Re: Strange Problem Transferring data from PC to iPhone VLC app

On 5/9/2025 11:48 PM, Marion wrote:

On Fri, 9 May 2025 20:39:11 -0400, Rick wrote :
 

This is an odd problem.  I use VLC to play audios on my iPhone.  When I
need to transfer new audios from my primary home PC to the iPhone, I
open the VLC app and click on the Networking tab and it gives me the ip
address to connect to on the PC.  It┬ usually something like
192.168.1.146.  Both the phone and my PC are connected to the home
router.  When I enter this into the browser on the PC, it brings up a
screen that says Sharing via Wi-Fi, a section that says Drop Files, and
I literally just click and drag the audio files on the PC to that window
which transfers them to the VLC app on the iPhone.  This works great and
I have been doing it for years with no problem.  If needed, I can also
do this transfer using either of two other PCs on my home network, which
are a Windows 7 and another Windows 11.
>
Recently for reasons I don┤ understand, this transfer stopped working
on my main Windows 11 computer.  I have checked the address in VLC
networking and it matches what I type in on the Windows 11 PC. I have
rebooted both phone and PC. I have verified I am connected to my home
wireless on both devices. Everything else works fine on both devices. I
can access the internet fine on both. I can access files on the other
PCs on the home network just fine. But this one VLC connect function
will not work unless I engage in a weird workaround.

 I feel for you. I had been using that method of setting up VLC as a server
over the Wi-Fi LAN to copy movies from the PC over to the iOS iPad.
 Most of the time it works.
Sometimes it just fails.
 I never debugged why.
I used to just keep trying and eventually every movie copied over.
 In your case, that's not happening, and you're trying to debug it.
One suggestion I have for debugging is to see if "some other method" works.
 What would I suggest as "some other method" you ask?
a. Well, of course, it would be either "SMB in the Files" app.
b. Or, it would be LocalSend.
 Either will work but LocalSend will work while you're sitting at the PC.
With the Files app set up as a SMB client, there's more admin overhead.
 Given the Files app is more of a PITA than is LocalSend for your debugging,
I suggest you try LocalSend first (it will almost certainly work).
  <https://localsend.org/de/download>
 Basically, you do this:
a. Install LocalSend on all your devices
b. Make sure all the devices are on the same LAN
c. Transfer the files from one device to another
 You can even go from one iOS device to another.
Or you can go from iOS to Android.
 LocalSend works on every common consumer platform.
Good luck!

To be clear, I do have a workaround which is I just prime the software to work by running the transfer on another PC on the network.  I can then either do the transfer on the other PC (transferring the files from my main PC which I can access fro the other PC) or I just walk over to the main PC and the transfer now works.  I am not interesting in, and don't really need to use different software or a different mechanism to get the files onto the phone.
Also, if I use a totally different software to transfer files to the phone, I would have to make sure those files could now be accessed by the VLC software.  I actually do have ways to get files into the iPhone music app, but I don't know how to access those files using the VLC app.