Google Drive is a practical tool for keeping track of essential documents, images, and videos. On occasion, though, you can experience difficulties trying to play movies on Google Drive.
Typically, you’d get an error notice like “This video cannot be played” or “Whoops! This video has a difficulty playing.
This error in Google Drive could have several causes. So let’s investigate the root causes of this problem and identify the best fixes.
The “This Video Cannot Be Played” Error: Why Are You Seeing It?
The problem is typically brought on by:
- Wi-Fi router or internet connection problems
- Unsupported video file format or incompatible video resolution (Corrupted video file)
- Browser cache and cookies
- Bulky RAM (Random Access Memory),Third-party plug-ins
- The “hardware acceleration” feature (An outdated browser)
- Google’s terms of service and restrictions
- Pirated content
Now, having identified these problems, let’s take a look at how these problems can be resolved, one after another.
Check Your Internet Connection
To play the films stored in your cloud storage, Google Drive requires a reliable, fast internet connection. Therefore, if you play videos on a network that is unstable or has slow internet, problems are likely to arise.
Check your Wi-Fi speed if you think there may be a problem with your internet speed. However, if your internet speed is satisfactory, you might want to reset your router and restart your connection.
Verify If The Video File Type Is Compatible
Although not all of them, Google Drive supports a variety of video formats. Although you can submit videos in any format, the program will only play formats that are compatible with it.
Google Drive supports the following video file types: 3GPP, AVI, FLV, MPEG4, MPEG-PS, MOV, MTS, WebM, and WMV. Simply transcode your movie and submit it again if Google Drive isn’t compatible with it.
Although you can upload videos of any resolution to Google Drive, the highest playback resolution is 1920×1080 pixels. This indicates that there is a good likelihood the program won’t let you play a video with a resolution greater than 1920×1080 pixels.
Launch A New Window And Play The Video
Consider launching a video in a new window rather than double-clicking it to start it playing. This might assist in resolving “Google Drive video cannot be played” and other like issues.
Now, follow the steps below to play your video in a new window:
- Open Google Drive, right-click on the video that is giving you problems, and select Preview.
- Click the menu icon ( the menu icon is the three vertically-aligned dots) located in the top-right corner of the screen.
- Click on the Open in new window option.
Check To Make Sure Your Video Isn’t Corrupted
Your video may be corrupted, which is why you are encountering the “Video cannot be played in Google Drive” issue. When you download the video in this case, your computer’s video players might also be unable to play it.
Don’t worry if a corrupted video is the root of the problem. You can use a number of video repair tools, such as Stellar Video Repair. The best thing is that the majority of these apps can correct films in a wide range of formats, including WMV, AVI, MKV, FLV, MPEG, MP4, and many more.
Clear Cache On Your Browser
Your browsing experience should be as frictionless as possible thanks to cookies and browser cache.
Cookies are the documents that the websites you visit produce. By preserving browsing information, they simplify your browsing experience. Cache, meanwhile, saves portions of sites (like photos) so you may access them more quickly the next time you visit the website.
Although cache and cookies improve your surfing experience, if you don’t frequently clean them, they might overburden your browsers. Therefore, to fix the Google Drive video error and other browser issues, erase the browser’s cache and cookies. Play your films after logging into Google Drive once more.
Free Up Your RAM
The application makes temporary files and keeps them in the RAM when you play your films on Google Drive (Random Access Memory). Simply explained, the RAM is a form of temporary storage that records the information and applications that your device consumes while it is in use.
Now, there’s a good probability that you’ll experience problems attempting to play videos on Google Drive if your RAM ends up being very large. So, reducing RAM utilization and freeing up RAM are simple solutions.
Browse On Incognito Mode
Adding plug-ins or browser extensions can be quite beneficial. However, some extensions add capabilities that obstruct your browser’s built-in functionality. Therefore, one of the extensions you’ve installed may be the cause of the “Google Drive video cannot be played” error you’re experiencing.
Enable Chrome’s incognito mode by following these instructions to see if an extension is the source of this error:
- Click the menu icon (three vertically aligned dots) in the top-right corner of the Google Chrome window.
- Select the New Incognito window option.
You should be able to browse privately and all extensions should be disabled. Try playing your movie after logging into Google Drive in an Incognito window.
If doing so fixes the problem, one of the extensions is to blame. Disable all extensions and then re-enable them one at a time to identify the offending plug-in.
Turn Off Hardware Augmentation
Hardware acceleration is frequently used by web browsers to speed up processes. In order to speed up specific processes during this process, the browser offloads them to the hardware of the PC. This capability enables the browser to render video results by accessing and utilizing the graphics processing unit (GPU) of your computer.
Despite the fact that hardware acceleration speeds up things, it might have a number of problems that affect how well your browser works.
Check And Update Your Browser
Do you still have trouble getting the error message “video cannot be played on Google Drive” to go away?
Perhaps the video you’re trying to play won’t play because your browser is out of date. You will need to update your browser in this case.
Web browsers typically update themselves when you close and reopen them. However, there might be an update pending if you haven’t closed your browser in a while.
To update popular web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, follow the steps listed below:
1. Chrome Browser
- Click the menu icon (three vertically aligned dots) in the top-right corner of the screen.
- Navigate to Help > About Google Chrome.
- Click the Relaunch option to apply any available updates.
2. Firefox Browser
- Click the menu button (three vertically-aligned lines) in the top-right corner of the screen.
- Navigate to Help > About Firefox.
Firefox will check for updates and download them automatically. Click the Restart to Update Firefox button to complete the process.
3. Edge Browser
- Click the menu icon (three horizontal dots) in the top-right corner of the screen.
- Navigate to Help and feedback > About Microsoft Edge.
- Click the Restart button when Edge finishes checking for updates.
Use VPN
Access to parts of Google’s services is frequently restricted in places like the Crimea, Syria, Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and North Korea. Accordingly, depending on where you are in the world, you might frequently have Google Drive troubles as well as other problems.
Use a VPN (Virtual Private Network), a service that creates a private and secure connection to the internet, to address the current problem. You can play your Google Drive videos if you use a trustworthy VPN to help you bypass regional website limitations.
Stay Away From Pirated Videos
By all circumstances, refrain from storing or disseminating pirated content through Google Drive. In the event that you attempted to play a pirated video, Google might have restricted or banned it. That’s because Google uses file hashing to detect and block illegal content.
In addition, there are several legal ways to get popularly pirated programs for nothing or at a bargain.
Save The Video To Your Computer Or Device
You shouldn’t be getting the error message “This video cannot be played on Google Drive” any longer. There is one more solution, though, that you might try if the problem continues.
Download a copy of the video to your computer if you have adequate storage space, then watch it with your preferred video player. Open Google Drive, right-click the video, and choose “Download” to save it to your computer.
Final Thought
Google Drive is undoubtedly one of the most practical cloud storage services. When this program displays problem warnings like “the video cannot be played on Google Drive.” it is annoying.
Fortunately, using the strategies we’ve discussed, you can fix such problems. However, if the problem still exists, trying playing your Google Drive films through a different web browser might be a quick fix.
