[Bug] Can not exit vlc properly when you close the app while playing

[whitakerz]

I just started having this same issue this week(Since about April 23rd oddly?). Before this week everything worked fine. I am using ubuntu 18.04.4. I didn't have an issue before last week.
What I don't understand in this forum is:

What is the simple solution to the problem?

Why can I not double click on a video file to start it?

I don't care who's issue it is..... how do I fix it?

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Unroll the updates from 18.04.4 to 18.04.3 ? I suppose your display drivers were updated?

[whitakerz]

Explain to me what you mean by Qt GUI. I did notice that the player did change the way it looks about the same time I started having this issue.

If it affects the VLC Qt GUI, then it's not a VLC in any way, and there's really not much point discussing it here or in another thread.

I would like to make VLC launch NOT in the GUI, if the GUI is the issue.

[rootkea]

Hi!

I am experiencing this issue on latest Ubuntu.

Code: Select all

$ cat /etc/issue Ubuntu 20.04 LTS \n \l $ uname -a Linux optimus 5.4.0-28-generic #32-Ubuntu SMP Wed Apr 22 17:40:10 UTC 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux $ vlc --version VLC media player 3.0.9.2 Vetinari (revision 3.0.9.2-0-gd4c1aefe4d) VLC version 3.0.9.2 Vetinari (3.0.9.2-0-gd4c1aefe4d) Compiled by buildd on lgw01-amd64-060.buildd (Apr 9 2020 19:29:44) Compiler: gcc version 9.3.0 (Ubuntu 9.3.0-10ubuntu2) This program comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. You may redistribute it under the terms of the GNU General Public License; see the file named COPYING for details. Written by the VideoLAN team; see the AUTHORS file. $

Steps to reproduce:

1. Double click on any video file (in my case it's .avi)
2. VLC starts playing the video
3. Now close VLC by clicking x on the VLC window
4. VLC window closes
5. Observe that vlc process is still running ($ top or $ ps aux)
6. Double click on any video file. It won't get played. Nothing happens.
7. Now only option is $ pkill -9 vlc

Please let me know if you need any logfile.

Thanks!

[rootkea]

Apparently, this issue got fixed when I disabled the systray icon from Tools > Preferences > Interface > Show systray icon. No zombie vlc process so far.

[DiDiDi]

Apparently, this issue got fixed when I disabled the systray icon from Tools > Preferences > Interface > Show systray icon. No zombie vlc process so far.

Not for me, still the same issue with systray icon disabled. Manjaro/KDE/kernel 5.6.12/amdgpu/X11...

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/issues/116 ?

[Cookie123]

I had the same issue on Ubuntu 20.04 with Vega M GPU, tray icon mentioned in post above did not work BUT found this on reddit that worked for me:

Preferences > Video > Output > XVideo output (XCB) > save and restart player

Now it closes fine with X while video is still playing, tray icon ENABLED, single instance mode.
Hope it helps someone.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

As pointed out up-thread: https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=149762&start=25#p501505 you can use XVideo (3.0.x) or X11 RENDER (4.0) as a work around but it will increase CPU usage. XVideo also hurts subtitle quality.

[Cookie123]

As pointed out up-thread: https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=149762&start=25#p501505 you can use XVideo (3.0.x) or X11 RENDER (4.0) as a work around but it will increase CPU usage. XVideo also hurts subtitle quality.

Whoops, I do admit that I skipped reading page 2 and skimmed rest. My bad.
Increased CPU usage is fine imo but I did not know about hurting sub quality so thanks for the info, switched from XVideo to X11 now and everything works great.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Plain X11 will increase CPU usage even more, though it won't affect rendering quality.

[grzebo]

I am really glad that I found this thread, this issue has been driving me mad, hopefully it can get fixed.

I confirm the same error on Lubuntu and Kubuntu 20.04, both with a clean install and default config. The error is as described earlier: closing VLC by pressing "X" in the window manager does not kill VLC, which can still be seen in ps. This blocks opening new VLC instances until I do a manual "killall -9 vlc". I have a radeon card.

My graphics card:
VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590] (rev ef)

I have found out that forcing VLC to use "Skinnable Interface" as the default solves the problem, but I have no idea why. Forcing Qt Interface or disabling all settings relating to the tray icon doesn't change anything. This is a workaround the "Skinnable interface" doesn't fit with the look of the rest of the KDE, so I would like to use the default VLC interface once the bug is fixed.

I can provide additional information if you tell me how to get it.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Unfortunately, there are at several different bugs that get mistaken for one another:

• The non-embedded window video does not handle close event from the X11 window manager.
• The VLC code does not handle video window closed event.
• The Qt UI unmaps the embedded video window too early.
• Some Mesa drivers lock up when the underlying window is unmapped.

Ultimately, the "real" bug that leads to VLC freezing is the last one, and it is in Mesa. But the Qt issue is why the bug has become so much more prevalent on Linux in recent months.

Somebody who can reproduce this should check if it's a regression in VLC, or in Qt5. (I can't do that.)

[Shade53]

I was able to get mine to close out properly and reliably by setting my Hardware Decoding to Disabled. This seems to follow along with it being a driver issue, at least maybe for AMD Radeon cards. I hope this helps a few of you.

[interele]

For me this issue goes away if I use Wayland

Mal

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Of course. The issue is intrinsically specific to X11.

[videbob]

Works fine for me with an AMD R9 290 on Linux Mint 19.3, even with different mesa versions.

However, change over to Ubuntu 20.04 or Linux Mint 20 and I always get the dreaded zombie process with Automatic or OpenGL output. Changing output to X11 works OK.

[alejosimon]

Works fine for me with an AMD R9 290 on Linux Mint 19.3, even with different mesa versions.

However, change over to Ubuntu 20.04 or Linux Mint 20 and I always get the dreaded zombie process with Automatic or OpenGL output. Changing output to X11 works OK.

videbob you are a king!
You post a "THE REAL SOLUTION" thanks!

[mikegleasonjr]

I experience the same thing. Steps to reproduce:

First watch the process list in a console:

Code: Select all

$ watch 'ps aux | grep [v]lc'

1. Start VLC, the process appears in the list.
2. Play a network file (rtsp)
3. Stop the video with the stop button
4. Close VLC with the X button
5. The process disappears from the list
6. Re-open VLC
7. Re-play the rtsp stream
8. Close VLC without first stopping the stream
9. The VLC window disappear but the process is still running

Specs:

* Ubuntu 20.04
* GPU: AMD RX 5700 XT (Stock video drivers)
* VLC 3.0.9.2 installed via snap

EDIT: Can confirm, the workaround of changing the video display output from Automatic to X11 video output (XCB) works

[EgObsolete]

I installed Debian 10.4.0 recently with KDE and VLC continues to run in the "status & notifications" menu.

For me however the graphical window was all white except the top-left logo and top-right buttons (min/max/close) when choosing "show vlc" from "status & notifications" menu.
Continuing playback from "status & notifications" menu resulted in no sound, and no video if I chose "show vlc" from right click menu.
Even though VLC in at least one of three instances was still playing back audio and potentially video, as far I knew based on hearing no
audio and absence of a graphical UI it was closed-- even though it actually wasn't and multiple instances were still running.

I can also confirm, the workaround of changing the video display output from Automatic to X11 video output (XCB) works

[lnimon]

I'm running Kubuntu 20.04 with an AMD Ryzen 3 2200G. I can confirm the same problems and same work-arounds that other people have posted, i.e. switching to "XVideo output (XCB)".

[craig-janeway]

I had the same issue on Ubuntu 20.04 with Vega M GPU, tray icon mentioned in post above did not work BUT found this on reddit that worked for me:

Preferences > Video > Output > XVideo output (XCB) > save and restart player

Now it closes fine with X while video is still playing, tray icon ENABLED, single instance mode.
Hope it helps someone.

Yes, that seems to have done the trick for me too. Opens faster and closes fully now without leaving a listing in htop needing killed so I can start it again when needed. Thank you.

[korrode]

Just for the record, having to not use hardware accelerated h264 decoding is a terrible 'workaround'.

Having to not use OpenGL for video display is pretty terrible too, and likely means screen tearing for people whose environment doesn't use an OpenGL screen compositor.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Well yes. You're welcome to help Mesa fix their affected OpenGL drivers.

Another work-around is to stop playback before exiting VLC.

[charno]

Hi,

So I'm affected by this bug.

System:
kubuntu 20.04
kernel 5.8.1
Mesa 20.0.8
vlc 3.0.9.2
Radeon RX 5700 XT

After all this pointing to MESA I made an interesting observation: This bug does only happen when VLC is quit by closing the windows directly (either clicking the x, or Alt+F4). If I use either the Quit option in the menu (Media -> Quit) or Ctrl+Q, then the process is ended correctly.

Do you really think it's not a bug of VLC if different means to close the application behave such differently, and one way is basically unusable?

Reproduction steps are easy:
$ rm -r ~/.config/vlc #make sure no settings are responsible
$ vlc bbb_sunflower_1080p_60fps_normal.mp4 #Play big buck bunny
[Alt+F4] # close the window
$ pgrep vlc # get vlc PID
11173 # output
$ killall -9 vlc # kill vlc the nasty way
$ vlc bbb_sunflower_1080p_60fps_normal.mp4 # play the file again
[Ctrl+Q] # quit vlc
$ pgrep vlc # get vlc PID -> no result
[no result]


Without knowing the internal structure of VLC, might it be a solution to catch the "close window"-event and invoke the code that's normally called when quitting via Ctrl+Q?