backtracked to the official release on occasion), but VLC doesn't seem to want to fix the extremely repetitive always on top fail. Or make 4.0.0 usable without the error message-palooza.

Also fails for me today. Has worked earlier. Will see, if it will work again. Just upgraded to 3.0.8.

I don't get the weird errors described earlier with the desktop showing when i move the window around.

I also use autohotkey sometimes to this aim. It does work, but gets so buggy over time, that I have to restart everything to get access to my windows again. So my take on it so far is, that Windows 10 really is bad in providing this function. I remember it worked better in Win 7, maybe just me. Maybe the function has to be rewritten to accomodate Windows 10?

Thanks for your hard work and providing an simple and powerful mediaplayer for free.

Interesting. Doesnt work in the first window, but i open a new VLC window and it works fine? And keeps working so far. So unless i find some reproducibility in this error at some point, I guess it is random.

I found a fix for my issue:

So I went on and opened a video, then I opened Preferences. (Ctrl+P)
At the bottom, there's a "Simple" or "All" option for the settings view... Select "All".
Scroll down to "Video" and then on the right, you'll see numerous checkboxes.
Uncheck both "Fullscreen video output" and "Always on top" if any are checked.
Click on Save and close the video.
Reopen a video and go through all those steps above again but at the end, check "Always on top".
Click on Save and close the video.

The next time I opened it, things worked right.

always on top fails after shut down and restart on windows 10 64bit, used to work and now it don't, it in view menu. please help fix this it is important that it is always on top when option enabled! please please

Help. I need Help making a post.

Recently i started noticing issues with Always on top as well (Windows 7, 3.0.11). Most of the time when i start some video and click somewhere, VLC window goes under, so Always on top is not working. I can try clicking that setting again, but it doesn't help. If i close VLC and open that video file again, then Always on top works. So it seems that Always on top is not triggered on a first run (maybe first run after a system boot).

I've recently started having a similar problem. Always on top works as long as I keep VLC open, but if I close it I have to reset it. I've been using the program for years and never had this problem. Was there a recent update? It happens in Windows 10 and 7.