The VideoLAN Forums

I'm encountering 2 problems during playback of music over home network:

1. When playing a song in an album/folder, I've no access to control buttons (pause, forward, backward, etc.). I have to backtrack all the way to the home page, and click on the "now playing" icon to see those buttons.

2. The order in which the songs in an album/folder are played is according to their titles alphabetically, not their track numbers.

Are these known issues with vlc for Android, or am I missing some settings?

Many thanks for your help.

You are using Android TV, right?
1. For now, it's in fact not possible to access the music player without returning to the home screen of the app or of the system. We plan to improve this in the future (but it will take time)
2. Are you launching your album playback from the "Browse" section? If so, the app will launch the track sin the order it's displayed. The app has no way to know the album order. You may want to index these filles in the media library and launch them from the Audio section.

Many thanks for your reply.

Yes, I'm running vlc from an Android box.

I discovered that, if I played the audio files from an attached drive (instead of streamed them over the home network), I wouldn't have either of the 2 problems I described. I'd love to know why.

I am not sure I understand your last sentence. If you're playing the files from an external drive (USB key / USB HDD) the files are sorted correctly?

Precisely, but I think I've figured out the reason why.

If I attach an external USB drive, a dialogue box would pop up and indicate that a new device is detected, and ask whether I would like to include it's contents in the media library (or something to that effect). After clicking yes, I would then be able to play all the files under the audio tab. The files are all sorted and organised properly, and the playback buttons are all there too.

In contrast, if I stream the files over my home network, I can only access the files under the browsing tab, as there is nothing under the audio tab. No dialogue box ever pops up about adding content to the library when no USB drive is attached.

yes, that makes sense! If your server is using the SMB protocol, you should be able to index (part of) it by going in the settings > Media library folders and select the folder you want there.

I've over 50,000 songs in my collection. Indexing them would be a major task. It would be nice if vlc could add the functionality that treats items available over a home network on par with those on an attached drive.

In any case, I thank you for your help.

It would be nice if vlc could add the functionality that treats items available over a home network on par with those on an attached drive.

It does. The dialog you got for your drive is in fact just the exact same thing: indexing medias on your drive.