A lot of the issues reported here, started showing up on my device after each OS update, but VLC didn't push any updates for over a year now... VLC is king, but what went wrong?
Edit: I think I saw a post on Mastodon saying it something to do with Google Play Store policies change, but what about the Fdroid version.. ?
The main problem is that VLC's minimum SDK is still targeting Android 4.2, this is an issue with a ton of apps (games specially), which basically renders them incompatible/buggy with modern Android versions.
Being honest here, all app developers should target Android 8 as their minimum nowadays, as anything below that can't even browse the web anymore.
Minimum SDK also does get bumped in Android in general at a snails pace. Given that we're basically coming up on Android 15; it's not unfair to assume that, eventually, we will simply see Android intentionally and permanently REFUSE to run the app because it's Minimum SDK value is considered to be too low and thus Android must assume that the application is completely insecure.