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Videos (*.avi) no longer play?

R

regnez

Golden Member
Over the past couple of years, I have amassed quite a collection of videos. I have always used VLC to watch them (or stream them to my XBMC), and they have always played fine.

However, starting earlier this week -- or, at least, that is as soon as I noticed -- videos that are any older than a couple of weeks will no longer play at all. There is no thumbnail in Finder, either.

The strange thing is, these are videos that previously played without issue. Now, however, they will not open at all. Not in VLC, not in QuickTime, not in XBMC, not on another computer.

I am using Time Machine for backups and have everything backed up all the way back to February, but not a single backup instance will play the videos, either.

I am on 10.6.3 and any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

:: EDIT :: Wanna shot at the file itself? Shoot me a PM and I will get you the details on how to download it.
 
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Kmax82 said:
What codec are those files using? Have you tried reinstalling Perian?
Click to expand...

Reinstalled Perian this morning, but to no avail. I am not sure what the codec is, to be honest; all I know is that it is all the videos are *.avi, which I realize is just a container. How could I go about finding the actual codec?

Also, when I try to play the video in VLC, no sound or audio comes up, but the progress bar at the bottom does move. It is always very wrong, though. For instance, it lists an episode of The Office from a few seasons back as being over two and a half hours, instead of 22-ish minutes.
 
regnez said:
Reinstalled Perian this morning, but to no avail. I am not sure what the codec is, to be honest; all I know is that it is all the videos are *.avi, which I realize is just a container. How could I go about finding the actual codec?

Also, when I try to play the video in VLC, no sound or audio comes up, but the progress bar at the bottom does move. It is always very wrong, though. For instance, it lists an episode of The Office from a few seasons back as being over two and a half hours, instead of 22-ish minutes.
Click to expand...

Hmm.. yea, that's quite odd..

If you open the file in Quicktime, you can go to Window/Show Movie Inspector. That should show the codec used, I believe. Not sure how to do it in VLC.

Being that you have backups I doubt it's the file, but if you wanted to post one on Dropbox or something I could let you know if it's for sure the video, or your system.

I'm not sure what else to try.. anyone else have any ideas?
 
Kmax82 said:
Hmm.. yea, that's quite odd..

If you open the file in Quicktime, you can go to Window/Show Movie Inspector. That should show the codec used, I believe. Not sure how to do it in VLC.

Being that you have backups I doubt it's the file, but if you wanted to post one on Dropbox or something I could let you know if it's for sure the video, or your system.

I'm not sure what else to try.. anyone else have any ideas?
Click to expand...

I cannot get VLC to pull up the details on any of the videos that will not play, though if I open one that still does work -- which should be similar to those that don't, since they were all acquired from the same place -- the video is XVID and the audio is mpga.

They are large files, so it'd be difficult to get them moved around over the internet, and most of them are TV shows, so I'll have to find one that doesn't violate copyright laws. If I am able to get one online though, I'll update the OP with a link.
 
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regnez said:
I cannot get VLC to pull up the details on any of the videos that will not play, though if I open one that still does work -- which should be similar to those that don't, since they were all acquired from the same place -- the video is XVID and the audio is mpga.

They are large files, so it'd be difficult to get them moved around over the internet, and most of them are TV shows, so I'll have to find one that doesn't violate copyright laws. If I am able to get one online though, I'll update the OP with a link.
Click to expand...

Understandable.

Oh, try to create another User Account in System Prefs and see if this happens there as well.. could be a software conflict with something installed on your current user profile.
 
Kmax82 said:
Understandable.

Oh, try to create another User Account in System Prefs and see if this happens there as well.. could be a software conflict with something installed on your current user profile.
Click to expand...

Good thinking with the new user account, but still no dice. I also tried on a separate computer at work (for a total of one Mac computer, two Windows computers, an Xbox w/ XBMC, and an Xbox 360), so it's definitely something to do with the file itself.

Hmm...
 
Shot you a PM with details on how to download one of the broken files, Kmax82. If anyone else is curious, hit me up via PM and I will get you the details.
 
That was my thought, too. The only thing I can think of that would have corrupted the files is setting a master password on my iMac. I didn't turn on File Vault for any amount of time though, so I doubt it was that and that password has since been removed.

I will continue to tinker with it and if I find a solution, I will post back. Thank you very much for the help thus far, Kmax82.
 
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