How to Repair Corrupted DJI Drone Videos

Have you used a DJI drone to film high-quality aerial videos of nature and landscapes? Whether for personal or professional purposes, you don’t want to lose those precious videos. So, what can you do if your DJI drone videos get corrupted?

We’ve prepared a guide covering why your DJI drone videos got corrupted. You can understand the underlying problem and fix it. We’ll also cover the five most effective ways to repair your corrupted DJI drone videos. Let’s dive in.

The Most Common Reasons for Corrupted DJI Videos

A corrupted DJI drone video might glitch, refuse to open, or have a part that won’t play. If you’re experiencing something similar, your DJI drone video is corrupted. How did that happen? Many causes of corrupted DJI drone videos exist, but let’s see the most common.

Reason 1: Using Unreliable Tools

One of the most common reasons your videos are corrupted is that you were using unreliable tools. For instance, if you’ve accidentally deleted your DJI drone videos and used an unreliable data recovery solution to retrieve them, you could have inadvertently caused file corruption in your recovered videos.

It doesn’t have to be just data recovery solutions but any tools you use for editing, converting, or processing your DJI drone videos. If they don’t seem trustworthy, avoid them.

Reason 2: Interrupted Playback

Interrupting any video process can lead to video corruption. Thus, if your DJI drone shuts down while recording or you suddenly interrupt your video transfer, it can result in a corrupted DJI drone video.

Unintentional shutdown of your DJI drone and unsafe ejection of external devices while transferring can and will corrupt your precious videos.

Reason 3: Virus

Another common cause of DJI drone video corruption is a virus attack. All models of DJI drones and other cameras are vulnerable to viruses and malware. If your SD card is corrupted, the videos you’ve stored on it can suffer the same fate, and you won’t be able to use them.

Reason 4: Overheating

Storing your DJI drone camera in specific conditions is crucial to prolonging its lifetime. Otherwise, you could damage your camera and, ultimately, the videos.

One such condition is the temperature. If you expose your DJI drone to extreme temperatures, it can overheat, causing video corruption. The optimal temperature for operating the DJI drone is between 32°F and 104°F.

Reason 5: Power Loss

One of the primary recording rules is that you don’t record anything with your camera’s battery running low. You will be limited to a short time, and your camera might shut down while recording. If your DJI drone’s battery dies while shooting, your video can get corrupted.

How to Repair Corrupted DJI Drone Videos

Now that you’ve established why and how your video got corrupted, it’s time to fix it. Fortunately, many solutions exist since various issues can cause DJI drone video corruption. Thus, we’ve prepared a step-by-step guide to the five most efficient ways to repair DJI drone videos.

Option 1: Fix Codes Using the VLC Player

VLC Player is predominantly a media player. It’s an open-source software that allows users to play movies and other videos. However, it can also repair corrupted videos. There are two ways to do so: by converting your video file format and fixing your AVI file.

You can repair your corrupted DJI drone video by converting it to a different file format using VLC Media Player. Follow these steps to do it:

Step 1: Click Media in VLC Media Player, then select Convert / Save.

Step 2: Click Add to upload your corrupted DJI drone video, then click Convert / Save.

Step 3: That will open the Convert window. Specify your file name and location.

Step 4: Click the radio button next to Convert, select the desired output format from the Profile list, and click Start.

Step 5: Try opening your video when the conversion is complete.

Besides this method, VLC can fix corrupted videos with its repair function, but only in AVI format. Thus, rename your corrupted DJI drone videos to AVI before starting this process. It may work on MP4 and MOV formats, but it’s not guaranteed. Now, follow these steps to fix AVI files in the VLC Media Player:

Step 1: Go to Tools > Preferences.

Step 2: Go to Input / Codecs. Select Always fix next to the Damaged or incomplete AVI file.

Step 3: Click Save to repair your corrupted video.

Option 2: Use Wondershare Repairit

Another way to fix your corrupted DJI drone videos is to use a video repair tool like Wondershare Repairit. Wondershare Repairit offers a powerful Video Repair feature that can resolve file corruption during the shooting, recording, transferring, editing, processing, or converting.

Wondershare Repairit can help you with scenarios like audio or video not playing, out-of-sync audio and video, flickering videos, playback errors, header corruption, missing video codecs, and more.

To repair your DJI drone videos using Wondershare Repairit, follow these steps:

Step 1: Download and open Wondershare Repairit on your PC.

Step 2: Click Add in the Video Repair section to upload your corrupted DJI drone videos.

Step 3: Once you’ve added the corrupted DJI drone videos, you’ll see them on the screen. Click Repair to fix them.

Step 4: You’ll see a dialog box notifying you the repair is complete. Click OK.

Step 5: Preview the repaired videos by clicking Preview.

Step 6: Click Save and select a new destination for the repaired videos.

Step 7: Once you save the files, click OK in the dialog box.

Step 8: Click Advanced Repair if you have a severely corrupted DJI drone video that needs a higher-quality repair.

Step 9: Click the Folder icon and upload a sample video. It should be a playable video you’ve recorded with the same DJI drone as the corrupted video.

Step 10: Wondershare Repairit will check if the Advanced Repair function is available for your sample and corrupted videos. If yes, you can click Repair.

Step 11: Once the advanced repair is complete, save the fixed DJI drone video to a safe location.

Option 3: Repair DJI Drone Videos Using the CMD

Another efficient fix for a corrupted DJI drone video is to use the Command Prompt on Windows. Command Prompt is more complicated because it doesn’t have a graphical user interface (GUI). Therefore, follow these steps carefully to avoid losing your videos:

Step 1: Press the Window key and type cmd in the search bar.

Step 2: Select Run as administrator.

Step 3: Type this command in the Command Prompt: dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth. Press Enter.

Step 4: The previous command will locate the corrupted video. Now run the sfc /scannow command. That will scan and repair your corrupted DJI drone video.

Option 4: Use CHKDSK

Besides the method above, there’s another way to fix your corrupted DJI drone video in the Command Prompt. The CHKDSK command can repair bad logical sectors or faulty file systems.

Follow these steps to repair your corrupted DJI drone videos using the CHKDSK command:

Step 1: Type cmd into the Windows search bar.

Step 2: Right-click the Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.

Step 3: Type this command in the Command Prompt and press Enter: X: /f /r /x (replace X with the letter of the drive storing your corrupted videos). This command will scan and repair the drive.

Option 5: Use DJIFix Software

You can also use the DJIFix software to repair corrupted videos you’ve recorded with a DJI drone. DJIFix supports videos from any DJI drone, including DJI Phantom, Mavic, Spark, etc.

Follow these steps to repair corrupted DJI drone videos using the DJIFix software on Windows:

Step 1: Download the djifix.exe file.

Step 2: Move the djifix.exe file to the folder with your corrupted DJI drone videos.

Step 3: Search for the Command Prompt. Right-click it and select Run as administrator.

Step 4: Type this command: djifix name-of-video-file-to-repair-including-any-.MP4-or-.MOV-filename-suffix. Press Enter.

Follow these steps to repair corrupted DJI drone videos using the DJIFix software on Mac:

Step 1: Download the djifix file. If it downloads as djifix.dms, rename it to djifix.

Step 2: Move the djifix file to the Movies folder.

Step 3: Move your corrupted DJI drone videos to the Movies folder.

Step 4: Go to Utilities and open Terminal.

Step 5: In the Terminal, run the following commands one by one:

cd Movies

chmod +x djifix

./djifix name-of-video-file-to-repair-including-any-.MP4-or-.MOV-filename suffix

Conclusion

The precious videos you filmed with your DJI drone might be corrupted if you can’t open them. Various causes of DJI drone video corruption exist, such as using unreliable tools on your videos, sudden power loss, interrupted playback, overheating, or virus attacks. All of these can result in your videos suffering file corruption.

Fortunately, you can fix your corrupted DJI drone videos with several methods. You can repair them using the VLC media player, Wondershare Repairit, Command Prompt, the CHKDSK command, or the DJIFix software. You can do it in no time with our detailed guides above.