Fix slow loading mkv files in VLC in Mac OSX

Was having a frustrating few months with MKV files containing subtitles taking up to 30 seconds to load in VLC. The solution to the problem is to grant write permissions to the fontconfig file. So the simple fix is this:

1. Open up Terminal.app
2. Type in “sudo chmod 777 /usr/X11/var/cache/fontconfig”

Now MKV files containing subtitles will load instantly!

Comments

[John Hall]

I had to add -R for mine to work (changes permissions for files inside the directory also):
sudo chmod -R 777 /usr/X11/var/cache/fontconfig

[xxx]

still takes 1 min in mine :(

[Eric Phan]

The other option is to use MPlayerX free on the AppStore.