Here's a link to the current project: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WXDmd_qlzyH2dUR_UrW3Dk0zR1QvS61W?usp=sharing. But the issue occurs with any project I make; it's not specific to one specific video file or project file.
Here's part of what I think is happening. Several versions back, when I would first drop a video onto the main sequence, a thin green indicator line would begin creeping across the top of the static preview of the video on the sequence view, moving from left to right. That line was indicating something like how much of the video had been pre-rendered. Eventually the whole thing would be pre-rendered. In the recent versions of VideoPad, that indicator line no longer appears. However, I get the impression that the incremental pre-rendering is still happening because, when I click on the video in the sequence (while it's not playing yet), if I jump to the earliest part of a video, then the preview shows me that frame instantaneously, but if I jump to latter portions, there's a momentary delay before the preview shows me the relevant frame of the video. Over time, the amount of video that I can instantly jump to grows larger and larger until, again, the whole video allows for instant jumps and previews. Here's the thing: I've discovered that my glitch only occurs if I try to play the video while it--*any portion of it*--has yet to fully pre-render. If I wait several minutes so the whole thing pre-renders, I can play the video and jump around in it while it's playing with no problems.
So, how do I resolve this issue so my machine doesn't get trapped in the glitchy loop if I play the sequence preview while it's still pre-rendering?