I ran into a weird problem where VLC would freeze the video after resuming from pause, or when a video started over after looping. The audio kept playing normally, but the picture stayed frozen until I manually skipped to another position in the video.
In my case, the issue was caused by VLC’s hardware decoding. Disabling it completely fixed the problem.
How to Disable Hardware Decoding in VLC
- Open VLC Media Player.
- Go to Tools > Preferences.
- At the bottom left, under Show settings, select All.
- In the left pane, expand Input / Codecs.
- Click Video Codecs > FFmpeg.
- Scroll down to Hardware decoding under the FFmpeg audio/video decoder section.
- Change it to Disable.
- Click Save and restart VLC.
After restarting VLC, videos resumed normally after pausing, and looping videos no longer froze. If you’re experiencing the same symptoms, it’s definitely worth trying this before spending time reinstalling VLC or updating graphics drivers.