How to Fix Videos Not Playing on Computer (Windows 10/11)?

When playing videos on your computer, you may encounter various unexpected errors, such as black screen, no sound, freezing, etc. It’s a headache, but don't worry. In this article, we came up with 8 effective ways to help you fix the problem of computer won’t play videos. You can choose the method to try according to your situation or try each method one by one until the problem is solved. Now, let's start by looking at the errors first.

• Error 1: Black screen. A black video screen means your computer cannot process the image data. This may be caused by an unsupported video codec or an outdated or faulty video driver.
• Error 2: No audio. If the video has no sound, your computer may not support the audio codec in the video, or your computer may have outdated audio drivers.
• Error 3: Some MKV/MP4/MOV videos won't play. If you are unable to play certain MKV, MP4, MOV files, your player may not support these video file types or may be missing the codecs required to decode them.
• Error 4: Stuttering or freezing. 4K and 8K videos have high definition and large size, and require a lot of computing resources to play smoothly.
• Error 5: Green screen. This may be caused by poor system hardware performance or outdated graphics drivers.
• Error 6: Videos not working after a system update. A problematic system update may cause all videos to suddenly become unplayable.

Having understood why video won’t play on computer, it's easy to find the fix.

If the videos not playing on computer due to format or codec issues, you can solve the problem by converting the video to a format accepted by the computer.

WonderFox Free HD Video Converter Factory is a free and easy-to-use video converter tool that can easily handle video conversions on Windows. It can not only change video formats but also convert video codecs to fix any video incompatibilities. Here are the simple steps to convert video to play on your computer.

First, download and install download and install the video converter on your Windows.

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Download for Free

After the conversion, throw the converted video into the media player on your computer and see if it plays.

Also read: MP4 Won’t Play | MOV Won’t Play | MKV Won’t Play

When you encounter a black screen, no sound, or some videos cannot be played, in addition to converting video formats, you can also install additional codecs on your computer to solve the problem.

You can get new codec extensions, such as HEVC and AV1, from the Microsoft Store. Alternatively, you can install a codec pack that provides all the necessary codecs for common video playback. Here’s how to install the free K-Lite Codec Pack to fix videos not playing on your computer.

After the installation, restart your computer and try to play your video files. If the problem persists, try the following methods.

In addition to VLC, you can also try media players such as PotPlayer, GOM Player, and Media Player Classic. These are free and excellent universal media players for Windows.

If you’re not sure why your computer won’t play videos, you can run the Video Playback troubleshooter to identify the playback error. Most of the time, it can solve the problem immediately. Follow the steps below to run the Video Playback troubleshooter on your Windows 10 computer.

If you are using Windows 11, you can press the Win + I keys to open the Settings. Then click the System tab and select Troubleshoot. Next, choose Other troubleshooters and find the Video Playback option. Click the Run next to it to run the video troubleshooter. The rest is similar to running the Video Playback troubleshooter in Windows 10.

Changing the power options from High Performance to Balanced may sometimes improve overall system performance, thus solving the problem of your computer not playing videos. Here are the steps:

If you see graphics errors like green screen, it might be because the video drivers are outdated. You can try updating or reinstalling the video drivers to avoid this issue. Here is how to update the video drivers.

If updating drivers didn’t work, you can try to reinstall the drivers to fix the issue. Follow the given steps below:

Step 1. Open Device Manager.

Step 2. Click Display adapters.

Step 3. Right-click on your video driver and choose Uninstall device.

Step 4. Click Action > Scan for hardware changes. It will automatically reinstall the latest driver.

If your version of Windows is out of date, which means the hardware and software on this computer, such as the player, are also out of date, this will also lead to videos not playing. You can check Windows Update and download the required updates to fix the error. Here’s how to:

If you just updated your system recently and your videos won’t play thereafter, the buggy system update may be the culprit. It is recommended that you restore the system to the previous point where you can play videos smoothly.

If you have already enabled the system restore and created a system restore point, you can follow the steps here to use system restore in Windows 10 directly. If you did not create a restore point, you cannot use this feature.

Note that system restore won’t affect your personal files but will remove apps, drivers, and updated installed after the system restore point was made.

There are many reasons why a video won't play on your computer, including unsupported formats and codecs, outdated system, outdated player, and more. Through the above methods, you can effectively solve this problem. But if all the above methods fail, your video file may be corrupted. In this case, you need to re-download these files or use a video repair tool to try to repair these corrupted videos.

All in all, videos not playing on computer is a common problem, especially after system updates. Luckily, there are many effective ways to solve this problem. That’s all I want to share about how to fix computer won’t play videos. Hope this article can be helpful to you. Thanks for reading. Have a great day!

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Your Windows 10 computer must have the latest display drivers and necessary codecs to play videos smoothly. Also, your video cannot be DRM protected or corrupted, otherwise the file will not play.

Windows Media Player includes codecs that can only play some media files, such as H.264, WMV, and MPEG-4. Other videos such as HEVC, AV1, ProRes cannot be played. You can try using a different media player such as VLC media player to play more formats of video.

Your system may be out of date and need updating, or a recent update may have caused some bugs. You should check your system for updates or restore your system to a previous point where the video plays properly.