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iliakats

Member

Registered: 2024-03-13

Posts: 8

[solved] after system update, vlc hangs when opening mkv files

So I just did a rather large system update (I haven't updated for a while) and now VLC hanges for about a minute or so when opening MKV files. It's specific to MKV files, MP4 and pure audio files work fine. Also, it only seems to happen when opening a file for the first time, closing VLC and opening the same file again is fast. All tested files are stored locally (no network access or anything). My first thought was something cache-related, but I can't find anything relevant in ~/.cache, /tmp, /run, or /var/tmp. I tried running VLC with the --verbose 2 switch, it seems to hang at

main playlist debug: creating new input thread

(although I'm not sure if that's really where it's stuck, there is a lot of noise in the output). Pressing Ctrl-C while it's stuck also does not make it exit immediately, but only after some time.

Is anyone else having the same issue or knows how to debug this further?

Last edited by iliakats (Yesterday 18:06:00)

correctmost

Member

Registered: 2024-01-20

Posts: 27

Re: [solved] after system update, vlc hangs when opening mkv files

So I just did a rather large system update (I haven't updated for a while) and now VLC hanges for about a minute or so when opening MKV files. It's specific to MKV files, MP4 and pure audio files work fine.

Can you try downgrading to taglib-2.1.1-1?  TagLib 2.2 added Matroska support that seems to cause more file I/O:
- https://github.com/taglib/taglib/releases/tag/v2.2
- https://github.com/taglib/taglib/issues/1321

Also, it only seems to happen when opening a file for the first time, closing VLC and opening the same file again is fast.

Make sure to clear the filesystem cache between tests:

sync
echo 3 | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

iliakats

Member

Registered: 2024-03-13

Posts: 8

Re: [solved] after system update, vlc hangs when opening mkv files

That fixed it, thanks!