Minor glitch with wireless keypad

[Graeme-21]

I use a wireless keypad to remotely control VLC tracks and playlists on my Windows PC. This works perfectly when a track or playlist is loaded and running, but 'sometimes' it fails on initial loading. On these occasions I have to close track and reload which is inevitably successful. I may be asking too much for this setup to work perfectly every time, but is there a simple workaround that would eliminate this irritation?

[Graeme-21]

I have realised that the issue I am having is related to 'focus', which is something I am not used to as my experience is predominantly with imaging software i.e. problem free. One thing that remains from above is that VLC gets focus on occasion, but doesn't perhaps inclined to majority of the time. The answer as to why, if there is one, would still be helpful if anyone is out there.