I reproduce on VLC 2.2.2 , Ubuntu 16.04, for FPSs lower than 4, video generated with:
ffmpeg -framerate 4 -pattern_type glob -i '*.jpeg' -c:v libx264 out.mp4
Both Totem and ffplay play the video just fine.
There is also an ancient bug report at:
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/214