Unable to play videos with VLC

[jolexin]

I am unable to play videos of type mp4, avi, mov and possibly unable to play video at all. VLC could not decode Format „h264“ (H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10)).

The current VLC version is 3.0.21, a re-install yields the same version, i.e. in Manjaro that is the latest version. I observe: if I install VLC in Windows or Ubuntu, I get 3.0.32; with 3.0.32 everything works fine.

Q1: why is 3.0.32 unavailable in Manjaro?
Q2: From the VLC Homepage I could download vlc-3.0.23.tar.xz. Is it recommendable to install VLC 3.23 from the tar.xz file? Or is there a possible disadvantage?
Q3: How do I install from tar.xz file?

Is there an official recommendation how to solve my problem?

[anon33601770]

can another player play back the videos?
mpv is what I use
mplayer was it’s kind of predecessor - which also works just fine for me.

Sorry - not a fan of GUI players …

[jrichard326]

Do you have the specific vlc-plugins installed in order to play those files?
The easiest way is to just install vlc-plugins-all

Install via pamac GUI or in terminal:

pamac install vlc-plugins-all

or

sudo pacman -S vlc-plugins-all

[Ben]

I’m not sure what the problem is with VLC - Manjaro does have 3.0.21 - reinstalling won’t change the repositories.

I can’t say much more - I use MPV, but had no issues with either…

But when you said ‘unable to play video at all’ you gave a very specific issue 'VLC could not decode Format „h264“ (H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10))` which doesn’t point to ‘unable to play video at all’ as that looks like a very specific file.

On Manjaro, vlc 3.0.21-32 doesn’t necessarily mean you have an older version than 3.0.32.

The version format for Manjaro is the actual upstream version of VLC (3.0.21) and the -32 is the package revision including backported fixes and tweaks.

So unless you have specific features, you should focus on troubleshooting the H264 issue. This came up before when VLC packages were split up, and it was fixed by installing the meta-package vlc-plugins-all.

https://gitlab.manjaro.org/profiles-and-settings/iso-profiles/-/issues/191#note_33972

Overall, though, my first answer would be…

MPV

mpv.io

Haruna

Haruna

[tracyanne]

@Ben

I’m not sure what the problem is with VLC

There are no problems with vlc, usually the plugins get installed along with vlc. But just in case I usually select vlc-plugins-all

[Ben]

@tracyanne

There are no problems with vlc

No, I think just confusion about the version/package numbers…

VLC put it in the Snap Store; you have to do some clicking to get past that:

Official Downloads of VLC media player - Official download of VLC media player,...

That’s likely the source which Ubuntu installed from unless steps were taken to avoid it.

However, when looking there, it shows 3.0.20-1-g2617de71b6⏷

Overall, to add to the confusion, @jolexin appears to display some dyslexic tendencies with version numbers…

@jolexin

in Windows or Ubuntu, I get 3.0.32

Hopefully just installing the plugins should clear the issue with VLC at least…

flatpak info org.videolan.VLC

VLC - VLC media player, the open-source multimedia player

          ID: org.videolan.VLC
         Ref: app/org.videolan.VLC/x86_64/stable
        Arch: x86_64
      Branch: stable
     Version: 3.0.21

Yup, same story on flathub.

[tracyanne]

@Ben

No, I think just confusion about the version/package numbers…

I seem to be running 3.0.21-32, from the official repos, on testing

[Molski]

Install the plugins you need.

sudo pacman -S vlc-plugins-all

But many types are included in vlc-plugin-ffmpeg, if you want to start minimal.

There are a lot to choose from:

pacman -Ss vlc-plugin- | wc
    146    1090    9457

[soundofthunder]

@jolexin

Q1: why is 3.0.32 unavailable in Manjaro?

VLC is inherited from Arch – version 3.0.21-32 is available in all branches, and Arch repositories; until Arch changes that, Manjaro has little option than to wait; just like you.

$ mbn info vlc -q
Branch         : archlinux
Name           : vlc
Version        : 3.0.21-32
Repository     : extra
Build Date     : Thu 27 Nov 2025 02:10:06 
Packager       : Christian Heusel <gromit@archlinux.org>
Branch         : unstable
Name           : vlc
Version        : 3.0.21-32
Repository     : extra
Build Date     : Thu 27 Nov 2025 02:10:06 
Packager       : Christian Heusel <gromit@archlinux.org>
Branch         : testing
Name           : vlc
Version        : 3.0.21-32
Repository     : extra
Build Date     : Thu 27 Nov 2025 02:10:06 
Packager       : Christian Heusel <gromit@archlinux.org>
Branch         : stable
Name           : vlc
Version        : 3.0.21-32
Repository     : extra
Build Date     : Thu 27 Nov 2025 02:10:06 
Packager       : Christian Heusel <gromit@archlinux.org>

---

@jolexin

Q2: From the VLC Homepage I could download vlc-3.0.23.tar.xz. Is it recommendable to install VLC 3.23 from the tar.xz file? Or is there a possible disadvantage?

It is recommended to install VLC from the official Manjaro repositories; given the current available versions, unfortunately 3.0.21-32 is the only option.

The option to build (version 4.0.0) via the AUR exists; however, I believe that might be still in development:

AUR (en) - vlc-git

---

VLC 3.0.23 is available as a Flatpak:

flatpak search vlc
flatpak install vlc

---

@jolexin

Q3: How do I install from tar.xz file?

I will not venture into this because it seems likely your problems with VLC are limited to your environment; your User account, perhaps – I am currently using VLC (from the official Manjaro repo) with no issues such as you have described.

@jolexin

Is there an official recommendation how to solve my problem?

Please create a new User account for testing purposes – reboot, and login to the new account, and verify whether the same issues persist – this will help to rule out local issues.

---

Edit:- An afterthought…

@jolexin

I am unable to play videos of type mp4, avi, mov and possibly unable to play video at all.

Let’s also rule out the possibility of missing plugins;
Please provide the output of:

pacman -Ss | grep -E 'vlc-plugin*'

[tracyanne]

@soundofthunder

I will not venture into this because it seems likely your problems with VLC are limited to your environment; your User account, perhaps – I am currently using VLC (from the official Manjaro repo) with no issues such as you have described.

I concur. The issue is most likely local to the OPs setup, and they are asking the wrong question… and the direction they appear to be taking will likely cause them additional grief.

VLC works on both my testing installs, without any issues. It also works without issue on my partner’s stable install, and on my ‘media’ computer, which is running with stable.

[jolexin]

I invoked “pacman -S vlc-plugins-all” (proposal from @molski) to make sure that I have got all the plugins. However, that did not solve my problem.

Next I followed the proposal of @soundofthunder; I logged in as a different user. VLC worked as desired. So I copied the vlcrc file to the .config/vlc folder of my userid.

Now I can play all types of video files with VLC.

SUCCESS!

[Ben]

@jolexin

I logged in as a different user. VLC worked as desired. So I copied the vlcrc file to the .config/vlc folder of my userid.

Now I can play all types of video files with VLC.

Haha so really we all missed the most basic first step arguing about numbers 'n stuff…

Rule 1: Verify that there is some real bug before you start fixing it

Great result

[bendipa1]

@jolexin

I invoked “pacman -S vlc-plugins-all” (proposal from @molski) to make sure that I have got all the plugins. However, that did not solve my problem.

Next I followed the proposal of @soundofthunder; I logged in as a different user. VLC worked as desired. So I copied the vlcrc file to the .config/vlc folder of my userid.

Now I can play all types of video files with VLC.

SUCCESS!

Erm, where did @soundofthunder advise you to do that - copy over vlcrc? Just curious.

[soundofthunder]

@bendipa1

Erm, where did @soundofthunder advise you to do that - copy over vlcrc? Just curious.

@soundofthunder advised him to:

@soundofthunder

create a new User account for testing purposes – reboot, and login to the new account, and verify whether the same issues persist

because the issue was strongly suspected to be local to the environment.

As it happens, this was indeed true, which in turn led the OP to follow instructions given and work the problem, now confident that the issue was specific to their User account.

@bendipa1

Erm, is there anything else I can help you with?

[Ben]

@bendipa1

Erm, where did @soundofthunder advise you to do that - copy over vlcrc? Just curious.

Lolz now you’re confused. The advice was to simply:

@jolexin

Next I followed the proposal of @soundofthunder; I logged in as a different user. VLC worked as desired.

So this verified that it was USER data - so then (not being a complete numpty) they decided to import that .config file as one that works… though simply deleting the existing file (or renaming mv vlcrc vlcrc-borked would have been nicer - then after starting vlc, getting a new config, you could do a meld and see what’s actually the issue).