Why a DJI clip breaks when the flight ends badly
A DJI drone writes the video to the card while it records and writes the index, called the moov atom, when the recording stops normally. The index lists where every frame sits and which settings the camera used. A crash, a battery that runs flat in the air, or a card that pops out stops the recording before that step. The footage is on the card; the map to it is missing, so DJI Fly, your phone and your computer refuse the file.
The DJI file we tested is harder to rebuild than most. Between the frames, the drone stores its own flight and camera data, and each frame is a single block with no marker in front of it. A tool that expects a phone's layout reads that data as damage and loses the frames next to it. The repair engine on this page learns the drone's layout from a healthy clip and steps over that data without touching the frames.
What we tested it on
We took a public 4K 60 fps recording from a DJI Avata, removed its index, and repaired it with the tool, using a healthy recording from the same drone as the reference. Every frame came back identical to the original, in the original order, compared frame by frame.
That is one model. Other DJI drones and cameras write their files in a similar way, but we haven't tested them yet. The free check tells you whether it found your footage before you pay anything.
The repair re-encodes nothing. It writes a new index around the drone's own video, so the quality is the quality you shot.
Find the broken file on the card
Put the drone's card in a card reader and open the DCIM folder. DJI names its videos DJI_ followed by a number or a date and time, for example DJI_0042.MP4. You may also see .LRF files beside them, small low-resolution copies the DJI app uses for previews, and .SRT files with flight data. Neither is the video.
| You see | It means |
|---|---|
| An MP4 or MOV with a size in megabytes | Footage reached the card. The file is worth checking. |
| 0 bytes | The drone saved no footage. There is nothing to rebuild. |
Copy the broken file and one normal video from the same drone to your computer. Work on the copies and leave the card alone until you have a repaired file that plays.
Repair it in your browser
- Open the broken copy in the checker on this page. Your browser reads the file from your disk and never uploads it.
- When the checker asks for a reference clip, give it a normal video from the same drone, recorded with the same resolution, frame rate and video format (H.264 or H.265, and the same color mode). DJI keeps its encoder settings and its data layout only in the index, so the tool learns them from a healthy clip.
- Read the result. The checker tells you whether it found the footage and how much of the recording it can rebuild. This step is free.
- Watch the free 5-second preview. It plays at reduced quality with a watermark, enough to see that your footage is back.
- Download the full video with a paid plan: one video, 3 months or 1 year, and you can cancel anytime. If the repaired video doesn't play, you get a refund.
What it can't bring back
- The flight data stored inside the file (GPS, altitude, camera settings per frame). The repaired file has the video only; the
.SRTfile beside it, if your drone wrote one, keeps that data. - A 0-byte file, or one filled with zeros. The footage never reached the card.
- Footage on a card that was formatted or reused after the crash.
- A card your computer can't read at all. That is damage to the card, not to the video, and the file has to be copied off first.
If the checker says it can't rebuild your file, you haven't paid anything.