VLC has separate hotkeys for
play only
pause only
play+pause
stop
if a video is stopped - by pressing stop - then Id expect to ba able to restart it by pressing whatever has been assigned to PLAY ( on keyboard or remote) - but the play hotkey does not work - only the play+pause hot key works at that point i.e. VLC is running, and knows what file it last played, but it not currently playing
"play" will only restart a paused video, not a stopped one.
is that deliberate design or a bug - it seems illogical to me.
PS the "play" button which you can have on screen in the panel above or below the video is tactulaly the play+pause control, so clicking that with mouse works OK.