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Clicking on MP4 in OneDrive, Will not Play

Yehuda Gefen 10 Reputation points
2026-02-18T12:47:31.7633333+00:00

Same issue with Edge and Chrome and Firefox

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Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For education | Windows
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Answer recommended by moderator

Yehuda Gefen 10 Reputation points
2026-03-16T09:10:24.6033333+00:00

Fixed! Rename extension from mp4 to m4v. Fools the OneDrive player into a compatible codec

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  1. Yehuda Gefen 10 Reputation points
    2026-02-18T17:57:19.4266667+00:00

    1: File plays fine locally and launches just fine on Google Drive

    2: Anything I upload fails

    3: Encoded by: GPAC-2.3-DEV-rev566-g50c2ab06f-master

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    4: File size, 215,509KB Permissions okay.

    This should not be an issue, but the file was produced by WebEx recorded meeting and retreived from them.

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  2. Daniel-Vo 6,085 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2026-02-18T16:38:33.2533333+00:00

    Dear Yehuda Gefen,

    Thank you for posting your question on the Microsoft Q&A forum.

    I understand how inconvenient it can be when videos do not preview as expected in OneDrive. To understand the issue better, could you please let us know whether you are using a personal OneDrive account or a business account? In the meantime, please try the following steps:

    1/ Download and test the file locally

    • Click Download and open the file on your device.
    • If the video plays locally, the file itself is likely valid, but OneDrive may be unable to decode it for web preview.
    • If the video does not play locally, the file may be corrupted.

    2/ Test with another MP4 file

    • Upload a different, known-working MP4 video to the same OneDrive folder.
    • If the new file previews successfully, the issue is likely specific to the original video.

    3/ Check the video codec

    Although the file extension is MP4, it may use an unsupported codec. You can use VLC media player to check this:

    4/ Confirm file size and permissions

    Very large files or partially uploaded files may not generate previews. We recommend waiting a few hours and then retrying, as temporary service-side delays can occasionally affect preview generation.

    Please ensure you have at least View or Edit permission on the file.

    I hope this information helps. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to let me know.

    If this response resolves your issue, kindly click Accept Answer and consider upvoting. If you need further clarification, please click Comment.

    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread

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