This used to just be how it worked, I don't know what changed. I have for a long time used VLC to navigate to files on my computer in the other room so I can stream video to my phone that are stored on the computer.
Occasionally I'll also use VLC to browse local media on my phone. I can still do this through the browse tab but I have to navigate my phone's internal memory folder structure that way, which is cumbersome and irritating. Previously I would just go to the video tab because any video that showed up there would be local to the phone. Now, all the video on my computer's storage is displayed there and seemingly NONE of the phone's own local video material.
I tried going to settings and Media Library Folders and noticed that interestingly the network location for my computer was ticked and the internal storage was unticked. I have no idea how that happened but I thought I had the problem solved then. I unticked all potential Media Library Folders except internal storage which I ticked and then navigated to the video tab in hopes of seeing only local video and no network video. The situation was completely unchanged. There was a notification at the top of the screen from VLC indicating it was scanning so I thought perhaps it was going to have to complete this scan first before anything could change so I left the phone to it to it with the VLC app open. Some time later I returned and the notification was gone, but the video tab was the same. I navigated away from and then back to the video tab and still it was the same. While writing this post I checked the Media Library Folders setting again and the changes I had made were reversed, only the network location for my PC was checked and all other items including the internal storage were unchecked. WTF!?