[nmyshkin]

Can you write exceptions into the "rules" section?

I've got one live stream that will not play in the default player but plays fine in VLC. It is an *.m3u8 link written in a *.strm file that I have in my Favourites listing where I keep a few "channels". Unfortunately a number of other channels which are also *.m3u8 links and play just fine in the default player are swept up in the rule to play the one oddball in VLC. I'd like to avoid all that extra back-and-forth if possible.

The difference in the oddball link seems to be that the *.m3u8 is a chunk list. Anyway, I'm wondering if there is a way to write exceptions since using "filetype=m3u8" makes all the *.strm files play in VLC.

[nmyshkin]

Yikes. I am going around in circles and ending at the same place repeatedly. Here is a simple file to add VLC as an external player:

<playercorefactory>
<players>
<player name="VLC" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">
<filename>C:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC\VLC.exe</filename>
<args>"{1}" /fullscreen /close</args>
<hidexbmc>true</hidexbmc>
<hideconsole>true</hideconsole>
<warpcursor>none</warpcursor>
</player>
</players>
</playercorefactory>

This works just fine. VLC appears on the "Play Using..." list. But what I want to do is use a rule to make VLC default for only .strm files. So I add these lines:

<rules action="prepend">
<rule filetypes="strm" player="VLC" />
</rules>

between </players> and </playercorefactory>. All the .strm files still play using the native Kodi player even though if I right-click on them and look at "Play Using..." I see VLC listed as the default player! If I manually choose VLC then it opens and plays the file. It will open other kinds of files if manually chosen.

Why don't the .strm files open automatically in VLC since that is listed as the default player for them?!

(I am having this same problem on an Android installation where I am trying to use LocalCast. When it is set as the default player, streams open the app and play via DLNA, but local files simply refuse to play unless you manually select DVDPlayer. They won't play via LocalCast even if you choose the "default")

I've been round and round on this and there are so many examples I've seen I can't figure out what is the missing piece that will make the external player open automatically like it should. Help!