The VideoLAN Forums

Hello !
I love the feature in VLC which allows to read videos in multipart archives. The best is that you can even start watching the video before you have actually all the complete files in the folder. VLC gives you an error message but still plays.
But then when it arrives to the end of the files you had when you started, you get an error, it stops playing and you even lose the time at which you were, even if the missing files are now there. It'd be nice if we didnt have to launch it again to watch the end of the film in these cases, or if at least it told you at what time exactly you had the error, so that you can go there again quickly
Thanks in advance!

In my case VLC when it does play multipart RAR files when only first part is completely downloaded does play the movie from consecutive parts when it reaches them if they are completely downloaded by the time.

So I can for example first download first few parts, then put one third of remaining parts to high priority, other third of parts to normal priority and last third of parts to low priority to have them downloaded by the time VLC playback reaches them.

The only thing I have encountered lately is that it does not play some incompletely downloaded multipart RAR archives at all. Even when e.g. first three parts and the last one is completely downloaded.

I wonder why is this. Is it because there is some important information later in the archive lacking of which stops VLC from playing? Or is it because the archive has been created in a certain way?

I use VLC for Mac OSX (Lion).

Here is info from Windows version of 7-zip about an archive which does not play. It is most complete information I could find from range of Mac and Win archivators capable reading RAR. I actually had to OCR the Info from screenshot.

Folder: -
Size: 7036731205
Packed Size: 7036731205
Modified: 2014-07-22 22:29:24
Attributes: A
Encrypted: -
Solid: -
Commented: -
Split Before: -
Split After: -
CRC: A6B2E156
Host OS: Win32
Method: mO:22
Version: 20
Type: 7-Zip.Rar
Size: 7036731205
Packed Size: 7036731205
Folders: 0
Files: 1
CRC: A6B2E156
Solid: -Blocks: 1 Encrypted: -Multivolume: + Volumes: 71

You can see that the packed and unpacked sizes are identical. So technically there is nothing that can stop from playing it. Could that be the compression method mO:22? Or version 2.0?

A new development. When you download over 90% of archive it does play!

When you open coded info on an incompletely downloaded multipart archive, it shows dozens of streams and first few of them are audio.

Also it does show the codec info for 10-20 seconds then all info just goes. And the play button from pause bars (which it becomes when you start playback) changes back to play triangle.

Once the archive is downloaded to the point where VLC can see number of streams correctly it does play it.

What causes this though is still a mystery. What it there in part e.g 28 of e.g. 56 part archive what is not available in parts rar, 000 to 005 and in part 56?

Is nobody watching incomplete RARs?

It's very hard to do with incomplete RARs