"Connect to Server" only works first time on Apple TV

The "Connect to Server" button only works first time on Apple TV (TvOS 17.6, VLC 3.6.0)

When you press "Connect to Server" the first time it brings up the expected screen (SMB, FTP, Plex, etc).

If at any point you return to the main screen (the (the screen with Local Network, Remote Playback, etc) the "Connect to Server" button no longer works. When you now click on the button your click registers (the icon "pops") but nothing happens. The expected behaviour is that you should return to the "SMB, FTP, Plex" screen.

This means that you can no longer connect to any systems.

This behaviour is the same on two different units (both 3rd gen Apple TV 4k). One unit is on an older version of VLC (3.4.9) and TvOS (17.5.1).

If you uninstall and reinstall the VLC app then "Connect to Server" will again work the first time only. This means that to use VLC on TvOS you need to uninstall and reinstall the app any time you want to access the "SMB, FTP, Plex" screen.

To try to rule out the local network causing this I re-installed VLC and disconnected from the wifi. Again only the first "Connect to Server" button push worked. After returning to the main screen, it was no longer possible to get back to the "SMB, FTP, Plex" screen because selecting "Connect to Server" had no effect.

This only seems to happen on Apple TV. VLC on iPad or iPhone (same apple Id, same network) works as expected.

There are some other reports of this, eg:

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=165097

Moving to the app-specific bug tracker.

moved from vlc#28745 (moved)

added AppleTV label

assigned to @fkuehne

In case it helps narrow down where the problem might be: I see the same behaviour for the "Favorites" button.

I cannot reproduce this. Can you elaborate how this happens?

output

Hi Felix,

Thanks for trying to reproduce. Above find a (slightly shaky) video.

When recording, the unit was attached to the wifi, but the behaviour is the same if it is not attached to the wifi. I 'offloaded' the app during the recording - but the behavour is the same if the app is completely re-installed.

The iOS / iPadOS devices don't see the issue at all.

I would have assumed that the problem is network related, but reproducing the issue after disconnecting from the wifi seems to rule that out.

It could be some account specific setting (eg data stored in iCloud) but again, the issue is not seen on iPhone or iPad.

A couple of questions:

1. What hardware revisioh did you try to reproduce on? gen 3?
2. Is there a way to get any helpful debug logs?

ah, I see the difference. you have 0 servers discovered on your network. this is never the case for me and hides the problem.

output2

Yes, I see the same. (Curious!)

If I start an smb server the problem no longer occurs. If I stop the smb server the problem happens again.

changed milestone to %4.0.0

added Must Fix label