No VLC Status of Track Playing on Task Manager?

[Sarah]

There doesn’t appear to be a progress indicator for VLC for reasons beyond my understanding on the task manager, but I’m pretty sure its supposed to be there. Is there any way to fix this?

Progress indicator for Strawberry music player when it is playing

System:
  Kernel: 6.6.128-1-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 15.2.1
    clocksource: tsc avail: hpet,acpi_pm
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/@/boot/vmlinuz-6.6-x86_64
    root=UUID=f93c1401-5d8f-4e69-851a-80f1d0f0f5f7 rw rootflags=subvol=@
    radeon.modeset=1 nvdia-drm.modeset=1 quiet
    cryptdevice=UUID=33225521-2b39-4ce3-99df-9c599f1ba390:luks-disk
    root=/dev/mapper/luks-disk apparmor=1 security=apparmor
    resume=/dev/mapper/luks-swap udev.log_priority=3
  Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 6.5.6 tk: Qt v: N/A info: frameworks v: 6.24.0
    wm: kwin_wayland with: krunner vt: 1 dm: SDDM Distro: Manjaro
    base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: PRIME X570-PRO v: Rev X.0x
    serial: <superuser required> part-nu: SKU uuid: <superuser required>
    Firmware: UEFI vendor: American Megatrends v: 5043 date: 09/10/2025
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.21 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.9
    compositor: kwin_wayland driver: X: loaded: nvidia
    gpu: nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch display-ID: 0
  Monitor-1: DP-2 model: AOC Q27G3XMN serial: <filter> built: 2025 res:
    mode: 2560x1440 hz: 144 scale: 114% (1.15) to: 2226x1252 dpi: 109 gamma: 1.2
    size: 597x336mm (23.5x13.23") diag: 685mm (27") ratio: 16:9 modes:
    max: 2560x1440 min: 640x480
  API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: nvidia platforms: device: 0 drv: nvidia device: 2
    drv: swrast gbm: drv: nvidia surfaceless: drv: nvidia wayland: drv: nvidia
    x11: drv: nvidia inactive: device-1
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: nvidia mesa v: 26.0.2-arch1.1
    glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070/PCIe/SSE2
    memory: 7.81 GiB display-ID: :1.0
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.341 layers: 15 device: 0 type: discrete-gpu
    name: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 driver: nvidia v: 590.48.01
    device-ID: 10de:2484 surfaces: N/A
  Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo
    de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor gpu: nvidia-smi wl: wayland-info
    x11: xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Info:
  Processes: 1009 Power: uptime: 33m states: freeze,mem,disk suspend: deep
    avail: s2idle wakeups: 0 hibernate: platform avail: shutdown, reboot,
    suspend, test_resume image: 25 GiB services: org_kde_powerdevil,upowerd
    Init: systemd v: 259 default: graphical tool: systemctl
  Packages: 2685 pm: pacman pkgs: 2622 libs: 584 tools: pamac,yay pm: flatpak
    pkgs: 57 pm: snap pkgs: 6 Compilers: clang: 22.1.1 gcc: 15.2.1 Shell: Bash
    v: 5.3.9 running-in: yakuake inxi: 3.3.40

[Aragorn]

@Sarah

There doesn’t appear to be a progress indicator for VLC for reasons beyond my understanding on the task manager, but I’m pretty sure its supposed to be there.

Are you sure of that? I’ve just checked, and I don’t see a progress indicator on either strawberry or vlc. All I see is a speaker overlay to indicate that it’s playing, and the strawberry icon in the system tray also shows that it’s playing (by way of a black dot) — the vlc icon in the system tray doesn’t show anything at all.

I am guessing that these things might be highly determined by whatever themes you’re using, being…

• the icon theme
• the plasma theme
• (possibly) the application style

Either way, I also suspect that there may be an upstream factor involved — i.e. the vlc code base itself may not be exporting a progress indicator. In the end, it could be a combination of several different factors.

Furthermore, you have your task manager on a vertical panel, and as such, the entries for each of the pinned and/or running icons can have as much horizontal space at their disposal as your panel is wide. The available width may play a role here as well. My panels however are horizontal, and thus the horizontal spacing of the individual icons is more limited than in your case.

In the end, it shouldn’t be a world-shocking issue. After all, vlc is (primarily) a video player — meaning that you will normally be watching it — and it has its own progress bar inside the application window itself.

[Sarah]

I suppose so, but its more of an issue for me because I have audio playing in the background and listen to it without it being on screen. It’s not audio (a video file) so Strawberry isn’t the best fit for it. Strawberry is in the same panel, so I would suspect that horizontal room isn’t it.

[TheDubster]

I cannot remember VLC ever displaying a progress in it’s icon.

[pwx]

@Aragorn

I don’t see a progress indicator

Me neither—neither for VLC nor for mpv.

@TheDubster

I cannot remember VLC ever displaying a progress in it’s icon.

Me neither.

[Aragorn]

I also cannot see any setting in its very feature-rich configuration interface pertaining to a progress bar.

It does make mention of visualization plugins, but I suspect those will be more of the “frequency equalizer” type.

[Ben]

@Sarah

but I’m pretty sure its supposed to be there.

I’m not sure why.

Haruna has none.
QMMP has none.
MPV has none.
SMP has none.

As far as I remember, only Strawberry puts it in the icons (task manager and system tray).

TL;DR
It’s a feature of Strawberry.

The best one is the tray icon where it ‘empties’ the red to grey: