Videos randomly turns completely gray

Solution 1:

Try playing with the file caching setting.

Tools > Preferences > Show Settings: All (bottom left) > Input/Codecs > Advanced section > File Caching

I changed it from 300ms to 1000ms and it fixed the problem. I suspect the grey screen issue happens whenever VLC fails to get the video data from the drive fast enough (slow drive/other programs accessing it).

Solution 2:

I had this problem. It seemed like VLC was using too much CPU. Solved it by installing the 64bit version of VLC. vlc-2.2.1-win64.exe

Solution 3:

I found out that playing a video in VLC that is being accessed by another program, uTorrent in my case, would cause multiple grey screens throughout the playback.

I either closed the program (uTorrent) that was accessing the video or stopped it from using it. I restarted the video and no more grey screens appeared.