MP4 and MOV are the most popular and commonly used digital multimedia formats for recording meaningful events. You can easily save memories of your Birthday party, weddings of best friends, vacations, etc. on smartphones in video format. Ever wondered what if these important files get deleted from your device? There are certain reasons that can damage your favorite videos and make them unplayable until they are recovered.
MPEG-4 Part 14 or MP4 provides the best resolution with enriched graphics. You can even get clear audio intervention while playing the MP4, MOV, and AVI videos. Almost all the filmmakers and individual creators use MP4/MOV for making movies. If you are facing problems while playing these formats, then find the root cause of the issue. Here, we will help you know the cause and proper methods to repair corrupt, unreadable MP4 MOV video files online.
What Indicates Issue with MP4/MOV Files?
There are some specific instances that indicate any problem with your video files. Some of them are given below:
- Unable to play videos. Only audio is playing without any video
- You will get choppy/ blurry /flickering screens while playing videos
- Audio and video are not synchronized
- No audio in your video files
- Video is displaying black screen during play
- System freezes during the video play
- Video files are broken or damaged
- Problem with video codec or proper codec is not installed
- The video format might not be supported by your computer
Main Reasons for MP4, MOV Video Not Playing Issues
If your video files are not playing, apply different video repair methods to bring your MP4 or MOV files back into the playing state. Given below are all the possible reasons why the MP4 or MOV video files cannot play on your system:
- Automatic shutdown of camera or system
- Poor internet connectivity
- Problem while converting video into different formats
- Error while reading or writing data
- Malware or virus attacks on your system
- Low battery while recording video
- Unexpected stopping of media player
- Faulty, Improper, or unauthorized media player
- Any problem while copying MPEG file
There are some common situations that can corrupt your MP4 or MOV video files. Always try to avoid the above situations if you don’t want your videos to be interrupted while playing.
Things to Follow to Avoid MP4 MOV Videos Corruption
Here are a few things that you must keep in mind to avoid future MP4/MOV video file corruption:
- Always backup the video file before you make any changes.
- Make sure that your computer is working properly under optimal conditions. Also, check the electrical connection between your devices.
- Update the operating system and antivirus software to their latest versions.
- It is good to have backups of your video files on multiple devices, like USB, DVD, CD, cloud storage, etc. This will help you restore your video file even if the hard drive on your computer gets damaged.
How do I Repair Corrupt MP4 & MOV Videos?
Once you know the root cause of the issue with your videos, apply some common methods to repair MOV and MP4 files. These video file formats are compatible with almost every video player, including VLC Media Player. VLC is a free media player that allows users to view movies. Along with this, you can even repair your corrupt MP4/MOV videos using a VLC player.
You can use VLC media player even to repair corrupt MP4 videos without losing quality. It allows you to fix corrupted, damaged, truncated, or broken video files. There are some software available that you can use to bring MOV and MP4 videos into playable files again. Here, we will discuss how you can use VLC’s features to repair corrupt MP4 and MOV videos.
Method 1: Transcode MP4 and MOV Videos Using VLC
VLC player can help you to transcode MP4 and MOV files and make them playable again. Sometimes, a video shows error message while playing on unsupported media players because of incompatible or missing codecs. Transcoding the MP4 or MOV files can repair the videos only if you play them on an incompatible media player. Follow the below-mentioned steps to repair MOV files online or MP4 files by transcoding them using VLC players:
- Launch VLC Player in your system.
- Navigate to Media and select Convert/ Save.
- Tap the “Add” button to upload MP4/ MOV videos that you need to transcode.
- Click Convert/ Save.
- In the new window that appears, enter the file name and location in the Destination file option.
- Select the input codec as per your requirement from the Profile list.
- You can use the Edit Selected Profile option to change the profile configurations. You can even create a new profile or delete an existing profile using the same option.
- At last, tap the Start button in the Convert window.
You can even try the transcoding method to repair MP4 online either in VLC or other players.
Method 02: Repair MOV and MP4 Videos using the VLC video fix feature
VLC players have a built-in feature that you can use to fix AVI video files. If you have corrupt MP4 or MOV videos, rename the file by changing its file extension to .AVI. After that:
- Firstly, right-click on the corrupt MP4/ MOV video file and select the Rename option to rename it. Change the extension of the file to .AVI and press Enter key.
- Open VLC Player and go to Tools > Preferences > >Input or Codecs.
- Choose the “Always Fix” option next to “Repair AVI Files”.
- Click on the Save button to save the changes.
You can try this method to repair the file index and file header of the corrupt MOV/MP4 videos to make them playable again. Now, play the AVI file converted to check if the above steps resolve MP4 or MOV file issues.
Method 03: Use Online Tools to Repair MP4/MOV videos
Some popular online platforms can also help you repair damaged, broken, truncated, and unplayable MP4 and MOV video files. Usually, these Video Repair software recover videos if there is any camera power failure, unknown hardware/software issues, etc. There are many online video repair tools that you can use to repair MP4 online or even MOV videos:
- Launch any online video repair tool in the browser. Click the + sign to upload the corrupted videos and tap the Start button.
- The tool will then start auto-repairing your corrupt video file. Wait till the repair process is finished.
- Once the video repair is done, preview the repaired video and download it to the desired location on your device.
Still Unable to Repair Corrupt MP4/ MOV Videos? Try a Video Repair Software
If the VLC Media player or online platforms didn’t fix video corruption and unreadability issues, try Stellar Repair for Video. This software can easily repair corrupt video files of any format, like formats, including MP4, MOV, AVI, MKV. The video repair tool can deal with all kinds of MP4, and MOV corruption issues, like compression issues, broken file header, frame corruption, etc. The software repairs severely corrupt video files using sample files.