VLC can't open some network mapped files

I have some video files on my NAS, that i network-mapped through windows, and for some reason VLC refuses to play them.

I have roughly 400+ files (with different names, sizes but all in mp4 format), and VLC refuses to play some of those files. Don't know why some are more kosher then others, but i didn't noticed any patterns (for example only playing smaller, or larger files, or if names are too long).

I tested it with

1. vlc-4.0.0-dev-win64-03e69578
2. vlc-3.0.16-win64
3. vlc-2.2.8-win64
4. vlc-3.0.0-win32

and none of those version works. But i tried with vegas pro, mpv, windows media player and that garbage "movies" app from win10, and they all work. Windows restart and remapping drive also didn't fix it.

This suggest to me, that VLC is doing something wrong while trying to read those files.

I know that i can get around this issue by simply copying those files locally, and do whatever i want to do with them, but i rather not.

vlc.txt

According to the log, reading the file fails. That error is coming from the CRT.

added Platform::Windows desktop label

added Status::needs more info label

assigned to @ab

Based on the logs, reading the file metadata or data fails underneath VLC. This is likely a bug in the C run-time rather than in VLC itself.

One well-known bug in the MingW CRT causes it to fail if the file lacks some metadata like timestamps.

removed Status::needs more info label

added Status::not VLC label

closed

This happened to me too on my TrueNAS smb share. The trick was to enable "Atime" (access time) tracking in the storage pool. It works flawlessly since I did this.

With it disabled, any file properties showed "Accessed: 00:00:00" under the Created/Modified timestamps. Maybe this helps someone.

The bug is that MSVCRT fails completely instead of returning a dummy zero timestamp.

Is there an issue somewhere at MS for tracking this bug?

I don't know.

It is good practice to report upstream bugs, no? I'd do it myself, but I have no knowledge of the VLC codebase or MSVCRT.

That would be a question for the MSVCRT maintenance team. I don't think anybody here knows their practices and expectations.

unassigned @ab

marked this issue as related to #26558 (closed)