VLC media player is not displaying video, but audio works

Question

I had installed VLC media player from the Ubuntu Software Center recently. It worked for some time, but then instead of the video, only a blank screen was displayed with the audio. Even the same videos that could be played before did not work.

I tried uninstalling and re-installing, and I upgraded it to the latest.

I've tried: menu Tool → Preferences → Video → enabling Accelerated video output (Overlay).

Execution via the terminal also gives the same.

I'm using Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr).

uncheck accelerated video output – Ravan Sep 03 '15 at 13:42 — Ravan, Sep 03 '15 at 13:42

score 67 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 05 '15 at 12:08

67

- Go to Tools→Preferences→Video
- Remove the tick for Accelerated video output (Overlay)
- Try and play the movie again, you should now see output.

Or

2.

Go to Tools→Preferences->Video
Change Output to X11 Video output

If the above doesn't work, that particular video might have a proprietary video format that is not supported.

Reference here.

edited Sep 05 '15 at 12:08

Fabby

34,259

answered Sep 03 '15 at 13:54

Ravan

9,379

16

#2 worked for me, on Ubuntu 17.04. Output defaulted to Auto, but specifying X11 fixed it. – Johann Aug 31 '17 at 00:12
#2 worked for me as well, on 17.04. Weird – ffflabs Nov 01 '17 at 00:58
X11 fixed it. Shouldn't this be reported as a bug? – Lonnie Best Dec 04 '17 at 03:37
worked for me, on Xubuntu 16.04

Alex Willison

Feb 14 '18 at 18:07

@LonnieBest that might be a feature that we don't have any idea about. anyway x11 worked for me, – All Іѕ Vаиітy Aug 17 '18 at 17:08

Second option works for me with Windows 10, but in my version (VLC 3.0.4) the option is "Direct3D11 Video Output" (I assume this is the same option - works anyway while the default of "Automatic" doesn't. – Tom Collinge Jan 11 '19 at 14:30

FYI, in VLC 3.0.16 (in Pop OS 22.04), I found "Hardware-accelerated decoding" under Tools, Preferences, Input/Codecs, rather than Tools, Preferences, Video. (Nice answer, +1) – mathmandan May 21 '22 at 21:55

score 10 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 27 '17 at 21:45

10

My workaround is to delete the VLC config-file. Open a terminal in ~/.config/vlc and

rm vlc-qt-interface.conf

Weird thing, if i delete the config file with Nautilus filemanager: still no window.

edited Mar 27 '17 at 21:45

Zanna

70,465

answered Mar 27 '17 at 21:24

JvdH

101
1
2

This worked for me! – krishna Oct 20 '17 at 15:50
Worked for me too. thanks! – DAB Nov 20 '22 at 21:16

score 8 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 28 '17 at 01:56

8

Also, This happend to me, but...

navigate to:

: menu Tool → Preferences → Video

Check the output drop-down menu

and check that you have chosen the appropriate output codec, It was set to "auto" in the drop-down and needed to be selected "X11"

answered Jun 28 '17 at 01:56

user1526569

81

score 5 · Answer 4 · edited Oct 26 '21 at 04:41

5

I'm using Ubuntu 16.04 and updated to vlc 2.2.7. I had the same problem after updating the update.

Go to Tools -> Preferences -> Video -> Output and select any of the first three options that end in (XCB). This resolved the issue for me.

janitor-

You can also try either of the OpenGL options and they also work.

edited Oct 26 '21 at 04:41

karel

114,770

answered Apr 06 '18 at 13:59

infojanitor

51

This fixed it for me after I upgraded to 20.04 --I still need to upgrade again to 22.04. I'd like to add that as far as I can tell you should always run VLC from the command line without options. Running it from the desktop icon seems to make it accumulate settings changes until it won't work. Then deleting everything in ~/.config/vlc as suggested by JvdH is the solution. – Wastrel Oct 07 '23 at 00:08

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 24 '18 at 05:41

1

Easy fix and no u don't need to listen to the above. Go into VLC and go to bottom right where the 3 dots are located and go to settings. Then go to video settings and turn off hardware decoding. Problem solved

answered Jun 24 '18 at 05:41

Billy

11

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 21 '23 at 15:35

I had the same issue on Ubuntu 22.10 Wayland VLC 3.0.17.4. When I purged the application, it worked exactly one time. When the vlc was launched for the second time, the video remained blank, however any snapshot taken worked.

It turned out, deleting the geometry line from ~/.config/vlc/vlc-qt-interface.conf helped. geometry=@ByteArray(\x1\xd9\xd0\xcb\0\x3\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\a\x7f\0\0\x4\x37\0\0\x2\x80\0\0\0@\0\0\a\x7f\0\0\x2\xcf\0\0\0\x1\x2\0\0\0\a\x80\0\0\0\0\0\0\0%\0\0\a\x7f\0\0\x4\x37)

However, it got recreated every vlc launch. I changed the screen size on the blank video window by mouse and re-launched. It works now.

May this strange advice help some future visitors of this old issue.

I tested this on Kubuntu 22.04 with VLC 3.0.17.4 and it fixes the issue. The above suggestions didn't. Unfortunately the geometry=... line from the [general] section has to be removed before every start. — zx485, May 04 '23 at 22:10

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 27 '17 at 17:28

I've noticed this problem for a couple of years now, and have noticed this pattern and work-around:

If VLC is minimized when it's called to play a file, the video will fail: it will show as blank/black.
If VLC is not minimized when it's called to play a file, the video works just fine.

The workaround is to make sure VLC is not minimized when you feed it a file to play.

How I found this out: I have a playlist file on the desktop. I typically press the "Show Desktop" button to minimize all windows before I run that playlist file. If VLC was already opened, it is now minimized. If I then open the playlist file, the VLC windows will pop back up, but the video will fail.

However, if I make sure to bring VLC back to its windowed state before opening the playlist file, the video works.

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered May 22 '17 at 01:43

If the VLC still play without video the problem can be due to the incompatible video codec contained in the files. In this case, maybe need to convert the file to VLC more supported video format. You can choose Makemkv or Pavtube video converter,both powerful video tools.

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Feb 03 '19 at 15:44

0

In my case (Kubuntu 18.10 x64) changing Output to X11 Video output (as Ravan proposed) did not help, but XVideo output (XCB) helped.

So...

Go to Tools→Preferences->Video;
Change Output to XVideo output (XCB).

answered Feb 03 '19 at 15:44

TitanFighter

1,093

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered May 04 '23 at 22:18

After trying (almost) all suggested solutions above, I found a workaround to this VLC bug:
Deselect

Tools→Preferences->Interface->Appearance->Adjust interface to video size

This is a solution similar to the "removing geometry=@ByteArray..." approach.

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Oct 09 '16 at 21:19

I had the same problem with fresh install of Ubuntu 16.04 and fresh VLC. My video card is NVidia and I was using the binary proprietary driver version 361.42 I switched to version 340.96 of the same driver and I got the video running without any problems.

Hope I helped.

score 0 · Answer 12 · 2017-06-30T10:40:44.867

This happened to me when I accidentally deleted libavcodec (probably it was targeted by apt-get autoremove after deleting some other package). In my case no player (I tried vlc, xplayer, smplayer) except browsers were not able to play any video (I tried for mp4, avi, mkv) but the audio worked. Re-installing this package fixed my problem. So check if it's installed.

score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Aug 27 '17 at 00:40

0

None of these worked for me, but a "mark for reinstall" in synaptic did the trick.

answered Aug 27 '17 at 00:40

plrndl

1

score -1 · Answer 14 · edited Jun 24 '18 at 09:12

-1

You can try this too (I did it in Ubuntu 16.04.03)

uninstall VLC at all, then open terminal window and type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:videolan/master-daily

then:

sudo apt-get update

and then:

sudo apt-get install vlc

it works for me, so I hope you can get it too.

edited Jun 24 '18 at 09:12

pomsky

68,507

answered Feb 02 '18 at 05:31

Latinbooker

1

score -2 · Answer 15 · answered Oct 05 '18 at 07:02

-2

Resetting preferences helped me

Tools -> Preferences -> Reset Preferences

answered Oct 05 '18 at 07:02

naam

101

VLC media player is not displaying video, but audio works

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