How to fix Lightroom import error “There is a problem with the video file”

My main use for Adobe Lightroom Classic is to colour grade and edit timelapse sequences.

I also use Lightroom to organise all sorts of files after getting back from a shoot. Sometimes I shoot on my phone, other times I shoot on a mirrorless or DSLR camera as well as shooting on a dedicated timelapse camera.

This means I import both photo files as well as video files.

For a long time now my Lightroom has stopped importing video files for me, throwing up the error “There is a problem with the video file“. I tried every suggested solution from the Adobe community and support forum but nothing helped. Messing around with the DynamicLink folders didn't help one bit, even though this (and a fresh install) seemed to be the only solution according to the forums.

The only thing that helped me with this error was doing a fresh install of all the Adobe software on a new computer. Note: I didn't get a new laptop because of this issue, my laptop was well overdue for an upgrade.

For a while there I could finally import videos into Lightroom again. Right up until I got a new 360 camera.. The import error returned and I lost all hope to ever use Lightroom again for organising video files. I had to return to manually dragging them around folders in the Finder..

It took me a long time to figure out, but I finally realised what had caused this error.

The insta360 installation files on your computer that help you read the insta360 files somehow don't work with Lightroom. Lightroom tries to read the plugin at startup (which leads to longer startup times and a slower software) but gets stuck on it, as seen in the software's log files.

I came to this solution after noticing that the Lightroom “plugin loading.log' was hung up on this insta360 plugin:

“Loading /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Plug-ins/7.0/MediaCore/Insta360Importer.bundle
Loading from disk…”

The log wouldn't move further than this line at all.

This plugin loading log is found in the dynamiclinkmediaserver folder.

This folder is what a lot of people suggest to delete/refresh in order to get things going again for other/similar issues. This didn't help for me, here is what did:

I followed these steps to remove the plugin from my system:

https://www.insta360.com/support/supportcourse?post_id=10354

Note that in this article the plugin is called insv.bundle however the file I deleted was called Insta360Importer.bundle (I'm 99% sure that this was the file name but it might have had a different file name, I should have screen recorded the process but I didn't).

After removing this file and rebooting, my Lightroom boots up faster than ever and I can finally import video files again!

I have flagged this with the insta360 dev team to hopefully get this resolved.

In the meantime, if you' too are having issues with importing video files in Lightroom and you've ever installed an insta360 software bundle, try removing the bundle and its plugins, reboot your system and let me know in the comments if it worked!

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