VLC is unable to open the MRL YouTube Mac

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• [Solved!] How to Fix VLC Is Unable to Open the MRL?

By Stella | Follow | Last Updated November 24, 2020

Are you bothered by the VLC is unable to open the MRL error when you want to stream videos from YouTube or other sources? Do you want to get rid of VLC is unable to open the MRL YouTube? This post from MiniTool Software will show you some solutions that are proved to be effective.

VLC is unable to open the MRL is an error that always happens when you want to stream video using VLC. When this error occurs, you will receive the following interface after you enter a video URL and click Play on VLC.

This issue can happen no matter which video source you are using. If you are facing the VLC is unable to open the MRL YouTube issue, the method to get rid of this issue is different from other situations.

Tip: You can refer to this article to learn how to use VLC to download long YouTube videos that are longer than 1 hour: How to Download Long YouTube Videos? [2020 Update]

Now, we will first talk about the VLC is unable to open the MRL issue.

How to Fix VLC Is Unable to Open the MRL YouTube?

If you encounter the VLC is unable to open the MRL YouTube issue when you want to play a YouTube video with VLC or download a YouTube video using this software, you need to replace the youtube.luac file with an available one.

Here are the things you should do:

1. Go to this page to find the youtube.luac file. All the files on this page are up-to-update.

2. Click youtube.luac to enter its page.

3. Open notepad.

4. Copy all the codes in the youtube.luac age and paste them to the notepad file. Here, you need to note that there should be the same blank lines in the notepad file as the format in this youtube.luac page.

5. Go to File > Save, and then select All files from the Save as type section.

6. Name the file as youtube.luac.

7. Click Save to save the file.

8. If you use the Windows default installation path, you can go to this path C:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC\lua\playlist to find and replace the youtube.luac file with this newly created one. If you have specified a new path for the installation of VLC, you can go to that path to do the job.

After these steps, you can use VLC to stream a YouTube video to see whether the VLC is unable to open the MRL YouTube issue disappears.

How to Fix VLC Is Unable to Open the MRL for Other Video Sources?

If you encounter this issue when you are not using the YouTube source, the above solution will not work for you. However, you can use the following solutions to fix the issue.

Solution 1: Make Sure That the Source Video Can Be Played Normally

If the video itself is not workable, you will be unable to play it using VLC. Thus, you can first go to check whether the source video can be played normally. You can paste the video URL to your web browser to check whether it can work normally. You can also paste it to another video player to have a try.

Solution 2: Uninstall or Modify the Firewall Settings

Another possibility is that the firewall blocks VLC and causes the VLC is unable to open the MRL issue. So, you can go to the firewall settings to check whether it is the cause. If yes, you can allow it to make VLC work again.

Solution 3: Update or Re-Install VLC

If there is something wrong with VLC or the VLC media player is out-of-date, you can also encounter the VLC is unable to open the MRL issue. To rule out this case, you can update or re-install VLC to have a try.

Solution 4: Take the Ownership of This File

This issue can also happen when you play videos that are from the external hard drive or other removable drives. If this is the situation you are facing, you will need to take ownership of this file to get rid of the issue.

Now, you should know how to solve the VLC is unable to open the MRL issue. If you have any other problems, you can let us know in the comment.

About The Author

Position: Columnist

Stella has been working in MiniTool Software as an English Editor for more than 4 years. Her articles mainly cover the fields of data recovery including storage media data recovery and phone data recovery, YouTube videos download, partition management, and video conversions.