Lightroom Classic 11.4.1 fails to import hevc video

[carlosf84959383]

The PC

- Windows 11 Pro with latest patches

- HEIF / HEVC Video Extensions from Microsoft installed

The video files in question

- HEVC videos were shot on iPhone 11

- The file extension of these files is *.MOV and encoded in H.265

When trying to import to LR Classic vesion 11.4.1

- The thumbnails on the Import Preview shows 'Preview unavailale for this file'

- After check the files and click [Import], there is popup message stating 'An unknown error occured while reading the video file' with a list of video files, and these files are not present in the catelogue.

- Other types of videos, such *.mp4, *.mov (h.264 encoded) have no problem importing.

I've tried the following without success:

- clear video cache

- uninstall and reinstall HEVC Video Extensions

- disable antivirus

- reboot PC, restart LR, reinstall lightroom

See 2 example videos attached if you want to try to reproduce (one in 30 and one in 60fps)

Any ideas? Someone reported a similar issue a while back, with no response:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/lightroom-classic-13-3-fails-to-import-...

[johnrellis]

Those two sample videos imported and played correctly in my LR 11.4.1 on Mac OS 12.4, Windows 10, and Windows 11.  (I got a similar error as you did when I imported into LR 11.3.1 / Windows 11, but after upgrading to 11.4.1, the error went away.)  So this indicates the issue is more specific to your particular configuration than LR in general.

You've tried the standard magic spells, and I can't think of any others that would likely help. Please do the menu command Help > System Info and copy/paste the entire contents here so we can see precisely what LR sees as the specific hardware and software you're running.

[johnrellis]

Also, video is LR's stepchild, not receiving much love from Adobe since it was introduced in LR 3. So it's very possible you won't get any resolution. I wouldn't recommend wasting time with Adobe support -- they're pretty useless except for the most common problems, and they can waste huge amounts of your time.

I long ago stopped importing video directly into the catalog and use the Any File plugin instead to manage my videos, playing them with the default player configured for the operating system (Quick Time Player in my case).  Not nearly as convenient as using LR's built-in player and mini-editor, but far more reliable.

[carlosf84959383 · Accepted solution]

Thread is old, but I'm leaving the solution here in case someone runs into the same problem. Turns out reinstalling Lightroom is not sufficient because it does not clear all the stuff from the install. My recommendation if you run into this issue:

1 - Remove HEIF / HEVC Video extensions. Example

You will need to use PowerShell with administrative privileges.
- Execute following command in powershell, it will list all the APPX packages installed on the system.
Get-AppxPackage | select Name,PackageFullName,NonRemovable
- Go thru the list and find the HEVC package in the list, in my case it was named Microsoft.HEVCVideoExtension_1.0.42701.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
- Next execute following command to uninstall this package:
Remove-AppxPackage <package name>

e.g. Microsoft.HEVCVideoExtension_1.0.42701.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe

2 - Remove Lightroom / Creative Cloud. Even better, run the creative cloud cleaner tool:

https://helpx.adobe.com/ca/creative-cloud/kb/cc-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html

3 - Run CCleaner, specifically the registry cleaner

https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/builds

4 - Go to C:\Users\<youruser>\Appdata, and remove the Adobe folder from all the 3 folders (Local, LocalLow and Roaming)

5 - Restart your PC and reinstall Lightroom

this should fix the issue! Good luck!