The VideoLAN Forums

I'm using VLC 2.2.2 on Ubuntu 16.04 (the latest version available in the Ubuntu repositories). The problem I have is that sometimes (with some videos) I am unable to double-click the VLC window (to toggle between full-screen/windowed mode). The mouse pointer completely disappears when I hover above the VLC window. The happens quite frequently, but not for every video I watch. It also doesn't happen immediately - when I first open a video file in VLC, I can double-click the window to make it full-screen, and vice versa. However, at some point, this functionality stops working (and the mouse pointer becomes invisible when hovering above the VLC window). The right-click context menu still works though (so when in full-screen mode, I can right-click on the VLC window (although I have to guess where the mouse pointer is) and then select "Leave Full-screen").

I have tried searching for posts about this issue, but couldn't find anything (the results turn up posts about people having issues with double-clicking video files and having them open automatically in VLC).

Is this a known issue? If so, is there any way to fix it?

Update your VLC installation.

I have the same problem with 2.2.4. It seems to be because of a buggy encode. This is especially germane to high-res YouTube videos and wmv (Worst Made Video) format. If you monitor your system, you'll see the CPU load spike.

Run vlc from your CLI like so: Tell us what you see.

Strangely, MPV plays a lot of the buggy stuff okay, so I use it to re-encode videos that don't play nice. If you want to try this workaround:

Install: Convert (example, many options, see mpv, libav, ffmpeg for details): Your new encode *should* work. If not it may also be too taxing for your system, in which case you can downscale it (man mpv).

FYI: If you need to get VLC 2.2.4, try using backports (ask if you need to know how, haven't used Ubuntu since the Stone Age and I've forgotten, but I'll check if you need me to, I did for someone else recently so it may be in my post history).