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Mike Tough
Participating Frequently
March 24, 2023
Question

Videos won't load or play

  • March 24, 2023
  • 5 replies
  • 3618 views

I've been using lightroom for many years. Recently lighroom has stopped importing or playing videos. I don't often view videos, so this behaviour may have happened within the last 3-6 months.

 

  • Running Windows 10 (latest version)
  • Running Lightroom Classic 12.2.1 (latest version)
  • Most photos/videos located on NAS drive, but some on PC hard drive.

 

Symptoms

  • When trying to play videos I get error message "There was an error working with this video"
  • When trying to import video I get the error "There is a problem with the video file" and sometimes (after trying some of the fixes below) the error "An unknown error has occurred while reading the video file. Connecting to Dynamic Link server failed"
  • This is an issue with ALL video files (including those on PC hard drive).
  • All video files play fine in other programs (VCL, Windows Photos, etc.)
  • All videos have played fine within Lightroom for many years prior to this issue.

 

I have read many posts on this issue (it seems I am not the first by far to have this problem) and have tried the following solutions (broadly in this order) - all to no avail.

 

  1.  Restart Lightroom
  2.  Restart PC
  3.  Purge Video Cache and increase storage limit to 5.0Gb
  4.  Halting dynamiclinkmediaserver and dynamiclinkmediamanager after closing Lightroom (not relevant since not running after LR closure and looks like Adobe is now using Adobe Dynamic Link Manager 22)
  5.  Deleting dynamiclinkmediaserver and dynamiclinkmediamanager folders.
  6.  Deleteing Video\Media Cache folders
  7.  Uninstalling and Re-installing Lightroom Classic (with original preferences and settings).
  8.  Creating a new test calalogue.
  9.  Uninstalling and re-installing Quicktime.
  10.  Resetting Preferences file. 

 

None of these solutions have worked 😞 

 

Can anybody give any guidance as to what I should do next to fix this?

 

I'm happy to provide copies of any log files or video files to help with the diagonsis of the problem.

    5 replies

    M
    Mark Ulmer
    Participating Frequently
    April 4, 2023

    Problem solved! It was Visual C++ redistributables. I uninstalled all of them, rebooted, then reinstalled them again, rebooted and, voila, the problem is solved. TechPowerUp has a nice zip file with all the different versions and an installer bat file that makes it very easy to reinstall. You can find it here. Thanks, Mike Tough for pinpointing the problem.

      athelas64
      athelas64
      Known Participant
      April 15, 2024

      This worked, problem was instantly fixed (I just closed Lightroom CC before installing the C++)! The batch is also consantly updated, so this was really an almost one-click solution. Thanks!

      M
      Mike ToughAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      March 31, 2023

      Got it !!!! (for my system at least).

       

      It turns out that Lightroom appears to require Visual C++ in order to access videos on my Windows 10 system. I had a number of versions installed on my system, some of which were corrupted. Repairing these seems to have fixed the problem.

       

      Start>Settings>Apps>(Select Microsoft Visual C++ .......)>Modify>Repair

      Repeat above for each version of Visual C++ installed.

      Restart PC

      Bingo 🙂 🙂 🙂 (At least for me)

       

      Hope this helps anybody with the same issue.

       

       

        M
        Mark Ulmer
        Participating Frequently
        April 3, 2023
        quote

        Got it !!!! (for my system at least).

         

        It turns out that Lightroom appears to require Visual C++ in order to access videos on my Windows 10 system. I had a number of versions installed on my system, some of which were corrupted. Repairing these seems to have fixed the problem.

         

        Start>Settings>Apps>(Select Microsoft Visual C++ .......)>Modify>Repair

        Repeat above for each version of Visual C++ installed.

        Restart PC

        Bingo 🙂 🙂 🙂 (At least for me)

         

        Hope this helps anybody with the same issue.

         

         


        By @Mike Tough

        Unfortunately, this doesn't help me. I have multiple versions of "Microsoft Visual C++ xxxx Redistributable" installed. However, the only option available for any of them in either Settings | Apps or the old Control Panel is "Uninstall". There is no repair option. I suppose I could try uninstalling them all and then reinstall (if I can find the installers to reinstall from). Sounds like a lot of work. Maybe I'll just forget about trying to do anything with video in LrC...

         

        M
        Mike ToughAuthor
        Participating Frequently
        April 4, 2023

        On my Windows 10 system, Versions of "Microsoft Visual C++ xxxx Redistributable" from version 2012 does have the Modify option. Older versions do not appear to have the Modify option.

          M
          Mark Ulmer
          Participating Frequently
          March 28, 2023

          Just wanted to report that I just noticed today that I have the same problem. Haven't done anything with video in awhile, so I don't know how long it's been a problem. Can't import (.mp4 from my Google Pixel 5 phone in this case), nor can I view/edit any videos (.mov, .mp4) that have already been in my catalog for some time (several years, in some cases.) I am running LrC 12.1 on Windows 11 (with all latest updates).

           

            M
            Mike ToughAuthor
            Participating Frequently
            March 25, 2023

            Update :

            In addition to the above, I've now tried :

             

            1.  Updating Graphics card driver.
            2.  Disabling graphics card acceleration.
            3.  Many combinations and permutations of all the above (including in my original post)

             

            I eventually picked up the courage to clear out ALL adobe apps using the AdobeCreativeCloudCleanerTool and starting with a fully clean instal of Lightroom Classic. Using a new calalogue on a few test videos, the same problem STILL persists.

             

            I'm now clean out of options 😞 

             

            It seems clear that there is a bug in Lightroom which manifests itself on my specific system. So,

            1.  Should I report the bug (and if so what is the best way to do this)
            2.  Is there an error log that I can access that may give further clues as to what is going on (other than the rather non-specific error message given within the app).
            3.  I have other video programs installed (Resolve, Handbrake, etc.). Is it possible that they could be interfering with Lightroom?
            4.  Is there anybody else having this issue with Lightroom 12 ?
            M
            Mike ToughAuthor
            Participating Frequently
            March 25, 2023

            FYI System Info file attached.

            M
            Mike ToughAuthor
            Participating Frequently
            March 24, 2023

            As a follow-up question. Is it necessary for Quicktime to be installed for lightroom to show videos on a Windows system or is Lightroom Classic "self-contained" when it comes to video playing/processing?

              Michael J. Hoffman
              Community Expert
              Michael J. HoffmanCommunity Expert
              Community Expert
              March 24, 2023

              I don't have any suggestion to resolve your problem, but I can tell you that Quicktime is not needed on Windows systems. I have a brand new Windows system, just built, no Quicktime, and LR videos play fine. In fact, I don't think there has been a Quicktime for Windows in quite a few years. The problem has to be somewhere else. Hopefully, that at least save you going down some dead ends. 

              M
              Mike ToughAuthor
              Participating Frequently
              March 25, 2023

              Thanks Michael, I'll bear that in mind.

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