The movie could not be opened. A file could not be found.

I keep getting this message when I try and open some quicktimes off of our server. I'm trying to narrow down whats causing it. Our server was upgraded not to long ago. This happened after. Part of that upgrade, put some of our Final Cut Users connecting by fiber instead of Ethernet. The permissions look the same. I'm kinda at a loss right now. Any one have any thoughts?

Are the QuickTime files "reference" movies? Take a look at the file size for a clue. If they measure in KB's they are not "self contained".
If you moved them to new locations (directories) the path to the files that make up the reference movie have been broken.

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I'm running snow leopard. The try to open any .mov file in Quicktime, and I get an error message that says, "The document xyz.mov could not be opened. The movie is not in a format that Quicktime player understands. I'm a recent upgrade to Snow Leopard.

I'm running snow leopard. The try to open any .mov file in Quicktime, and I get an error message that says, "The document xyz.mov could not be opened. The movie is not in a format that Quicktime player understands. I'm a recent upgrade to Snow Leopard.
Help!
Thanks, Mark

Unfortunately, the error message gives no details about what codec might be missing or what it needs.
If the file can't be opened in QT, it only means you cannot use the QT "Inspector" window to check what compression formats were used to create the file. It does not mean you can't use the Finder "Information" window to check on the compression formats or use a third party media information window (e.g., like VLC which will open many compression formats not supported natively by QT) to determine what kind of data is included in the MOV wrapper. If the file cannot be opened in any app, it is usually a good sign that the file itself is corrupted.
It's a stupid error message. Apple should do better than that.
Error trapping is quite extensive but there are still many areas which require human oversight. The message is telling you that either the container has a problem (e.g., not properly terminated, non-standard, or corrupted) or that one or more of the compression formats used is not supported by your current codec component configuration or that the data was encoded using non-standard settings or preferences not supported by QT or that the fourCC code does not match the data contained in the file or that there are timecode inconsistencies, etc., etc., etc. In short there are a near infinite number of possible problems for which it would be very difficult/nearly impossible to program error trapping depending on your sourcing of content and how you process it before it reaches the player app. Think of it like trying to play a BD disc in an DVD player.
I'll call Apple support when I get a chance.
Chances are good that they will end up sending you back here. In any case, it is often a good idea to post a sample file for examination by other QT users. At the very least, they should be able to tell you if the sample file will play on other systems which would indicate whether or not the file itself is bad and under the best of circumstances whould allow them to examing the file in detail for various common problems.

The movie could not be exported because an error occurred. (File already open with with write permis

The movie could not be exported because an error occurred. (File already open with with write permis
Never received this error until I updated to newer operating system.

This sounds vaguely like the Error -49 some people have been getting. It's related to a feature in Time Machine geared towards laptop users who aren't always connected to their Time Machine backup drive.
This requires using the Terminal app, in your Applications/Utilities folder
To turn off Time Machine snapshots type in the following command:
sudo tmutil disablelocal
The Mac will likely ask for your password, so type it in and hit the return key. The type the word, exit and hit return. Quit Terminal.
Open iMovie and try doing another export and see if the same error message pops up.

Quick Time Pro - The movie could not be open. This is not a movie file.

I upgraded to 7.4.5 and now I can't view any of my AVI files. I am getting the following error message.
The movie could not be open. This is not a movie file. Please help!

It is most likley a problem in the new Quick Time (QT). My Updater downloaded the new QT 7.4.5 two Saturdays ago. I have been making movies in iMovie then posting them to YouTube. In the beginning I uploaded the movies as MOVs but soon discovered AVI files (larger file and added time to upload) had more clarity when viewed on YouTube. Once the new QT 7.4.5 downloaded all my AVIs had picture, but no sound! I downloaded the Perian component as posted in QT discussions. The sound returned to the AVI files. However, when I Exported an AVI movie from iMovie the picture quality was worse than MOV. There is something wrong with the new QT 7.4.5 when working with AVI, my AVI movies look terrible. These AVI files were all downloaded from my Ultra Flip Video camera with Flip’s codec 3vix. Flip is aware of this problem and acknowledged it last week, I sure hope Apple is also aware.

Quicktime: The movie could not be opened. The file is not a movie file.

Hi, im sorry to say im a bit challenged when it comes to this so i hope you can help!...
Im trying to import the movies from my Sony video recorder (handycam DCR-SR32) and when i open the folder for it on the desktop and try to open one of the files it says: quicktime: The movie could not be opened. The file is not a movie file. All the files have quicktime icons next to them and i definitely have quicktime installed. I managed to import movie filed before into imovie and im trying again to do so... any clues as to what im doing wrong or how i can get the files into imovie to play and edit?? many thanks in advance

To Apple Discussions!
What type of files are they - .avi, .mp4, .mov, etc.?
Make sure you have the following installed:
Flip4Mac
VLC Media Player
Perian

The videos from my ipod does not transfer to itunes in my macbook pro they dont work it says The document "REGGAETON GRAN MIX 5.avi" could not be opened. The movie is not in a format that QuickTime Player understands.

the videos from my ipod does not transfer to itunes in my macbook pro they dont work it says The document “REGGAETON GRAN MIX 5.avi” could not be opened. The movie is not in a format that QuickTime Player understands.what shoul I do?

You need to convert the .avi file - http://www.snowfoxsoft.com/tutorial/how-to-convert-avi-to-itunes.html
MJ

The movie could not be opened

I have a file from a video security system and the file is 251.7 Mb in size (24 hours of video). As luck would have it, I cannot open the file from the one day that I need! On the Mac (using QuickTimePro ), I get the error message of "The movie could not be opened." I tranfered the file to a PC and there, I get the error message of "Error -2048: Couldn't open the file camera1.mov because it is not a file that QuickTime understands."
Is there any hope? Do I need to hexedit the file? Does anyone know of a program that I can use to salvage the file?
Thanks for the help.

I get the feeling that we are barking up the wrong tree here. I sent the file to a friend that has the Apple QuickTimeMPEG2.component installed on his machine and he is getting the same error message when he tries to open it.
On my harddrive, the file has the generic QuickTime icon but it just won't open. iMovie won't even try to import the file.
I'm wondering if the file got damaged somehow? Is there a way to see if that is the case?

Quicktime movies corrupting randomly. "The movie could not be opened."

Hello,
Has anyone else encountered the Quicktime error where you have a perfectly functional file stored to a disk and then randomly, the file's icon will change from a still image from the movie to just the generic Quicktime file movie clip icon and then if you try and open the file you get the following error message:
The movie could not be opened.
The file is not a movie file.
Nothing was done to the file. Nothing was done to the disk. This can happen when no one is even using the computer. Once it happens, the file will not open or play at all. It just returns this error message. I've only seen this so far happen on ProRes HQ files. Doesn't matter if they are HD or SD. It is infuriating and is costing my facility a ton of money and time and making us seriously reconsider using Quicktime.
The only resource I've been able to find online that seems to be able to deal with this is:
http://aeroquartet.com/movierepair/repair.html
However, because of the nature of the content that I work with I cannot send a clip out of house for repair and cannot pay $89 per file (starting price). I would really like to see a response from someone at Apple as to why this is happening and what fixes are in the works to prevent it.
Thanks.

To Apple Discussions!
What type of files are they - .avi, .mp4, .mov, etc.?
Make sure you have the following installed:
Flip4Mac
VLC Media Player
Perian

HT3775 unable to get quicktime movies to play on my imac. This is the error message I always get. "The document "4-20130701090400-5.mp4" could not be opened. The movie is not in a format that QuickTime Player understands.You may need to install additional

Unable to get Quick time movies to play on my imac. This is the error message I allways get.
"The document “4-20130701090400-7.mp4” could not be opened. The movie is not in a format that QuickTime Player understands.You may need to install additional software to open this type of file."

Download and install VLC Player. It plays more formats and is free and highly regarded.
http://vlc-media-player.en.softonic.com/mac
Cheers
Pete

Error Opening Movie - The Movie Could Not Be Opened

Quicktime is giving me trouble and it's not giving me a reason why. It doesn't want to play movies dl'd from the internet. It tells me 'Error opening movie... The movie could not be opened.' The clip in question is a wmv. I tried opening the file in DIVx and iTunes but no dice; they didn't even recognize that I was trying to open a movie. I got the same problem with some films transferred from my old PC via a flash drive (not all, but some).
I am on a MacBook Pro that I just got this week; my first Mac. I am running OSX Tiger 10.4.8. 2.33 Ghz proc.
Please be gentle with the explanations; I know very little about computers.
Oh, also, in the DL'd files menu - you know, the one that pops up when you DL something - the file DLs with the icon looking like a blank piece of paper. Probably not important, but it sure doesn't look like something playable or executable.

"the file DLs with the icon looking like a blank piece of paper."
When the download window pops up type .wmv in the window before you click the download button or OK button.
If the above does not work then download the following FREE player:
Flip4Mac
If the above player does not play the .wmv file then please post the URL and/or link of this file for us to test it out for you.

"The movie could not be sent to QT, because a file couldn't be found"

When I try to export a 2 1/2 min. iMovie video I made today in pretty much any format, I get the following:
"The movie could not be sent to QuickTime, because a file couldn't be found.
Please make sure that your project disk has write permission, and that you ahve enough disk space. This error can also be caused by some third-party iMovie HD plugins" then tells me what to do if I have said plug-ins. I have no plugins for iMovie.
The flash drive I'm attempting to save to has almost 80mb of available space. Also, something /does/ get saved on my drive, but the (Windows) computer I try to transfer it to won't recognize it and my MacBook's QuickTime refuses to play it.
What is going on?

Welcome to iMovie Discussions.
iMovie - and other Mac programs - prefer (..or need!..) to have any discs, or other devices on which you're saving movie files, to be formatted as 'Mac OS Extended'.
That's different from the (generally) FAT32 format which Windows PCs use. And although Macs can read Windows-formatted discs - so your MacBook can read what's on your Windows-formatted flash disc - Windows machines generally cannot read Mac-formatted discs, so, er, you'd have a problem or two if you want to use any Mac-formatted device with a Windows machine!
Your flash drive - and anything else on which you've saved your 2.5 minute iMovie video - would need to be formatted as 'Mac OS Extended' if you want to use it for iMovie editing ..but you should be able to store a 'self-contained' QuickTime movie on it perfectly well in its PC-formatted state, and that movie should play in Windows when you plug it into a Windows machine if you have the latest Windows version of QuickTime on the Windows PC.
So maybe you exported your iMovie to QuickTime, onto the flash disc, but not as a self-contained movie. If it IS self-contained, then the complete movie would be there, and it's pretty much guaranteed to play. But if you didn't tick the 'self-contained' check-box, then all that gets saved is a very small file (called a "reference file") with a set of "pointers" to what's in the original iMovie project. In other words, you've saved only the details of how to play the movie, without actually saving the actual video file(s), which remain on your MacBook, instead of being on the flash disc.

The Movie could not be used because the original file could not be found

The message " the movie could not be used because the original file could not be found" comes up when i try the play certain movies, ive not deleted them or anything and will still play bacause they are also saved in my movies and work with windows media,
any ideas what i may have done
Thanks

This kind of error, with anything iTunes uses, happens when someone moves the origonal file. I whould sugest deleteing the files tat are having this problem from iTunes only, then adding them back from where the files are.

?? "The movie could not be sent to Quicktime because a file couldn't be..."

trying to export a movie in iMovie HD - and that's what it says:
"The movie could not be sent to Quicktime because a file couldn't be found" then it says to rename the folder called "iMovie" in the library to "iMovie0", restart and press on.
then .... "Visit http://support.apple.com/ for more information on this issue."
ok. where on support?
anyone have any ideas on this? I have installed iLife08 - is this the issue?
tia.

Thanks for the reply. I hadn't thought about that - but it IS an external and it is not OSX extended. I exported to my internal drive and all worked well. wonderful! problem solved - I'd never noticed that before, and I was sure I'd exported to that drive before. so, I tried again - presto it worked - I exported it to the external. so... the error message that came the first time went away.
.... strange
but ... solved?
thanks again,
f

HT3775 The document "IMG_7525-1.MOV" could not be opened. The movie is not in a format that QuickTime Player understands. what can I do to see my videos?

The document “IMG_7525-1.MOV” could not be opened. The movie is not in a format that QuickTime Player understands. What can I do to see this videos if they are on a MOV format?

You should be able to play it using the free VLC:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html

IMovieHD, "No disc burning drive found" and "The movie could not be sent.."

First post in these subject forums. I am posting the same problem in iDVD and iMovieHD which were from iLife'05, but I won't post there.
I loaded iLife'05 and also managed to get iDVD5 loaded although the packaging indicated that I needed to have a 733mhz G4 or faster processor and I have a Prismo Powerbook, 500 mhz and it was successful or maybe not.
Then I opened iDVD, I got this Error message..."The application iDVD could not be opened because the required hardware could not be found"...which makes sense as I have an external Lacie (CD-R,-RW, DVD-R,-RAM,-RW,R,+RW,R DL) burner that I bought about a year ago that my wife also uses on her G4 tower.......... and I did not have it connected. So I connected it and when I opened iDVD again and it still reads: "The application iDVD could not be opened because the required hardware could not be found." Shut down and reboot, no difference.
This probably does not have any bearing on the issue but in the System Profiler for "Disk Burning" there is a parameter "Burn Support" which is "Yes (Unsupported)", should this be "Yes (supported)"?
Question #1: Does iDVD5 only work with an Apple "superdrive" or does it work with other third party "DVD burners" ?
So I used iMovieHD from iLife'05 to create a project of an old family vacation (from an old 8mm Sony Handycam) and wanted to create a DVD, for archive reasons and to view on TV with a DVD player, but I could not do anything because of different errors now in iMovieHD.
File > Share...(a window opens and I choose iDVD and then click the "share" button) and this error comes up:
The movie could not be sent to iDVD, because of an unknown error.
"Please make sure that iDVD is properly installed, that your project disk has write permission, and that you have enough disk space. (Error 0)"
Next I tried: File > Burn Project to Disc......and this error comes up.
No Disc Burning Drive Found
"If you have an apple-supported disc burner, please check your connections and try again."
The project file is 5.89GB and I have 57.97GB free on the hard drive so I don't think that space on the hard drive is an issue.
Question #2: Is the issue of not being able to create a DVD from iMovieHD related to the iDVD issue although the error messages in iMovieHD and iDVD are different?
Question #3: How are Video DVD's from the Hollywood Studios able to make DVD's longer than 2 hours?
Thanks all for your help in advance. John

One more addition to this post, I opened DVD Player and got this error "There was an initialization error. A valid DVD drive could not be found (-70012)
Maybe this will help give someone a clue.

Error -2003: a data handler needed by the movie could not be found

Hello.
I just purchased QuickTime Pro and the MPEG-2 add-on for it, for the single purpose of transcoding some MPEG-2 recordings to H.264. However, when I try to open any of my MPEG-2 files in Quicktime, I get the message: "error -2003: a data handler needed by the movie could not be found (my-filename.mpg)"
I can play these files in a number of different free players--VLC, Mplayer, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer... but not in the player I paid $50 for.
Can someone please help me?

That doesn't really help. Besides, I haven't even got to the point where I'm trying to export. I get this error message when I try to open the file. I can't even play back the clip.
And the MPEG-2 page clearly states: "The QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component provides QuickTime users with the ability to import and play back MPEG-2 content, including both multiplexed (a.k.a. muxed, where the audio and video tracks are interleaved together into one track) and non-multiplexed (a.k.a. elementary) streams."
Also, Streamclip crashes when I try to load my MPEG-2 clips, so that's not going to work (and even if it did, I am trying to find a simple way to take the HDTV content I've recorded off the air and get it onto my AppleTV--I want fewer steps, not more).
Looks like I'll have to waste some time calling customer service to get a refund, since there's no way to do this via the website.

The movie could not be opened. A file could not be found.

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