I can no longer view my homemade videos

[ElonGates666]

I have about 50 videos on my laptop which I transfered from my mobile phones. Many of them are of my holidays, others were taken on local walks. Something has happened and now I can't see any of them, no matter which software I use. I used to be able to watch them and now I can't, unless I use my old laptop (or my mobile). They are still there in the folder and I can see the files with an image to show what they are above the file name. I just can't open them.

As far as I can tell when I was using WiFi there was an update or something that meant my little videos just don't work anymore. This is really worrying, to think that files can be rendered useless just because they are a couple of years old. What can I do? I could try to seek a remedy online but unless I know what I'm looking for I could waste hours.

Don't panic... it's probably an easy fix. Can you tell me...

1. What happens when you double click the file? Are any messages displayed?
2. Are these the same files that previously play without issue on your computer, or have they been move/ copied since?
3. Do the files have a "sensible" file size, like a 500 Kbytes, or a few MB?
4. Have you tried installing VLC free safe and plays most things.
5. What is the file extension (i.e. .MP4, .avi, .MPG, .MOV etc)
6. What operating system are you using? Windows / Mac?
7. What make and model was the phone(s)

When I click on the file it says

Can't play

Please try again. If the problem continues, visit https://support.microsoft.com to check for guidance.

0xe0000225

They played without issue and haven't been moved since.

They are small files.

I haven't tried installing VLC free safe.

The extension is .mp4

It is Windows.

The make of the phones is Samsung. The model is GT-C3590. They are old phones though, at least a decade old.

Thanks for responding.

As the files played previously, and they are MP4 files (which is very standard) then I would suspect the player, or the association with the extension. (i.e. It might be trying to play the files with the wrong application.

Either way I would try installing VLC and see if it's able to open and play some or all of the files.

As I say, it's free and safe to use from the link I provided.

Please let me know the outcome.

You would never guess what happened. I decided to let my laptop upgrade itself which I was wary of doing because I suspect the problem with my videos was due to an upgrade going wrong. After the upgrade I could play my videos just as before. The only thing wrong is that when I plug my headphones in to the laptop the sound comes out of the loudspeaker. So I can't listen to anything on headphones now.

What I like to do is to create webpages using IE where I can embed several videos at a time. This is just on my laptop not on the web. It worked well then they wouldn't play and now it's back to normal. So I shouldn't think it was IE using different application, maybe more do do with drivers?

I followed your advice and downloaded VLC. I don't really need it now but I enjoyed looking at some of my very old mpg, mpeg and flv files.

Thanks for the update, and glad to hear the issue is resolved.