Vlc cant play mp4 files

Support Software & Applications
1

hi
As the title suggests, vlc cant play mp4 files. I have also installed “mpv media player” and it can easily play same mp4 files without any problem.

vlc version: 3.016
desktop: manjaro xfce

and this is the output of mediainfo command:
mediainfo file.mp4
General
ID : 1 (0x1)
Complete name : file.mp4
Format : MPEG-TS
File size : 110 MiB
Duration : 17 min 51 s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 859 kb/s
FileExtension_Invalid : ts m2t m2s m4t m4s tmf ts tp trp ty

Video
ID : 257 (0x101)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Baseline@L3.1
Format settings : 3 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, Reference frames : 3 frames
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 17 min 51 s
Width : 1 152 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:10
Frame rate : 30.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Writing library : Zencoder Video Encoding System

Audio
ID : 258 (0x102)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AAC LC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity
Format version : Version 4
Muxing mode : ADTS
Codec ID : 15-2
Duration : 17 min 50 s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy

2

If it can’t be played back - and also when it can be …
there will likely be some (more or less informative and helpful) messages displayed
when you run
vlc /path/to/file.mp4
in a terminal.

… or just start vlc in a terminal
and then select and try to play your file …

1 Like
3

Here is the output of vlc file.mp4

vlc file.mp4
VLC media player 3.0.16 Vetinari (revision 3.0.13-8-g41878ff4f2)
[000055ef70587660] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use ‘cvlc’ to use vlc without interface.
Note: Illegal Audio-MPEG-Header 0xffea0977 at offset 0.
[src/libmpg123/parse.c:wetwork():1379] error: not attempting to resync…
[00007f32a8c1dda0] mpg123 decoder error: mpg123_decode_frame error: A generic mpg123 error.
Note: Illegal Audio-MPEG-Header 0xffec00d0 at offset 0.
[src/libmpg123/parse.c:wetwork():1379] error: not attempting to resync…
[00007f32a8c1dda0] mpg123 decoder error: mpg123_decode_frame error: A generic mpg123 error.
Note: Illegal Audio-MPEG-Header 0xffed0b98 at offset 0.
[src/libmpg123/parse.c:wetwork():1379] error: not attempting to resync…
[00007f32a8c1dda0] mpg123 decoder error: mpg123_decode_frame error: A generic mpg123 error.

4
5

According to the messages, there seems to be a problem with decoding the audio stream.
I do not know vlc very well and do not use it - perhaps the audio decoder (currently mpg123) can be changed for a different one? IDK.

I’d just use a different player and be done with it … :wink:
mpv is what I use - it has never let me down.

If the audio decoder can’t be changed in vlc, an option could be to re-encode the file
so that the audio stream is properly encoded in a way that the decoder vlc is using can decode and play it.

1 Like