The VideoLAN Forums

Maybe "too much information" here, but this is how it went:

I had not been using VLC, it was closed and the icon was inactive, as expected, in my Taskbar.

Doing something unrelated, I noticed a fleeting popup of a black cmd box... raised my eyebrows and carried on with what I was doing.

Maybe half an hour later I opened VLC and got such a shock - it was huge! I have a 3840x2160 display, and in order to read VLC's tiny font and icons I normally have to set the Compatibility to override etc etc... so I changed that setting back to default, but VLC is still huge.

This is what it looks like on full screen:



.
It's wonderful to have such a clear interface, but 2 things:

(1) I have never downloaded 3.0.4, the last update I did was 3.0.3. It has never updated itself before, tho it has told me there is an update available and I can choose whether to install it or not. I'm not complaining, just flagging the change in behaviour.

(2) My only problem with the current version is that I cannot shrink it to fit into a corner so that I can carry on with work while monitoring a webcam in VLC.

I can reduce the depth to nothing:





But the width can't be reduced any narrower than in the above snaps.

Yours gratefully

To disable automatic updates go to Tools ---> Preferences and in the menu which opens remove the checkmark from "Activate updates notifier" at the bottom.

To resize or change the font, click the Subtitles/OSD button in the same menu.

If you still have problems after adjusting font size, please post again.

Thank you for your suggestions but I think we have a misunderstanding.

I don't want to disable update notifier - or are you saying that the update notifier is actually an update installer? I've been using VLC for many years and it's only ever notified me of availability, never installed. This time it installed an update without even being open.

As for the font resizing, I can only find subtitle size settings and, having tried every option therein and saved and closed VLC each time, I can say that the interface font size remains the same.

Heaven forbid that I need to Customise Interface again, as I cannot access all the control icons in Toolbars Editor, too much of the panel is hidden and I cannot resize said panel - the slider will only reach as far as Speed Selector.

This is it on my 15" screen:



It seems my only option is to uninstall 3.0.4 and revert to 3.0.3, which is a shame because I think it's performing better and I do like larger menus and icons.

Did you try resetting the preferences ?

Thank you for your suggestions but I think we have a misunderstanding.

I don't want to disable update notifier - or are you saying that the update notifier is actually an update installer? I've been using VLC for many years and it's only ever notified me of availability, never installed. This time it installed an update without even being open.

As for the font resizing, I can only find subtitle size settings and, having tried every option therein and saved and closed VLC each time, I can say that the interface font size remains the same.

Heaven forbid that I need to Customise Interface again, as I cannot access all the control icons in Toolbars Editor, too much of the panel is hidden and I cannot resize said panel - the slider will only reach as far as Speed Selector.

This is it on my 15" screen:

It seems my only option is to uninstall 3.0.4 and revert to 3.0.3, which is a shame because I think it's performing better and I do like larger menus and icons.

No, the notifier isn't an installer. See this site for alternative suggestions.

As regards the resizing option you should be able to see the menu shown in the screenshot.



(click to enlarge)

If it isn't visible, then I suggest you uninstall the version you have now and then download a fresh copy and manually perform a fresh installation. In that respect it's been mine experience that upgrades don't always go according to plan and I've often ended up having to uninstall/reinstall the program again manually.

@RobUx4 - No, I haven't reset Preferences, in case I lose settings that have taken ages to get right :-/

@Hitchhiker:

As regards the resizing option you should be able to see the menu shown in the screenshot.



(click to enlarge)

.
In haste! Thank you

Those are the sizes that I've tried - every one - and they make no difference. But I get the impression that they only apply to subtitles.

It's a major disruption to have to close all programs because my laptop performs tasks in the background 24/7, but I'm obviously going to have to bite the bullet, and I shall follow up on your links.

I wonder if it's this darn high-res display that's to blame, I loathe it and only bought the laptop for the 32GB RAM, which, incidentally, has made little difference to video editing efficiency >:(

This problem appears to have cropped up before though not on the Windows version as far as I can tell. See this thread for details.

The Linux commands should work on Windows as well judging by this Wiki (Introduction menu), but you could try using the Qt menu to "Resize interface to the native video size" to see if it makes any difference first. It's unchecked by default.


(click to enlarge)

Resize interface to the native video size won't change HiDPI settings. It would only resize the window to the size of the video.

Either you have to change them globally (Qt use the screen scale parameters) or you have to set them in environment variable.

Thank you to everyone who's tried to advise

In the end I had to "bite the bullet" (another program was insisting on an update, killed 2 birds), uninstalled and reinstalled 3.0.4 from a fresh download, as recommended by Hitchhiker. Perfect !!!

Closed it down, went on doing something else, had to open VLC for a task... back to HUGE

Undaunted, I uninstalled and reinstalled it again, did nothing different from before, and it's been perfect ever since. I keep reopening it to make sure that it's still good before I tell you about the triumph

One thing about encountering problems you haven't seen before - even if you don't find a specific solution, you learn bits and pieces that may come in handy another time... like the existence of the Qt category, for one thing

As said, thanks to all!

PS - I notice that 3.0.4 is much more responsive than the previous several versions, that's a great plus! Thank you, Developers

Thank you to everyone who's tried to advise

In the end I had to "bite the bullet" (another program was insisting on an update, killed 2 birds), uninstalled and reinstalled 3.0.4 from a fresh download, as recommended by Hitchhiker. Perfect !!!

Closed it down, went on doing something else, had to open VLC for a task... back to HUGE

Undaunted, I uninstalled and reinstalled it again, did nothing different from before, and it's been perfect ever since. I keep reopening it to make sure that it's still good before I tell you about the triumph

One thing about encountering problems you haven't seen before - even if you don't find a specific solution, you learn bits and pieces that may come in handy another time... like the existence of the Qt category, for one thing

As said, thanks to all!

It might use the scale factor from the screen you open it on and keep it afterwards, if you have multiple screen. Otherwise I don't have a clue :/

if you have multiple screen.

No multiple screen, Unidan.

VLC still perfect today, after multiple activations