The VideoLAN Forums

Hello folks,
I'm using VLC to play a network stream to create a point to point audio link over the internet for a remote link for a community radio station.
The stream is from an Icecast server.
I set it up and working fine, however after about 20 hours it appeared to have just stopped. It manually restarted fine.
I guess it could have been a 'blip' with the internet connection or does VLC 'time-out' after a certain time? I.E. can it play a stream indefinately?
If it was caused by a 'blip', can VLC not try and auto reconnect?

Any suggestions for making this work indefinately, reliably and unattended most welcome!

Simon

Some streams are using a redirection which may expire after some time.

Some streams are using a redirection which may expire after some time.

Good point, but this is a direct link.

http://radio.canstream.co.uk:8029/live.mp3 if you fancy a listen!

Then we need the log when the stream stops

I don't think it's a 'time-out' issue after all. I think there was an internet blip at the transmit end causing VLC to stop.

I can't see any setting for 'auto reconnect'.

You can try to run VLC with the --http-reconnect option.

In the development of the topic. Please explain the difference between --loop and --http-reconnect

Please could you explain to a numpty how to use --http-reconnect ?
Thanks!

Run VLC from the command line prompt with the option:
vlc.exe --http-reconnect

I don't know more about this option, let's hope a dev will help you.

VLC 3.0 automatically reconnects if the OS detects the connection failure and if the stream can be reconnected transparently. There are no settings.

If it doesn't work, there's nothing to set or fix. You need to restart the stream.

Found this thread from a google search and i experience similar behavior. Running latest VLC version on windows 10. I use VLC currently to stream IPTV services, but what's making it unusable is this habit it has of just stopping the stream every few minutes. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does it's usually pretty rhythmic, like it crashes every few minutes on the dot, and I'm forced to manually click the play button again, then scroll through the timeline to find the spot in the show where it died. What I mean by crash is you get UI you see when you first load VLC, black screen kinda thing. Very annoying.

Now i have gigabit fiber internet with a consistent connection so it's not a bandwidth issue, i thought maybe it might have been due to poor VPN connection but it does the same thing when not behind a VPN too. I don't run VLC from command prompt, just the GUI so having to test different CLI parameters isn't feasible.

It seems to be an issue with how VLC handles buffering is my guess because I've used services like tivimate on the firesticks/androids before with zero issues from the same service and internet. Its like if the buffer reaches the end, AND there's no connection to the streaming service, it just dies and forces the user to restart the stream.

Would be cool for a dev to look into that a bit more because i think there could be a solution in here somewhere, like have a separate thread monitor the connection to the streaming service and probe it if buffering has stopped for too long, or something like that. Plus when i restart the stream manually, it connects again right away, so its not like the connection is offline or down for literally any length of time. Seems like something VLC should be able to manage in the background? Keep the buffer flowing and keep the connection alive?