The VideoLAN Forums

External Toshiba 2tb pocket HD connected to and formatted in Samsung Galaxy xCover Pro (smartphone) USB-C port. Android 11's "My Files" reads the drive, and media content plays on stock player, but VLC can't see the drive at all. VLC's storage permissions are set to "Allow management of all files" (only option besides "Deny"). When I navigate to a video file on the USB drive in My Files, and try to open it in VLC, I get the error "The location file:///mnt/media[directory].mp4[avi, mpg...] cannot be played." Stock player has very limited features, would much rather use VLC. Can this issue be resolved?

Google would need to agree that VLC is a "File Manager" for it to have the abilities it has had in the past under their new Scoped Storage model. Old versions are probably broken forever. "For your own good"

So I should take this issue up with Google? I have the newest version of everything.

So I posted the same question on the Android forum, and this is the answer I received:

"This is something that VLC should work on with Google, and you shouldn't have to be involved in the middle. As things stand right now, the most you can do is send feedback from the VLC app, leave a review on their Play Store page, and send feedback from your phone's Settings menu."

I agree with that response. It is bigger than VLC. Google is massively breaking stuff in vain pursuit of safety. The best reaction is for you to give Google feedback as an end-user.

When you plug your device, don't you get something like that?


If so, you should just tap this and grant access to VLC.

If so, you should just tap this and grant access to VLC.

No, VLC doesn't see my OTG drive on my Galaxy XCover Pro with Android 11, nor can I open media from my OTG drive through My Files in VLC, VLC says: "The location [path] cannot be played."

Could you please provide some logs?

Reproduce the issue by inserting / removing your drive and then go to: Settings > Advanced > Debug logs. Then share the logs with the sharing service you prefer (Google Drive, Dropbox, pastebin...).