VLC crashes when network stream address is entered

[James Holmes]

Hello all,
Windows 10.

1. Open VLC 3.0.16 Vetinarie.
2. Select Media>Open Network Stream.
3. Go to video that I wish to save and copy the URL.
4. Past that into the address bar for the network stream.
5. Press the "Play" button.

The address bar on VLC jumps and flashes and nothing else occurs. This is happening with all URLs. Previously, it happened with some but not all.
I have updated and reinstalled VLC.

[Lotesdelere]

I can't reproduce the issue.
Reset the preferences and try again:
https://wiki.videolan.org/VSG:ResetPrefs

If it doesn't help then open Tools -> Messages (set Verbosity to 2) before you start the playback, and then paste the full resulting log here or on Pastebin.com if it's too long.

[Hitchhiker]

I realize that you said you updated vlc, but the latest version is 3.0.17.4, not 3.0.16 as mentioned in your post so I suggest you download it from here to see if it helps: https://www.videolan.org/

There have been instances where the vlc updater hasn't worked to update to the latest version and this may the problem in your case as well: https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.ph ... 66#p529266
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=160215

[James Holmes]

I downloaded 3.0.17.4. I successfully downloaded the file and saved it. I used it once and successfully downloaded a file.
Today I tried to us VCL to download a file and it is not working.

1. Open a video file that plays normally. Here is the URL https://www.naturalantibiotics.news/202 ... bited.html

2. Open VLC. Choose "Open Network Stream". Past the above URL into the address field.
3. Press "Play".

Nothing happens.

[Hitchhiker]

Looks like a CDN problem. Sites like Cloudflare in this particular case prevent access to online content if it determines that the connection presents a threat in some way or other.

Log file: https://pastebin.com/rD0sPKmr

EDIT: you can play it with vlc using this link: https://video.brighteon.com/file/BTBuck ... 5_540.m3u8

[Lotesdelere]

VLC is not supposed to play any video from any web site.
There are some default LUA scripts provided with VLC (Dailymotion, Vimeo, Youtube, etc) but for other sites you have to write specific LUA plugins.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Yes and no. In general it is true that VLC cannot play websites.

But you can use VLC as back-end to YT-DLP or Streamlink, in which case, it is able to play from hundreds of website. There are VLC plugins to invoke YT-DLP automatically.

[Hitchhiker]

There are VLC plugins to invoke YT-DLP automatically.

All links to the YT-DLP plugin you mentioned lead back to your own site Rémi. But it seems to be only available as a Linux installation as far as I can tell. Is there a Windows installer available?

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

I specifically implied that there are older plugins beside mine (and there's also the better version based on mine that's already been merged into the official VLC 4.0). I just never tried them and didn't write them down. You can just start the other way around, VLC from YT-DLP or Streamlink, which requires no VLC plugin.

With that said, I am not aware of any Windows build. That does not mean that nobody made one but I have not heard of it.

[James Holmes]

Thank you all for your expert and informative commentary. In the past, the simple "network stream" procedure has worked to download almost anything I tried. I will try to enable some of your suggestions, but they are straining my programming knowledge.

[Hitchhiker]

What I usually do when encountering this problem is to use a Firefox addon called The Stream Detector (it's since been renamed I notice).

It has a setting to identify streams and create YT-DLP commands to download videos to your own machine. It's what I used to create the m3u8 link I posted earlier.

YT-DLP can be downloaded from here. However, you need FFMpeg to be installed since youtube DASH separates audio and video streams the latter of which FFMpeg automatically merges.

Since YT-DLP is a command line tool all you need to do is to add it to the C:\Users\Username directory (where Username refers to whatever name you use to login to Windows with).

See this site for instructions on how to install FFMpeg and add it to the Windows path: https://windowsloop.com/install-ffmpeg-windows-10/

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Actually a cursory Google search gives this older module at the top: https://github.com/mjasny/vlc-youtubeDL but it still seems to be maintained.

Since it is written in Lua, it won't require any build. I have not tried it, so don't ask me anything about it.