VLC Player tries to act as server for Update Check?

[generalzod]

My firewall is indicating that VLC player is trying to open an *inbound* port or act as a server
when I do an update check. Most software just opens an outbound connection to their
update site. What's going on with this strangeness in the update check?

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Your firewall is buggy.

[generalzod]

I don't think so, Outpost is reporting that

vlc.exe is attempting to listen to a port - localhost:loopback, TCP:49291

where the port itself varies slightly but is always in the low 49000 range.

If I allow that, then I see an attempt at an outbound connection to the same
port on the loopback connection.

Only after both of those succeed, it attempts to connect to ganesh.vlc.XXX
to perform the update.

So for some reason it connects to itself through a local TCP port before
going onto the internet. Seems harmless, but why?

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Oh, that one. It's an ugly hack to get the VLC network event loop to work.