VLC from menu or double-click starts in background, terminates

Question

On most Ubunutus, VLC can be started from the gnome launcher(?) or by double-clicking on assiociated items in nemo or nautilus. I expect VLC to run; in the second case, I expect the file I clicked on to be played back.

Since yesterday, this is no longer the case. Mostly, nothing visible happens. In very rare cases of clicking on files, a control-less version of vlc (like cvlc) appears, playing the file, but closes after a few seconds. I cannot reproduce when this happens, and there is never a visible window when choosing vlc from the launcher.

Things I have found/tried so far:

• starting programs by double-clicking still works for everything else.
• starting vlc from a terminal works, as does vlc --started-from-file <filename>: playback with controls, does not terminate after a few seconds.
• vlc --reset-config did not help, neither did deleting ~/.config/vlc
• /usr/share/applications/vlc.desktop exists in its packaged state; deleting it caused VLC to disappear from the launcher, showing it was being read. apt --reinstalling vlc restored the file, but did not help.
• for a few seconds after running vlc from menu/double-click, a /usr/bin/vlc --started-from-file <filename> process is running. Unfortunately, it is Sl, not Sl+, explaining why I cannot see or hear it.
• When a VLC instance was started from the console, double-clicking on a media file in nemo/nautilus causes that VLC instance to play back the file.

I am using a gnome-flavored and up-to-date ubuntu 15.10, currently on 4.2.0-25-generic, 64 bit. I am not aware of any changes I made to the system during the time this behavior appeared.

Answer 1

Try killing the already runnig vlc process (with no window displayed). Then try clicking the icon again.

https://askubuntu.com/a/1276503/1128608