VLC player causes high CPU usage and can freeze the whole system when you try to play a nonexistent file listed under "Open recent media" while "Repeat all" feature is enabled
Hi
This problem was already reported to VLC devs
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/21877
A VLC dev wrote:
"VLC cannot freeze the whole system. That would be a bug in your kernel or windowing system."
I think that it's not a kernel bug because this problem envolving VLC is old.
I use two computers, both running the same kernel.
laptop: Arch Linux + Gnome 3.30.2 + VLC 3.0.6
desktop: Arch linux + KDE Plasma 5.15.1 + VLC 3.0.6
The whole system only freezes on my laptop running Gnome. Both X11 and Wayland sessions are affected.
Steps to reproduce:
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play any video with vlc
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enable "Repeat all" feature by clicking on the penultimate button below the seek bar
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close vlc
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delete or rename the file used in the step 1
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use gnome-shell to reopen vlc
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click "File" menu
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Under "Open recent media" list, select the entry related to the file used in the step 1
Result: VLC shows a window indicating error, tries to play the nonexistent video repeatedly and causes extremely high cpu usage that freezes the whole system after ~20 seconds.