When opening an AVI, VLC detects if the index is "broken" and asks you if you want to attempt to repair it.
Now, when vlc has been running for a while & you click the repair it button, it opens the file and no screen saying the index is being repaired comes up, instead the first few minute or so of the file can be seen in the bar and the rest is "invisible" or in other words, can not be accessed via the index bar.
Now, when VLC is freshly opened, in other words it has not been running any other files, when one clicks the repair the file button, it opens a menu with a status bar on haw far the indexing has been completed. I can also access the entire AVI via the scroll bar at the bottom of the screen.