How To Fix Videos Not Playing on Android

Elsie Otachi

5 years ago

You’ve recorded some videos or stored some on your Android phone, but when its time to sit down and enjoy your viewing, you find all videos not playing on the device. When this happens, its usually caused by corrupted videos, outdated OS and media player, corrupt SD card, or the app you downloaded isn’t trusted and the video didn’t download fully from its source.

No matter the cause, we have the fixes you can use to resolve the problem

Fix Videos Not Playing on Android

Quick fixes

Restart your Android phone helps to clear memory leaks, open apps, and removes anything that would cause your videos not to play
Clear cached data. This helps resolve several issues that may be caused by corrupted cache data. To do this, open Settings>Storage>App Manager and then tap Clear Cache and try playing videos gain

Update your Android OS

Before you do this, back up your data and media files among other documents, and then update the OS. While it may not cause data loss, any issues during the update may result in corruption of the information on your device. To do this:

Make sure your phone is connected to WiFi
Open Settings>About Device and tap Update (System Firmware update or Software update – depending on the version of Android you’re on)
Tap Check for Updates and tap Update
Now tap Install (this also varies with the Android version so you may see Install System Software or Reboot and Install)

The download and installation will begin, once its over, your phone will restart automatically.

Unistall insecure apps

Sometimes you may have downloaded software or apps from untrusted sources, and these tend to come with malware and other threats to your device. If you find videos not playing on Android, check the untrusted apps or software you downloaded and delete or remove them completely as they may disrupt your phone’s functioning.

Install a Media Player that supports your phone’s video codec

Your media player can also be the reason videos aren’t playing on your Android phone as the device may not support the video codec you want to play. To resolve this, go to the Google Play Store and install a compatible video or media player such as VLC and others.