The VideoLAN Forums

Hello, I'm having trouble launching VLC media player at all, after compiling it from the wiki's instructions at https://wiki.videolan.org/UnixCompile/ :
Whenever I try to launch vlc from the console, it just prints one single line with the VLC version number, then immediately exits. I have no idea why, and I cannot find any relevant log files, or find any other output than that single line. What's going on?

I'm using Ubuntu 20.04.2, compiled from the 3.0.16 source archive downloaded from https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-sources.html . The same thing happens if I try to compile from the 3.0.15 source archive. I used to get the dependencies, rather than building contribs manually, if that matters.

The regular build of VLC works fine, this problem only happens with the VLC that I compiled myself just now. What can I do to make my locally-compiled VLC work as expected?

Edit: The executable vlc-wrapper also has the same problem, but the executable vlc-static actually works fine. I'm pretty confused.

You're not running VLC like the wiki page says to. It does not work. Maybe there is a link?

The instructions in the link above say to simply run "./vlc", which does not work.

Works fine here and for plenty of people. You'll need to be more specific if you expect help.

Ok, so what could possibly make it not work here? That's what I'm asking for.

What makes it not work is pretty always one of two things: skipping steps in the documentation, or manually messing up the build tree or the build environment.