You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Photos cannot play this video because the resource is unavailable.

Photos cannot play this video because the resource is unavailable. I receive this message when trying to play old videos.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Feb 2, 2022 10:20 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 2, 2022 11:38 PM

Some video formats are containers, where the video itself is stored separately inside the container or outside the container. You may begetting the error message for three different reasons:

  1. if you copied a video from another device or disk, but only the container, without the referenced video resource. In that case you need to to connect the old drive or disk, so photos can access the missing video component.
  2. the file system format of the volume where the video is stored, may be incompatible with Photos, for example, if the volume has a case-sensitive format, Photos may not be a le to find the resources inside.
  3. Old videos may be using a video codec, that the current version of Photos can no longer handle. In that case use a video converter to convert the videos to a compatible format..


1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 2, 2022 11:38 PM in response to Help2022_Quicktime

Some video formats are containers, where the video itself is stored separately inside the container or outside the container. You may begetting the error message for three different reasons:

  1. if you copied a video from another device or disk, but only the container, without the referenced video resource. In that case you need to to connect the old drive or disk, so photos can access the missing video component.
  2. the file system format of the volume where the video is stored, may be incompatible with Photos, for example, if the volume has a case-sensitive format, Photos may not be a le to find the resources inside.
  3. Old videos may be using a video codec, that the current version of Photos can no longer handle. In that case use a video converter to convert the videos to a compatible format..


Photos cannot play this video because the resource is unavailable.

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.