What to do if a video file is damaged and won't open

VLC Media Player

This popular media player can, among other things, fix corrupted videos.

First, let's try to simply open the damaged video file in VLC. The player will display an error message.

Click on "Build Index, Then Play". Building a video index can take a long time. But in most cases, these actions are sufficient - the file will open.

If you have a lot of damaged video files and you do not want to open them one by one, go to the player settings and in the "Input / Codecs" section select "Fix if necessary".

Please note that VLC does not repair your file, but creates a temporary corrected copy of it, which disappears after the playback finishes. If you try to open the file in another player, it will not be able to play. To make a corrected copy of the damaged file, select in the menu "Media" → "Save or Convert" and convert the file to another format. Or the same one.

Download VLC →

Stellar Phoenix Video Repair

An effective media recovery tool for Windows and Mac. But the price bites, so you should only buy it if you are constantly working with damaged videos. Can recover files in MP4, MOV, 3GP, M4V, M4A, 3G2 and F4V format. The free version allows you to recover files up to 10 MB in size. The full version costs $ 69.99.

Download Stellar Phoenix Video Repair →

DivFix ++

DivFix ++ hasn't been updated for a long time, but it works great nonetheless. It can only repair AVI, but it does it well. Just download and unzip the application, add the corrupted files and click on the Fix button.

Download DivFix ++ →

DivX Repair

Another free program for recovering damaged media files. Its advantage is that it can recover multiple videos at a time.

Download DivXRepair →

Get My Videos Back

It is a free application that supports DivX, FLV, MP4, 3GP, AVI and MPEG files. In addition to recovering video files, it can fix files copied from damaged CDs and DVDs.

Download Get My Videos Back →

Video Repair

Not a bad video recovery app. True, it costs 99 euros. In the free option, Video Repair only recovers half of your video.

But there is a possibility to trick this application by slipping it a file of twice the size. Open a command prompt from the start menu and navigate to the desired folder. To do this, right-click with the Shift key held down on the directory where the damaged file is stored, copy its path and enter the command in the opened command line:


cd folder_path

Then enter the following:


copy / b filename.mp4 + filename.mp4 double_file_name.mp4

A double video file will be created. Feed it Video Repair. Since the application will only restore half of it, you will have a restored original file.

Download Video Repair →

It failed to restore the file in one of the ways - try another. If you know other solutions to the problem, share them in the comments.