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A video will not openΒΆ

You see: Could not read video, with a reason. Or Could not load video: "Timed out loading" and the path.

Why: Opening a video takes two steps. First ffprobe, part of ffmpeg, reads its frame rate, length and frame size; that fails on a damaged file, a file with no video in it, or a format ffmpeg cannot read. Then the viewer loads it, and gives up after 30 seconds, which usually means a very slow drive or network share.

Fix:

  1. For Could not read video, check that the file plays in another player. If it does not, the file is damaged; export it again from wherever it came from.
  2. For Could not load video, copy the video to a local drive and open that copy.

If that didn't work: The file picker lists MP4, MOV, MKV and AVI files. Choose All files to try another format, but one ffmpeg cannot read will not open. See Supported media.