Symbolic links for video files doesn't play the video

Question

Dear Folks,

ln -sn Videos/vfile.mp4  Documents/Symlink/

creates a symbolic link but I couldn't play the video using vlc. What is the catch?

Answer 1

You have to use an absolute path for the target file (the video, in this case). Try this instead:

ln -sn /home/$USER/Videos/vfile.mp4 Documents/Symlink/

Also ~/Videos/vfile.mp4 would work because '~' evaluates to /home/$USER.