Videos not playing when double-clicked in Finder

[Makosuke]

For all the years I've been using VLC as a simple player, I'd double-click a file in the Finder (of a type set to open with VLC), VLC would launch, and the video would start playing.

Suddenly, after either the 3.0.18 update or updating to macOS 13.3 (I did both at the same time, so not sure which was the cause), if I double-click a file VLC launches and then... does nothing. Double-clicking a file when VLC is already open, or dragging a file to VLC's icon in the dock, also absolutely nothing. Not even added to the playlist.

If I drag the same file into VLC's "Drop media here" window, it plays fine.

Thinking it might be something with custom prefs I'd set up (since I've been migrating prefs for who knows how long), I used the "Reset all" in settings, but no change.

Suggestions?

[icecreamcone]

I am experiencing the same problem in macOS 11.7.5 too.

Do the files contain any diacritics? It appears that the recent update has brought about a change in how double-clicking in Finder works (and the open method in shell too from my experiment) [1]. The bug seems to persist in macOS 13.3.1 [2].

The root cause seems to be how macOS handles the distinction between NFC and NFD Unicode characters, just editing the filename by highlighting and pressing Enter twice should convert the characters to NFD and solve the issue [3]. You should also be able to convert the filename in batch by using the iconv command.

[1]: https://github.com/iina/iina/issues/430 ... 1493426214
[2]: https://applech2.com/archives/20230408- ... ntura.html (in Japanese)
[3]: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254748658

[Maimonides]

Same problem here, macOS 11.7.5.

Highlighting the filename and pressing Enter twice does not fix it.

The filename does not contain any special characters - only characters that are supported by my current keyboard language setting in macOS, plus a _ or two.

[Maimonides]

Update: I installed macOS 11.7.6 today. No difference, I still have to manually drag an MP4 file into VLC.

[icecreamcone]

Would duplicating the file in Finder work (right-click -> click "Duplicate")? macOS should fix the name automatically for the new file (not sure why pressing enter does not work though).

Alternatively using convmv would probably help: https://gist.github.com/JamesChevalier/8448512. I have also cobbled up a shell script that should get the job done:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash # This script takes in ONE file path, test if the filename is already NFD normalized and if not, rename it to the NFD normalized one # Setup the variables and convert the input filename to NFD normalization input_dir="$(/usr/bin/dirname ${1})" input_filename="$(/usr/bin/basename ${1})" nfd_filename="$(echo -n ${input_filename} | /usr/bin/iconv -f UTF-8 -t UTF-8-MAC)" # Exploiting the fact that `find` is NFC/NFD sensitive to test for NFD normalization # See https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/400104 for more discussion if [ ! -z "$(/usr/bin/find ${input_dir} -name ${nfd_filename} -maxdepth 1)" ]; then echo "Filename ${input_filename} seems to be already NFD normalized" else # Create a backup file before attempting to rename /bin/cp -n "${input_dir}/${input_filename}"{,.old} && \ { echo "Created backup ${input_dir}/${input_filename}.old"; \ /bin/mv -v "${input_dir}/${input_filename}" "${input_dir}/${nfd_filename}" && \ { echo "NFD normalization complete"; \ echo "Original filename in hex:"; \ echo "$(echo -n ${input_filename} | /usr/bin/xxd)"; \ echo "NFD normalized filename in hex:"; \ echo "$(echo -n ${nfd_filename} | /usr/bin/xxd)"; \ } || echo "Renaming failed!"; \ } || echo "Backup ${input_dir}/${input_filename}.old already exists!" fi

[Maimonides]

Thanks for this. The situation is even more complex.

I experimented a bit with renaming the MP4 file(s) and noticed that even if its name is just a single letter or number, it will not play when double-clicked if the folder name is containing not-so-special characters that are actually directly connected to my keyboard.

So renaming the files themselves does not fix it. I am amazed that Apple is not addressing this, or that there doesn't seem to be a sufficient number of people noticing and flagging this. :/

[icecreamcone]

Oh yeah this issue impacts the whole PATH instead of the filename, my bad.

Pressing Enter twice for the affected file/folder(s) instead should do the trick – you'll have to do that for every single folder along the path sadly (e.g. for abcd in folder Ü, which is in turn in folder Ä, try pressing Enter twice for Ä, Ü and abcd).

Seems like Apple is aware of the issue though (https://developer.apple.com/documentati ... e-Bookmark):

Fixes a regression in macOS Ventura 13.3 where a security check causes bookmark resolution to fail when the path contains Unicode characters stored with composed normalization. As an example, this prevented files in Finder from opening when double-clicked. (107550080)

Hope that this is fixed once and for all in the next update.

[GillesMorysse]

j'ai ce problème aussi.

[sebulator]

same problem on macOS 13.3.1 (a) Vlc 3.0.18

[icecreamcone]

I've updated to macOS 11.7.7 and can confirm that the issue seems to be fixed!

[Maimonides]

Yep, it's been fixed in 11.7.7 - hooray!

[MystiqueWanderer]

The first thing that comes to mind is that after the update, another player was set as a default. Happened to me once. After I updated my Mac (MacBook Pro 2016), all videos were opening by default with another player. So, if that's the case for you, you can fix this by right-clicking on a video file, selecting ""Get Info,"" and checking the ""Open with"" section to see if VLC is set as the default application for that file type.
If it doesn't work, check out this guide: https://setapp.com/how-to/videos-not-playing-on-mac. It covers all possible solutions that can fix this problem.