VLC plays VC-1 on one Windows system but not another.

[BZLederman]

I have two Windows 7 64 bit systems. I recently upgraded both of them to K-Lite Mega 15.1.4 with no errors. I have VLC 3.0.8 on one, and 3.0.3 on the other. The system with 3.0.3 plays MKV files with VC-1 video, the 3.0.8 does not. The one with 3.0.8 had an earlier version (probably 3.0.6) and also did not play VC-1 video.

I suspect the problem is not in VLC, but I can't find another place to look. I did a complete re-install of K-Lite Mega, Avidemux can open and play the video files (and says it's using lavcodec) which means the codec is present on the system and working, so I can't figure out why VLC only plays audio and not video.

Any suggestions on where to look?

[BZLederman]

I may have been mistaken, now I'm not sure that Avidemux can in fact play VC-1 files. I may have had one file confused
with another.

I'm running another test to see if Handbrake can read the file.

I've been through all of the Codec Tweak Tool settings, I took the defaults and it says VC-1 and VP9
are present, but I'm not convinced that they are actually working or that the defaults are correct for
this codec.

[BZLederman]

More tests.

Any Video Converter can't read the VC-1 file. This is very unusual, it can normally read everything.

Windows Media Player (which I don't use unless I absolutely have to, as in this case) can play it.
But it says it's using DirectVobSub (forced auto-loading version) as the Video Codec, and
LAV Audio Decode for the Audio Codec. But MediaInfo says it's VC-1 (Microsoft): V_MS/VFW/FOURCC / WVC1

If WMP can find the codec, why can't the other programs find it, and how do I fix this?

Thanks for any ideas or suggestions.

[BZLederman]

VLC wasn't playing AVI / XVID files either, which is a new fault.

I tried to go back to 3.0.7.1 64 bit, and 3.0.5 64 bit but the installers refused to do that.

I used Revo to completely uninstall VLC, then installed 3.0.3 32 bit.

I can now play all of my video files again.

The fault now clearly lies with VLC 3.0.8, if 3.0.3 plays the files with no other changes to the
system (not even a reboot).

[Lotesdelere]

You should create a new ticket on the VLC Trac with the link to this thread.
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/