Ubuntu – How to revert VLC media player to its original state

vlc

For the last few days, my VLC media player has not been responding at all. When I try to double click any file or even run VLC media player without any file, it just doesn't open up.

I tried to open it through terminal, and it was working fine, but there were no option coming on the VLC media player screen and also if I close the terminal, VLC media player closes automatically. How do I make VLC media player back to its original way so that I can access any file through VLC media player?

Best Answer

You can reset your VLC media player settings by renaming your current VLC media player configuration folder.
Execute the following command in a terminal:

mv ~/.config/vlc ~/.config/vlc.old

If VLC media player still does not open correctly you can try reinstalling VLC media player:

sudo apt-get remove --purge vlc
sudo apt-get install vlc

Before running VLC media player , make sure it is not still running:

ps ax | grep vlc

This should not return anything. If it does execute the commands below until the ps command keeps quiet (does not return anything any more). Start with the first, and then use the next until it gets killed successfully:

  1. pkill vlc
  2. killall vlc
  3. killall -9 vlc

Notes:

  • You can probably delete your old configuration folder with rm -rf ~/.config/vlc.old.
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