3.5.4 Beta 1 on Pixel 4a Android - no files found

[MrVideo]

The phone has a boatload of files in the MUSIC and VIDEO directories, but it refuses to find any files. It finds over a thousand directories in the MUSIC location, but declares them to all be empty. The VIDEO director has no sub-directories, so it lists it as being empty.

Rocket Player has no issue playing the audio files, but it doesn't do videos, hence the reason for VLC. I normally only play videos on the phone when I am flying, so it has been a while. So, when I tried today, I was unable to play any videos.

Any idea on what I need to do to get this to work again?

[Spike1]

See the first two options under More > Settings. VLC needs to be instructed to FIND the media; either ① by looking everywhere, every time you start it up, or ② by you explicitly selecting the directories (presumably MUSIC and VIDEO). Mere presence in the directory tree isn't sufficient. (Apologies if you already knew this.)

[MrVideo]

The auto rescan is checked. When restarted VLC, it started scanning. Under select directories to include, internal memory is checked and when I select it, it shows all internal directories as being selected. There is no way to unselect anything. When I select Music, I see the artists in alpha order. It says no subfolders, which is correct, as only music files should be there. But when I select an artist, I am told no media files found.

I can click on the red check box for internal memory, but I cannot do that for any of the internally listed directories.

BTW, that is why it is called beta software and why I am testing it, in order to find things like this.

[Spike1]

If you check the box, it automatically enables ALL the subdirectories. If you uncheck the box, then tap the directory name to enter the directory, you will be able to check the boxes for individual subdirectories.

However, given that you enabled all the directories in internal memory, I can't explain why VLC fails to find the music.
•Sounds like VLC has permissions
•What are the file types (extensions)?
•Doing anything unusual with file naming?

[MrVideo]

If you check the box, it automatically enables ALL the subdirectories. If you uncheck the box, then tap the directory name to enter the directory, you will be able to check the boxes for individual subdirectories.

Thanks, I did not know that. I've since done that and only selected MUSIC and VIDEO.

However, given that you enabled all the directories in internal memory, I can't explain why VLC fails to find the music.

Also not finding any of the video files.

•Sounds like VLC has permissions

I can't find anything to indicate that it can't access the internal media.

•What are the file types (extensions)?

A majority are MP3. I plan on updating files to flac.

•Doing anything unusual with file naming?

I don't know what you mean by unusual. File names consist of the standard English ASCII characters. No "weird" characters. It is strange that it can find and list all of the music directories, but none of the actual files. A majority of the video files are MKV, many of which were downloaded from YouTube.

[Skantes]

Sorry about the issue, could you please send us some logs (More -> Settings -> Advanced -> Debug logs (at the bottom)) before disabling and re-enabling your directories, this would help us see what fails as I wasn't able to reproduce the issue.

[MrVideo]

I started logging and had it rescan. I then went to dump the log and VLC popped up the VLC preference setting. VLC didn't have permission to deal with files. I looked everywhere within VLC to find the preference setting. The preference setting needs to be in the settings section. Once I turned it on, the log was dumped and after the MUSIC and VIDEO directories were reread, it then parsed all of the files.

So, all is working again. Looks like the setting/viewing of preferences needs to be available to the user, easily.

BTW, all of the debug options are now grayed out. Wait! I just looked again and now all are on but start logging. I did a stop and then a clear. No idea what caused all of the options to be gray.

I've now deleted the log file.

Hopefully something useful has come out of this.

Thanks for the help.

[Spike1]

If VLC didn't have file permission, that neatly explains your exact complaint!

Permissions settings aren't in VLC but in Android. However, other apps sensing they lack permission are able to guide the user to the right screen.

Regarding directory selection not taking immed. effect, I reported something similar: see https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=160762

[MrVideo]

Permissions settings aren't in VLC but in Android. However, other apps sensing they lack permission are able to guide the user to the right screen.

Ya, other apps that I have pop up a permission screen. I'm surprised that VLC didn't pop up a permission screen before starting a scan, since it was known that it didn't have permission.

Some thoughts...

If the permission was supposed to be handled by Android, why did VLC present the screen? It was all done within VLC, I was not redirected to an Android screen. At least it seemed that way.

Since VLC has been in my phones for quite a while, I have no idea why it got turned off. Last year I was watching videos on this phone on my trip to/from Iceland last October. Leaves me puzzled as to why things have changed.

[Skantes]

The reason we don't spawn a dialog other than in the onboarding is that we want the app to be usable without storage permissions as some people don't want to give them, and only use the app with streams, or network files.

Tough for some reason, recently some users have had their permissions reset, causing the issue you had. We are working on it, sorry for the inconvenience.

[Spike1]

And yet, if the guy is browsing storage, it's going to fail and he ought to be told why. If you put up a dialog, he can always keep saying no.

[MrVideo]

Tough for some reason, recently some users have had their permissions reset, causing the issue you had. We are working on it, sorry for the inconvenience.

That is why this is beta and I'm testing it.

[MrVideo]

And yet, if the guy is browsing storage, it's going to fail and he ought to be told why. If you put up a dialog, he can always keep saying no.

I second this.