VLC player cannot open files or directories out of "/home"

Question

I'm using Ubuntu 20.04 with VLC player 3.0.11.

The player works well on files and directories within /home (for both /home/myname and /home/test), but cannot open files or directories located in other directories.

Some information about my environment:

Main output of mount:

/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sda3 on /work type ext4 (rw,relatime)
/dev/sda2 on /home type ext4 (rw,relatime)

I try to add the following two lines in /etc/apparmor.d/usr.bin.evince and reload apparmor, but it doesn't work:

/work/ r,
/work/** rw,

Thank you very much for your help.

Yes, output of "snap list |grep vlc": "vlc 3.0.11 1700 latest/stable videolan* -" — robert, Jul 25 '20 at 17:02
Does this answer your question? Snap application doesn't see files from another partition — A.L, Jul 26 '20 at 22:00

Mark Smith · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-25T17:15:01.267

34

Snap packages are in containers which prevent them from "seeing" outside of those containers unless you give them permission.

For VLC, I'd recommend uninstalling the Snap package, and using the vanilla APT version:

sudo snap remove vlc
sudo apt update && sudo apt install vlc

edited Jul 25 '20 at 17:15

answered Jul 25 '20 at 17:08

Mark Smith

646

Thank you very much, I've reinstall it via apt, it works now. – robert Jul 25 '20 at 17:18
Good stuff. Enjoy. – Mark Smith Jul 25 '20 at 17:25
Worked for me! Learn something every day; thx. – Kalnode Jun 21 '22 at 01:11
Thanks, had the same issue. Working after uninstall snap vlc and installing again using apt. My problem was i have two disks in the PC, the one is a 4TB disk on /backup, i couldn't even see it if i opened VLC and selected "Open Directory" – Kim Lundberg Stegenborg Madsen Jun 18 '23 at 22:09

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 25 '20 at 17:10

Snap applications can't guarantee the access of directories/files outside of current user's $HOME. From zyga's post:

The $HOME directory of the user must match /home/*. Other directories are not supported yet. In particular /home/subdir/user is also not supported.

any installation where the user’s home is not available if they're not logged in, is not yet supported. This includes:

installations using automount

ecryptfs and similar tech that unencrypt the $HOME directory (or partition) only while the user is logged in

Note here “not supported” does not mean “doesn’t work”. Some things might not work, but also some sequences of events might result in a user not being able to access their data.

So, it's better to switch to deb version of VLC provided by Ubuntu's official repositories. To install VLC, run

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends vlc

And remove VLC's snap package using

sudo snap remove vlc

Thank you for your detail explanation, I've reinstall it via apt and it works well now. — robert, Jul 25 '20 at 17:19
Sorry, seems I can only accept one answer as final answer, I select "mark smith" because he answered earlier. Both of your answers are useful for me, thank you very much. — robert, Jul 25 '20 at 17:25

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 26 '20 at 21:59

2

Access can be given with snap connect:

snap connect some-snap-name:removable-media

The name removable-media can be misleading, but that how it works.

answered Jul 26 '20 at 21:59

A.L

478
7
20

VLC player cannot open files or directories out of "/home"

3 Answers3