videos won't play

[peterv43]

Recently uploaded two MP4 videos in dropbox. When I click on them they start to play for about a 10th of a second and then quit and go back to list of videos.I have no idea why won't play. I don't have a smartphone, I just want to watch them in real-time on Dropbox.

[YellowBear]

Tried a fresh login on a private browser session with 0 extensions and cookies and it only temporarily worked, before the usual problems of kicking me out of various videos arose.

I didn't change ANYTHING with my browser or extensions in the last months, and yet the problem started around a week ago out of the blue, even with videos that I have watched plenty of times without problems in the past.

I am on firefox. The problem seems to be especially strong on longer videos, with some shorter videos being able to be played, but also buffering longer than usual and expected...

This whole thing doesn't sound like user error to me tbh. Especially because clearing cookies or changing to private browsing only brings temporarily relief. And multiple users on here having the same exact problem-description, around the same timeframe.

Sounds more like the preview-player function got messed up on dropbox end, as its consistently and reproducible happening over multiple sessions.

I am actually a paying customer with monthly subscription, which sucks, if the problem isn't going to be investigated and fixed this month, I don't see a reason to not cancel.

[trinatoday]

Hi Everyone - hope you can help! 

Today, I'm having a hard time accessing all of my large video files (anything over 1GB). I can view the files in the folder, but when I open them, they'll display for 1-ish seconds and then close immediately. I can't play any of the large video files.

Does anyone have any advice? Smaller files are opening just fine, even smaller video files. But larger ones aren't viewable at all today. I'm working from the web version (not the app).

Appreciate your help! 

[trinatoday]

Was able to find a fix from another thread if anyone is encountering the same error today. 
+ Check that it worked in another browser (it did)
+ Clear cookies from dropbox.com

Video is playing correctly now. 

Hope that helps!

[R-]

Almost every time I open a video file to preview on web, I either get a white screen (if I view in a new tab) or get kicked back to whatever folder I was just in (if I click the file to preview it).

This is annoying because I work with someone on these files and they need to be able to leave comments.

What's also annoying is I'll see the regular video preview and comments for a second before they disappear.

Shorter files around the 2 minute mark preview as intended but longer video files (what we're primarily working on) always run into this issue.

I've encountered this issue on Windows 10, macOS, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, even Edge. No matter what OS or browser I use, it won't let me get to the comments or preview on longer videos.
And when I say longer, I'm just talking 10-62 minutes long, nothing crazy.

I can see the preview and comments on mobile; unfortunately that's not really a solution for me though.

I scoured the web to see if anyone else has had this issue and came up with nothing.
The files are just mp4s, usually in 480p, other resolutions and bitrates have the same issue though.

This is a recent issue, these exact same files were never a problem a week ago.

Here's an image of the white screen I keep getting every time I open one of these files in its own tab.

If anyone has any ideas or solutions please let me know. ❤️

tl;dr- Every time I open a 10 minute or longer video file (mp4) to preview on web, I get kicked back to whatever folder I was just in.

[Walter]

Hey @R- - sorry to hear you're having issues with this and thanks for all the details.

Just one last thing though, have you ensured that your browsers are completely up to date? 

If you did, you can also try clearing the browser's cache or even try an incognito window with no extensions or plugins running. 

Keep me posted anyhow!

[R-]

Hey Walter!

All my browsers are up to date. I tried clearing the cache and unfortunately that didn't help.

Going into incognito almost worked, but as soon as I clicked on anything I was sent back to having a blank white page again.

Any other suggestions? 🙏

[Hannah]

Thanks for the additional info, everyone.

For those who are having this issue, can you please specify which browsers you're using to access Dropbox and which specific browser version?

[ebrookenorthrip]

I'm using Chome version 110.0.5481.77

[peterv43]

Version 110.0.5481.77 (Official Build) (64-bit)

[peterv43]

ditto...all  except browser(chrome)