Cannot play video / File is damaged or incomplete - solved!

[normandelli]

Or at least one cause of the error.

On more than one occasion, I found that playing back a streaming video from a server at home resulted in the "Cannot play video / File is damaged or incomplete" error. That didn't make sense since the videos played fine elsewhere.

The culprit? Commas in the filename. I'm not sure if this has been posted before but I'll put it up anyway.

I removed the commas from the affected videos and voila. Playback works.

Hope this helps anyone with the same problems. Post back with your results.

[swec]

hmmm... I had same message last night and the file on the hard drive itself.

I just have to re-start my Archos and it plays fine.... maybe it's something different.

[normandelli]

hmmm... I had same message last night and the file on the hard drive itself.

I just have to re-start my Archos and it plays fine.... maybe it's something different.

I'm sure there are several causes to this error. I just found this particular one rather perplexing yet I'm glad it was an easy fix. It's just weird that a common character such as a comma can throw the player off like that.

[lawrence.cook]

I'm sure there are several causes to this error. I just found this particular one rather perplexing yet I'm glad it was an easy fix. It's just weird that a common character such as a comma can throw the player off like that.

It wouldn't surprise me, on my streaming server (fedora), it wont list the directory / file until all the & symbols are removed

[juan13]

It's not only commas in the title, the problem occurs in title without commas. If someone has any solution for this one

[munkytown71]

Are you talking about playing streaming video on your archos from your PC and part of the way through the video it stops and you get the error message? Because that happens to me and it's frustrating. It usually happens if I pause a video and then resume it again - that's when the video stops and I get the error.

[orbitor]

Not sure if this will help you all out;
I rename all of my movie files and they play effortlessly

[juan13]

Any solution for this one finally???

[zac68]

Or at least one cause of the error.

On more than one occasion, I found that playing back a streaming video from a server at home resulted in the "Cannot play video / File is damaged or incomplete" error. That didn't make sense since the videos played fine elsewhere.

The culprit? Commas in the filename. I'm not sure if this has been posted before but I'll put it up anyway.

I removed the commas from the affected videos and voila. Playback works.

Hope this helps anyone with the same problems. Post back with your results.

I had similar problems to this whenever I played my music. Video playback was always OK, but music playback would stop randomly with an error about the file being damaged or corrupted. I tried converting all my MP3's to WMA, in the hope it was a formating issue in my MP3 files. Alas that did'nt fix the issue. I then noticed that this only happened when I copied all my pictures to the Archos. After lots of experimenting and then thinking about it for a while I remembered that Linux is'nt always as flexible as Windows when it came to file and folder names. Then noticed that some of my picture folders had brackets in them, so I went about checking all the folders and files I had copied to the Archos and renaming any with dodgey or long names. After doing that all was well with my Archos 7.
It's taken me the best part of a month to sort this out, I was on the verge of selling the device. Now I can get back to using it as an PMP.

[zac68]

Disregard what I said before. My Archos seemed to be playing the game, but after a few hours it went back to it's old tricks of telling me that files were corrupted and could not be played. In the end I decided to take my focus off this being a Software issue and look at the Hardware (namely the HDD). In Windows I ran a check disk by doing a right click on the Archos drive and choosing Properties then Tools, then under Error-checking I clicked on Check now and put a tick in the box labeled "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors".
Two and a half hours latter the scan finished and (fingers crossed) it now seems to be all good with my Archos. So it looks like bad sectors were causing my issues. Hopefully the drive will last a while before I have to replace the Hard drive. I have the patched firmware installed, so I assume I'll be able to open up the Archos and installed a store bought HDD when the time comes.

[dislevio]

Hey!! Having similar issues!!

tried to do the right click thing but not getting th option of tools through properties.


still to try renaming the files.

seriously thinking of binning it if it's not fixable

[mrgy05]

Hi, sorry to resurrect this old post but I'm have the same problem and I can't seem to get it fixed. When I log in to my movie server via Video > Network > Server then select any movie file I have (M4V, AVI, MPG, MKV) I get the same message "File is damaged or incomplete." I have tried everything posted in this thread and nothing seems to work, does anyone have any ideas? I'm up for anything.

P.S. I am new to both the forums and my Archos 5IT so bare with me 8o)

[SHADO]

Hi, sorry to resurrect this old post but I'm have the same problem and I can't seem to get it fixed. When I log in to my movie server via Video > Network > Server then select any movie file I have (M4V, AVI, MPG, MKV) I get the same message "File is damaged or incomplete." I have tried everything posted in this thread and nothing seems to work, does anyone have any ideas? I'm up for anything.

P.S. I am new to both the forums and my Archos 5IT so bare with me 8o)

You may or may not get an answer here. Do you have an Archos 5 IT or an ARCHOS 5 IMT?
Just to be clear, this forum section is for the A5 IMT. The forum section for the A5 IT is three spots above this one in the forum index. But feel free to post wherever.

Welcome to the forums!!

[sco7t]

just been having the same problem on an archos tv+ (250 gig version)
was trying to stream an avi from my laptop called
The 40 Year Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It 2010 DVDRiP XviD QCF.avi
but was getting the file is corrupt error code
tried loads of different things = no joy
so renamed both the folder and the file to
the 41 year old virgin
and voila it worked
so its probally it doesnt like long titles, if getting the same problem try shortening the name of the folder (the avi is in and the avi too, worked for me

[oldbwl]

Hey!! Having similar issues!!

tried to do the right click thing but not getting th option of tools through properties.

I know this is an old thread, but I found out by chance how to get to the "Tools" section. Disconnect the Archos5IMT go to settings and then Storage, make sure that you have the Drive shown as PC Hard Drive, not Windows Media 11. Then the drive will show and via right Click properties you can get to Tools etc