My VLC - on Windows 10 - takes maybe 20 seconds to show up after clicking on a video, and today I stumbled over this article which cites some (in my opinion) equally improbable possible reasons for this kind of behaviour from both other users and VLC developers: https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/08/14/vlc-blames-windows-11-bug-for-slow-performance-defends-open-source-and-calls-out-microsoft/

Anyway, that one made me look at my VLC plugins, and other than the usual, there was one extension installed - an ancient version of VLSub for OpenSubtitles.org (0.11.1.), https://addons.videolan.org/p/2294535

Apparently it came with the vlc-3.0.23-win64.exe installer that I downloaded in January (but I didn't notice a problem until about April). This plugin seems to require an opensubtitles.org account and API key to supposedly do anything useful, which I don't have. (According to Virustotal, its file hash first showed up in 2022, and has been seen in various versions of Windows VLC installers - https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/661ba9e5287efc4b066b6e4c0b23fcc2726471cf6ca67d53e6da0ac4b879cfaa/details)

After removing that extension (VLC\lua\extensions\VLSub.luac), VLC startup times are back to normal (instant) on this system, at least for now. 🤷‍♂️

#vlc