Forum Discussion

Wilfred Kirby's avatar
Wilfred Kirby
Explorer | Level 3
5 years ago

Can't play .mov file when downloaded (does play in preview window within dropbox)

Have found others with similar issues a year or so ago, but nothing that states if/how it was resolved.

 

Have a 1.3Gb file, which plays on clients end and within the preview window. When I download it however, it simply says "cannot play file" and "not compatible with QuickTime player". Same file crashes VLC, will not play within Premiere or After Effects, nor does it work on a second Mac or a PC. 

 

Have downloaded it many times in both regular and incognito, and on multiple platforms. 

 

Client is super-frustrated obviously, as every other piece they uploaded is fine. Would be amazing if I could rectify it!

 

Thanks in advance.

3 Replies

Replies have been turned off for this discussion
  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    5 years ago
    Hey Wilfred Kirby, thanks for reaching out today!

    Is this a file that was shared with your through a link, or is it saved in your Dropbox account?

    If it's saved, do you perhaps have the Dropbox application installed on your computer, to check if you can play it from your Dropbox folder?

    Also, when you download it, does it get downloaded as a .mov file or is it zipped?

    Keep me posted!
  • Wilfred Kirby's avatar
    Wilfred Kirby
    Explorer | Level 3
    5 years ago

    Hi Hannah,

     

    It's a link, however one of five video files; the other four work. The odd thing with this, is that it previews fine within the dropbox environment (same as the others) - can play it in there. However when downloaded, it has no preview image of the video as an icon (others do) and there's no way to play it in any player or program. Client swears it plays fine on their end.

  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    5 years ago
    Thanks for the update here, Wilfred, and happy Monday!

    Is it possible that your machines are missing some codecs and that's why they cannot play this video on your media players?

    It can't be corrupted if it previews on our website and on your client's end, but it is strange that you're having this issue on two different computers.

    I found this article online, can you check it out, to see if it helps?

About View, download, and export

Node avatar for View, download, and export
Need support with viewing, downloading, and exporting files and folders from your Dropbox account? Find help from the Dropbox Community.

The Dropbox Community team is active from Monday to Friday. We try to respond to you as soon as we can, usually within 2 hours.

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X, Facebook or Instagram.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!