21

VLC doesnt quit. How do I force quit the application?

Jacob Vlijm
  • 82,471
  • 12
  • 195
  • 299
Joydeb Roy
  • 327
  • 1
  • 2
  • 4
  • **I tried using vlc's PID with the killall commmand but it returned as process not found** – Joydeb Roy Apr 05 '16 at 10:07
  • 2
    open a terminal, type `xkill` + Return. Then click on the application's window. Must be a dupe of something. – Jacob Vlijm Apr 05 '16 at 10:08
  • killall expect a process name rather then a PID – cmks Apr 05 '16 at 10:08
  • I tried **sudo kill -9 PID** right now and it worked for me. – Joydeb Roy Apr 05 '16 at 10:14
  • Unnecessarily complicated, see my comment above. – Jacob Vlijm Apr 05 '16 at 10:15
  • 5
    Mored possible dupes: http://askubuntu.com/questions/13441/how-to-kill-applications http://askubuntu.com/questions/194471/how-can-a-frozen-locked-up-program-app-be-closed http://askubuntu.com/questions/4408/what-should-i-do-when-ubuntu-freezes – Takkat Apr 05 '16 at 10:27
  • @JacobVlijm Using xkill is much easier if a certain window stops responding but what happend was i did quit VLC but it was running in the background,so the VLC window wasnt available for me to close, so had I to use the alternative method. :) – Joydeb Roy Apr 05 '16 at 13:02

2 Answers2

34

You can use based on name pkill 

pkill vlc

If that doesn't work, try:

pkill -9 vlc
terdon
  • 98,183
  • 15
  • 197
  • 293
EdiD
  • 4,327
  • 3
  • 23
  • 40
  • I removed the `sudo` because i) you should never run `sudo` unless necessary and ii) in this case, that would have killed _all_ cases of vlc running on the system. Not only those belonging to the OP. I also removed the `-9` because that is very aggressive and is not necessary here. – terdon Apr 05 '16 at 10:28
  • 1
    I used `-9` because OP want "force" – EdiD Apr 05 '16 at 10:31
  • Yes, I realized which is why I added it back. Still, it should be used as a last resort, not on the first try and not with `sudo` unless you know what you're doing. Don't get me wrong, this is a good answer, that's my upvote there :) – terdon Apr 05 '16 at 10:41
  • I guess :) and for those who have more than just one e.g. `vlc` instance launched using `xkill` is a good way to resolve the problem – EdiD Apr 05 '16 at 10:47
  • Thanks, this saves me plenty reboots – Dieter Gribnitz Feb 16 '21 at 06:22
27

Run this command to find out the PID it is using

ps aux | grep vlc

then run

sudo kill -9 <PID NUMBER>
bhordupur
  • 630
  • 1
  • 9
  • 14