Files suddenly started downloading as TMPs and I can't open or convert them

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
November 18, 2022
3 replies
1 view

I hope I posted this in the right space.

The last couple of days, I've had trouble downloading my recordings.

The "save as" window doesn't appear so I can't rename the file(s) and assign them to a drive I want them to be saved in.

They automatically default to saving in the Downloads file and get saved as TMP files.

I then can't open them.

What the heck?

Any ideas how I can fix this or how I can download these recordings? I've got clients waiting to get access to them.

They're pretty long recordings (60 minutes and up) but nothing longer than I normally record.

Thanks for whatever help you can give me.

I have a Windows PC with a SSD as well as a regular drive. I'm running Windows 10 and using Chrome.

Ray_Harwood

Community Super Champion | Customer

Hi, @WinnieA,

The files should be automatically renamed by your browser to MP4, M4A, txt file extensions after being fully downloaded.

Do you have access to another browser to try? I’m trying to determine if the issue is Chrome-specific.

i haven’t seen any similar posts here, so I’m thinking there’s some machine-specific issue. Check to be sure there’s sufficient disk space, for example.

M

mkeeler100

Newcomer

I am also having this issue. I've saved my files locally for two years on Google drive with no problems. A few months ago, the video files started downloading as .tmp files instead of .mp4. There seems to be no easy way to download or convert them. Any suggestions?

Ray_Harwood

Community Super Champion | Customer

Welcome to the Zoom Community, @mkeeler100.

Hard to say which one isn't doing it's job right, Google vs Zoom. I know normally Zoom will transmit the file to a browser which "invents" a name for the file extension while the download is in progress, then the browser renames the file to the "correct" extension once it's complete.

My advice is to rename the file's extension to something reasonable -- I'd expect the largest file to be an MP4, the smallest to be TXT, and the medium one to be M4A, if you have "separate audio file" checked. Then see if they'll open without errors with a double-click. After that, maybe try different extensions and see if any work. If not, I'm not sure what to tell you.

You can also see the file sizes and names in the Zoom Web Portal under Recordings -- just click on the title of the meeting to see:

The first three are MP4, the Audio Only is M4A (as are the separate audio files in the subfolder), and the Closed Caption files happen to be VTT extensions, but you can rename them as TXT and look at them with Notepad.