VLC does not launch at all on Win 11

[tombaeuerle]

Hi,

I installed VLC on a new laptop that is running a clean, newly installed Windows 11. I don't have any third party firewalls or antivirus software installed. When I double-click on the VLC icon, I get a wait cursor for a fraction of a second and then nothing happens. No VLC processes are visible in the task manager. Here's what I have tried so far:

- Tried the 32 bit and 64 bit versions
- Tried the current stable version 3.0.16
- Tried a nightly build from February 22nd
- Tried to erase all VLC settings
- Tried to run VLC from the command line
- Tried to run VLC as administrator
- Tried to run VLC in Windows 8 compatibility mode

When starting VLC from the command line by typing vlc.exe in the installation directory, no output is visible at all. No error messages, no indication that the program is even trying to start. I just get another command line prompt.

The only kind of output that I have managed to get is when I run "vlc.exe --help" or "vlc.exe -H", in which case a new command line window opens and I can see the help text.

Any suggestions on how to start VLC would be appreciated. I would happily provide log files or diagnostic output if only I knew how to start VLC so that any kind of log is written. In case it matters, the laptop has a relatively new Ryzen 7 CPU.

Thanks
T

[Lotesdelere]

First, fully reset the preferences and try again:
https://wiki.videolan.org/VSG:ResetPrefs

If it doesn't help then run VLC with this command line for creating a log file:

Code: Select all

vlc --extraintf=logger --verbose=2 --logfile=C:\vlc.log --logmode=text --file-logging

and then paste the full resulting log here or on Pastebin.com if it's too long.

Make sure you have full access rights to the destination path.

[tombaeuerle]

Thanks for the reply. I deleted the preferences directory, then ran the command you posted. I didn't use c:\vlc.log but c:\Users\<myname>\Documents\vlc.log as the location for the log file to avoid any authorization problems when writing to the root directory of the C: drive.

It did create the log file, but it was empty (0 bytes).

Since the full path of the log file was passed to vlc.exe as a parameter (as opposed to redirecting the output using the ">" symbol), it must mean that the VLC executable actually started to run and created the file. But it looks like it terminated before any log message could be written to the file.

Any other suggestions? I briefly considered compiling VLC from source code and running it in a debugger but it seems anything but trivial...

[Lotesdelere]

An empty log is not normal, try with another output path. For example, C:\Temp\vlc.log

[tombaeuerle]

No matter what directory I use for the log file, VLC does create it but does not write any messages into it. I always end up with a 0 byte file.
I also tried putting the log file on a FAT32 formatted USB drive where anybody can read and write without restrictions. Again, all I get is an empty log file.

The VLC installation file I used for 3.0.16 had this SHA256 checksum so the file must be OK:
0cff2d41a69d72de30607b8fc09da90e352393e154a342efcddb91e06b3a2147

Is there any kind of runtime library that needs to be installed? I have seen a few applications asking for some sort of Visual C++ Redistributable stuff. I think VLC for Windows is not built with Visual C++ but maybe there's some sort of MinGW library that I don't have? This is a brand new machine with a squeaky clean installation of Windows 11, after all.

[Lotesdelere]

The VLC installation file I used for 3.0.16 had this SHA256 checksum so the file must be OK:
0cff2d41a69d72de30607b8fc09da90e352393e154a342efcddb91e06b3a2147

Is there any kind of runtime library that needs to be installed? I have seen a few applications asking for some sort of Visual C++ Redistributable stuff. I think VLC for Windows is not built with Visual C++ but maybe there's some sort of MinGW library that I don't have? This is a brand new machine with a squeaky clean installation of Windows 11, after all.

The SHA256 checksum is the correct one for the x64 installer.
VLC doesn't use any extra MSVC runtime (only the standard Mscvrt.dll), it's built with GCC and the installer contains all of the needed files.
Looks like there is something blocking VLC or its Qt interface from running. Do you have a special device such as a tablet or any fancy software ?

[tombaeuerle]

Nothing fancy that I can think of. This is a brand new Huawei laptop with a Ryzen CPU. When I got it, I immediately erased the hard drive and installed Windows 11 for x64 from a USB stick that I had created with the official Microsoft installation media creation tool. I did this because I did not want to have any pre-installed bloatware on it.
It pulled all its device drives via Windows Update. Currently, all that's installed is a PDF viewer, 7-Zip, OpenOffice, Firefox and Thunderbird. And VLC, which is the only program that just won't start.
I never had this problem on any other machine, and when I start VLC using the above command on a different laptop that I have, it creates the log file and fills it with messages. It's just this one machine where it just won't launch... The fact that the log file is created tells me that the executable starts running but crashes at a very early stage, i.e. after creating the log file but before writing the first message to it.
I'm really out of ideas here.

[Lotesdelere]

We do need a log, without a log we can't do any diagnostics.
What is your hardware ? All of your hardware.

[tombaeuerle]

The machine is a Huawei MateBook 16. Here are the specs:

- AMD Ryzen 7 5800H with Radeon Graphics (8 Cores, 16 logical cores)
- AMD Radeon Graphics (VendorID 1002, Device ID 1638)
- 16 GB RAM
- Senary Audio (VendorID 14F1, Device ID 20D0)
- 64 Bit Windows 11
- Not sure if it matters but the device manager shows a "TPM 2.0" and an "AMD PSP 10.0 Device"
- Drive C: is 476 GB, of which 443 GB are free

More detailed specs from msinfo.exe (sorry it's in German):


Betriebsystemname Microsoft Windows 11 Home
Version 10.0.22000 Build 22000
Weitere Betriebsystembeschreibung Nicht verfügbar
Betriebsystemhersteller Microsoft Corporation
Systemname XXXXXX-HUAWEI
Systemhersteller HUAWEI
Systemmodell CREM-WXX9
Systemtyp x64-basierter PC
System-SKU C100
Prozessor AMD Ryzen 7 5800H with Radeon Graphics, 3201 MHz, 8 Kern(e), 16 logische(r) Prozessor(en)
BIOS-Version/-Datum HUAWEI 2.16, 13.09.2021
SMBIOS-Version 3.3
Version des eingebetteten Controllers 2.16
BIOS-Modus UEFI
BaseBoard-Hersteller HUAWEI
BaseBoard-Produkt CREM-WXX9-PCB-B1
BaseBoard-Version M1010
Plattformrolle Mobil
Sicherer Startzustand Ein
PCR7-Konfiguration Erweiterung zum Anzeigen erforderlich
Windows-Verzeichnis C:\Windows
Systemverzeichnis C:\Windows\system32
Startgerät \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Gebietsschema Deutschland
Hardwareabstraktionsebene Version = "10.0.22000.527"
Benutzername Xxxxxx-HUAWEI\xxxxx
Zeitzone Mitteleuropäische Zeit
Installierter physischer Speicher (RAM) 16,0 GB
Gesamter physischer Speicher 15,4 GB
Verfügbarer physischer Speicher 11,2 GB
Gesamter virtueller Speicher 18,2 GB
Verfügbarer virtueller Speicher 12,8 GB
Größe der Auslagerungsdatei 2,88 GB
Auslagerungsdatei C:\pagefile.sys
Kernel-DMA-Schutz Aus
Virtualisierungsbasierte Sicherheit Wird ausgeführt...
Virtualisierungsbasierte Sicherheit – erforderliche Sicherheitseigenschaften
Virtualisierungsbasierte Sicherheit – verfügbare Sicherheitseigenschaften Allgemeine Virtualisierungsunterstützung, Sicherer Start, DMA-Schutz, UEFI-Code Readonly, SMM Security Mitigations 1.0, Modusbasierte Ausführungssteuerung
Virtualisierungsbasierte Sicherheit – konfigurierte Dienste Durch Hypervisor erzwungene Codeintegrität
Virtualisierungsbasierte Sicherheit – ausgeführte Dienste Durch Hypervisor erzwungene Codeintegrität
Windows Defender-Anwendungssteuerungsrichtlinie Erzwungen
Windows Defender-Anwendungssteuerungs-Richtlinie für den Benutzermodus Aus
Unterstützung der Geräteverschlüsselung Erweiterung zum Anzeigen erforderlich
Es wurde ein Hypervisor erkannt. Features, die für Hyper-V erforderlich sind, werden nicht angezeigt.


Edition Windows 11 Home
Version 21H2
Installiert am ‎22.‎02.‎2022
Betriebssystembuild 22000.527
Leistung Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22000.527.0


Let me know if I can pvovide more details. I couldn't find a good way to copy&paste all the information from the Device Manager. I don't know if there's a shell command that lists all the installed devices, such as lspci on Linux, but if something like that exists on Windows please let me know and I'll provide the output.

Thanks

[unidan]

Hi, do you know how to use the Windows subsystem for Linux ? it's possible to run VLC in console mode with logs by running

Code: Select all

./vlc.exe -vv 2>&1 | cat

[tombaeuerle]

OK now we're getting somewhere. I installed Cygwin sine I am more familiar with that and here's the output. By the way the last message actually ends at "mmdevi". I tried multiple times. Of course this could be due to a stream that is not yet flushed when the crash occurs.


$ ./vlc.exe -vv 2>&1 | cat
[0000022423e831b0] main libvlc debug: VLC media player - 3.0.16 Vetinari
[0000022423e831b0] main libvlc debug: Copyright © 1996-2021 the VideoLAN team
[0000022423e831b0] main libvlc debug: revision 3.0.16-0-g5e70837d8d
[0000022423e831b0] main libvlc debug: configured with /home/jenkins/workspace/vlc-release/windows/vlc-release-win32-x64/extras/package/win32/../../../configure '--enable-update-check' '--enable-lua' '--enable-faad' '--enable-flac' '--enable-theora' '--enable-avcodec' '--enable-merge-ffmpeg' '--enable-dca' '--enable-mpc' '--enable-libass' '--enable-schroedinger' '--enable-realrtsp' '--enable-live555' '--enable-shout' '--enable-goom' '--enable-sse' '--enable-mmx' '--enable-libcddb' '--enable-zvbi' '--disable-telx' '--enable-nls' '--host=x86_64-w64-mingw32' '--with-contrib=../contrib/x86_64-w64-mingw32' '--with-breakpad=https://win.crashes.videolan.org' '--enable-qt' '--enable-skins2' '--enable-dvdread' '--enable-caca' 'host_alias=x86_64-w64-mingw32' 'CFLAGS= ' 'CXXFLAGS= ' 'PKG_CONFIG=pkg-config' 'PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR=/usr/x86_64-w64-mingw32/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/lib/x86_64-w64-mingw32/pkgconfig'
[0000022423e831b0] main libvlc debug: using multimedia timers as clock source
[0000022423e831b0] main libvlc debug: min period: 1 ms, max period: 1000000 ms
[0000022423e831b0] main libvlc debug: searching plug-in modules
[0000022423e831b0] main libvlc debug: loading plugins cache file C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\plugins\plugins.dat
[0000022423e831b0] main libvlc debug: recursively browsing `C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\plugins'
[0000022423e831b0] main libvlc error: stale plugins cache: modified C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\plugins\access\libaccess_concat_plugin.dll

(...Lots of messages about stale plugins...)

[0000022423e831b0] main libvlc error: stale plugins cache: modified C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\plugins\visualization\libvisual_plugin.dll
[0000022423e831b0] main libvlc debug: plug-ins loaded: 496 modules
[0000022423e831b0] main libvlc debug: opening config file (C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Roaming\vlc\vlcrc)
[0000022423e83420] main logger debug: looking for logger module matching "any": 2 candidates
[0000022423e83420] main logger debug: using logger module "console"
[0000022423e831b0] main libvlc debug: translation test: code is "de"
[00000224243c8390] main keystore debug: looking for keystore module matching "memory": 3 candidates
[00000224243c8390] main keystore debug: using keystore module "memory"
[0000022423e831b0] main libvlc debug: CPU has capabilities MMX MMXEXT SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE4.1 SSE4.2 FPU
[000002242238da60] main playlist debug: creating audio output
[0000022423f48db0] main audio output debug: looking for audio output module matching "any": 6 candidates
[0000022423f48db0] mmdevice audio output debug: using default device
[0000022423f48db0] mmdevice audio output error: cannot get session control (error 0x8007007e)
[0000022423f48db0] mmdevice audio output error: cannot get simple volume (error 0x8007007e)
[0000022423f48db0] mmdevice audio output debug: version 2 session control unavailable
[0000022423f48db0] mmdevi
xxxxx@Xxxxxx-HUAWEI /cygdrive/c/Program Files/VideoLAN/VLC
$

[unidan]

Interesting, thanks for the debug logs.

Can you try launching with the -A dummy option to avoid using mmdevice?

You could try removing the plugins folder and reinstalling VLC too, stale plugins shouldn't happen.

[tombaeuerle]

When I use "-A dummy" then VLC starts. Video plays OK. Audio is gone obviously. But it's something! Is there an alternate audio option that doesn't disable audio entirely?

[Lotesdelere]

First, exit VLC then try to force it to use DirectSound by editing the vlcrc file from %APPDATA%\vlc with a text editor.

Find this setting:
# Audio output module (string)

And set the aout value to directsound like this:
aout=directsound

[tombaeuerle]

That did the trick! VLC is now starting and audio works OK.
Thank you so much, you guys are awesome.

As for me I'm all set now, but if there's any additional information I can provide for the developers, do let me know.

Thanks again.