Troubleshooting

Previews and conversion

A file that will not preview, a video with no picture, and a conversion or compression that is refused because of your plan, its size or its format.

On this page

Previews and conversion fail for different reasons and it is worth knowing which you are looking at. A preview that will not open is nearly always a format the browser cannot draw. A conversion that will not start is nearly always a plan limit, and those are checked before any work begins, so a refusal costs you nothing.

A preview that will not open#

  • Reload the page once. A preview generated on our side can time out on a very large image. If it fails twice, download the file and open it locally to check it is not damaged.
  • Camera RAW files are not rendered. CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, DNG, RAF, ORF and the rest are recognised as photographs and can be converted, but decoding one is too heavy to do for a preview. Convert a copy to JPEG.
  • RAR, 7z, bzip2 and xz archives are not listed. Nemi lists what is inside ZIP and TAR archives only.
  • Legacy .doc and .ppt are not rendered. The viewer says so and points at conversion instead of showing you nothing.
  • Very long text and code stop at 500,000 characters, with a note where they stop. Downloading gives you the whole file.
  • Vault files are only opened by your own browser. We generate no previews and no thumbnails for them, because we cannot read them.

Sound but no picture in a video means the container plays and your browser has no decoder for that video codec. That is the browser, not the file. Convert a copy to MP4 or WebM and it will play. The full list of what opens is in Previewing files.

A conversion that is refused#

PlanUnits per dayLargest file to convertFormats at once
FreeNot availableNot availableNot available
Starter201 GB1
Creator1002.5 GB2
Pro20010 GB3
Max50015 GBNo limit
Business2,00050 GBNo limit

One image or document output costs 1 unit, an audio output 2 and a video output 5, per file. Several output formats, or several files, multiply it. The count resets at midnight UTC.

Convert

Output formats
MP4WebMGIF
Cost

The panel shows what the job costs and what is left of today before you start it.

Save result
DownloadSave to Cloud
Convert
Check the cost line before a large batch. It is the fastest way to see that a job of 40 videos wants 200 units and your day holds 100.
  • "File size exceeds your plan's conversion limit." The input is bigger than the ceiling in the table. Nothing was spent.
  • "The size of this file could not be determined." The source is not stored in Nemi. Upload it first, then convert it from your workspace.
  • "This file is empty, so there is nothing to convert." A zero byte file, usually a failed download you re-uploaded.
  • A daily allowance that has run out. It resets at midnight UTC. Splitting the job over two days is free; moving up a plan is faster.
  • A conversion service that is busy or unreachable. You get a plain error, no units are spent, and trying again in a few minutes usually works.
  • A conversion you cancelled costs no units either. If you see no cancel button, it has not been switched on for your account yet.

The original file is never touched or replaced by a conversion, so a job that fails halfway leaves your workspace exactly as it was. Full details in Converting files.

Compression and extraction#

PlanCompressionsTotal size of what you pack
Free10 per month500 MB
StarterNo daily limit3 GB
CreatorNo daily limit10 GB
ProNo daily limit20 GB
MaxNo daily limit40 GB
BusinessNo daily limit50 GB

The limit is on the total size of everything you selected, not on the archive that comes out. One archive is one compression, so asking for a ZIP and a TAR.GZ in one job counts as two.

  • Unpacking works for ZIP, TAR and TAR.GZ. Single file BZ2, XZ and ZSTD are refused, because their contents cannot be measured before unpacking and an archive that will not say how big it is can be a trap.
  • An archive above 2 GB, or one that would unpack to more than 1 GB or more than 20,000 files, is refused for the same reason.
  • Unpacking into a vault folder is refused: the unpacked files would be readable, and the point of a vault is that nothing in it is.
  • Zipping a JPEG or an MP4 barely shrinks it. To genuinely make one smaller, convert it with a lower quality, resolution or bitrate.
The conversion finished but the file is not in my folder.

The panel offers Download or Save to Cloud. Download keeps nothing on our side. Run it again with Save to Cloud if you wanted it in the workspace.

Why did one file in my batch fail and the rest succeed?

Each file is converted on its own, so a damaged or unreadable one fails alone and the report names it.

Can I convert a file somebody shared with me?

Save it into your own workspace first, if your plan allows saving shared files. Conversion works on files that are stored in Nemi.

Related

Still stuck? Email support@nemilab.com and tell us what you were trying to do.