Videos won't load or play

[Mike Tough]

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.

[Mike Tough]

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]

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. 

[Mike Tough]

Thanks Michael, I'll bear that in mind.

[Mike Tough]

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 ?

[Mike Tough]

FYI System Info file attached.

[gegjr]

I just tried to import some old (from 2018) .mov (quicktime) videos. I got error that Lightroom Classic cannot read the .mov files so therefore files could not be imported (don't remember exact message). I was able to view the files using Windows Media app and other video apps. I checked the Adobe support website and found that Windows recommends removal of QuickTime app.

[Mark Ulmer]

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).

[Mike Tough]

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.

[Mike Tough]

P.S.

I also ended up removing Quicktime from my system. It does not appear to be required by a Windows 10 system (wrt Lightroom).

[Mark Ulmer]

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...

[Mike Tough]

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.

[gegjr]

I have Windows 10 Home version 22H2. I updated the most recent version (8/10/22) to 4/3/2023. I don't see why it's  necessary to update all the others? There is a total of 13 going back to C++2008? Why can't I just delete all those prior to 2022?

Anyway, doing the modify/repair did not fix the issue.

I can view thumbnails and play all videos previously imported tand added to my catalog but I cannot import MOV files from that were taken in 2018 using a GE A1250 5x 12.5 MP P&S camera.

The message I get is that "lightroom cannot read the video file. The file(s) has an unsupported compression type."

However, I am able to view files using any viewer on my laptop. They are not unsupported to Windows.

I don't understand why LRC won't allow me to import them.

Oh, in case you're wondering these are old videos taken by grandson that I didn't realize he had taken. They're of him and friends when he was still in high school. I wonder if I convert to mp4 if LRC will let me import them or is this an issue for all videos for LRC?

[Mike Tough]

Sound like it's not a Lightroom problem like I had, but a compatability issue with the format of files from that specific camera. I'd try converting the files to a format compatible with Lightroom using something like Handbrake (free). Google the the compatible file types for Lightroom and remember that the file container (mp4, mov, etc) is not all that needs to be considered. The compression type within the container must also be compatible.

[Mark Ulmer]

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]

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!