The VideoLAN Forums

Hello. I just bought a Hisense 65" Android TV and installed VLC so I can play videos from an external hard drive (it is a 2TB WD drive with its own AC power source). I have many dozens of films and TV shows that I've collected over the years and ripped from my DVDs onto my computer. They all work fine playing through VLC on my 3 computers, but most of them will NOT play in VLC on my TV. The error lists the file path and file name and says the mp4 or avi "cannot be played" (not terribly helpful ). Then it launches the next video which it can play.

What's strange is that this will happen with videos that were all ripped at the same time from the same source (like from a series of TV shows). Any ideas as to why this is happening and how to fix it? Many thanks!

It may be a file path issue.

Could you please provide some logs?
Go in the Settings > Advanced > Debug logs > Start logging
Then reproduce the issue, dump logcat logs and attach the file here.

Hi. Thanks for the quick response.

Okay, I've clicked Logging and I did the Dump. I've searched for the file but I can't find the location where it is supposed to be. How do I get this file into my phone from the TV? Do I need to disconnect the hard drive from the TV and connect it to my computer?

Sorry to be dumb, but I've never encountered this type of problem before. Thanks.

No problem, getting the logs on Android TV is a bit tricky. You should install a file explorer and transfer the file (which is at the root of the internal memory) to a removable storage. It could be your hard drive. Then you can send it from any other device that could read your storage.

Okay, good enough. It's saved to the hard drive anyway, so I'll move the drive to my computer later and do that. Thanks.