Media players shows AVI file as invalid format

**Rawana** · 04-03-2011

I have downloaded a movie from some website. After downloading I find that it cannot be played with any of the programs in my computer, namely WinAmp, Windows Media Player, DivX player etc. The Gspot indicates that it is an invalid AVI file. I tried by renaming the file and also its extension but it didn’t help me. I have downloaded all fixes for AVI to my player but none of them helped at all. So what can I do now? There is no reference for file. It is just a lone movie file.

**GracieSingh** · 04-03-2011

If you try to play extensive audio-video interleave file (AVI file), you may receive the following error message: The file format is invalid. The error message can occur if you try to play an AVI file of a size greater than 2 gigabytes (GB) to play. You will get this when Microsoft Video for Windows applications are for AVI files have the similar restrictions on the utmost file size as the FAT16 file system, which is 2 GB minus 1 byte. On computers that use the FAT32 file system, the highest file size 4 GB defect 2 bytes. By Video for Windows AVI files formed by more than 2 GB are recognized by the AVI device to be invalid or spoiled.

**Sydney_7** · 04-03-2011

This trouble occurs in the subsequent cases:

Windows Media Player may not support the format of the file or media file codec.
A number of Windows Media Player files are lost or spoiled.
The media file might be corrupted.
The media file makes use of codec might not be installed.
The operating system may not audio capacities.
The audio device driver may not be proper.

**Makayla-alex** · 04-03-2011

I think that the movie file which you are trying to play in windows operating system might have been damaged or corrupted. You have already told that the file has been downloaded from the internet therefore there is no guarantee about it. Otherwise the file might have been compressed so many times in order to reduce the size of the file. Due to this also the Windows players does not capable to play it. For this what you have to do is get any third party software with all codecs which is capable to play these kinds of compressed files.

**Lawford** · 04-03-2011

If you cannot able to play in the AVI format then you need to use different format. What I mean is some files are not capable to play in some video players. For this there are conversions tools are available for free. You can download any one of them and then convert that video file to any of the format you want. Make sure that the converted format must capable to play in your recommended video player. Just note down that which format of files does your media player or video player capable to play. You might sometime lose slight video clarity of the movie but you won’t notice it much.

**Langward** · 05-03-2011

It seems to me that the Windows media player is lacking with some of the codec and some extension support. Check that whether your WMP does include AVI extension or not. I have heard that WMP does not support all format of Media files. You need to later download the extensions according to your needs. I have also heard that large AVI files cannot be playable in WMP. For those my best option is VLC player or PowerDVD. The VLC is capable to play most of the file format without any glitches.

**Kaiwyn1949** · 01-07-2011

I recently had a real problem with any .flv files that I converted to .avi or mpeg. I got the sound but not the video. I downloaded the KLite codec pack and ran it but still no picture and then it started not playing any video files. I went to this link and ran the program and it scanned and fixed codec problems. Now everything is fine.