The video plays, the picture is fine, and there is no sound. No error message, no warning, the volume is up, and other videos play normally. It is one of the most common video complaints, and the advice online mostly jumps to “your file is corrupted, download our repair tool”. Corruption does happen, but it is rarely the reason. Usually the sound is there in a format the player cannot decode, or there is no sound track in the file at all, or the player is playing a different track from the one you expect.
We tested this on 16 October 2026 on Windows 11 with Chrome 155 and Edge 155. We made one short H.264 video and saved it eight times: with the same tone as AAC, MP3, Opus, FLAC, Dolby Digital (AC-3) and Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3) sound, once with no sound track, and once with two sound tracks where the first is silent. Each file was played for two seconds while we read how many bytes of sound the browser actually decoded.
The quick answer
| What you notice | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Silent in Chrome or on a phone, but fine on the TV or in VLC | Dolby Digital (AC-3 / E-AC-3) sound | Convert the sound to AAC with MKV to MP4 (takes MP4s too); the picture is copied |
| Silent everywhere, in every player | No sound track in the file | Nothing to recover; re-export or re-record with sound on |
| Silent, or the wrong language or commentary plays | Several sound tracks, the wrong one first | Keep only the track you want (same tool), or switch tracks in VLC |
| Sound appeared after converting in VLC, or vanished | The conversion profile’s audio setting | Convert with the audio copied, not re-encoded |
| Sound is there but very faint | Recorded too quietly | Boost it with Increase Audio Volume and put it back with Add Music to Video |
What we measured
Bytes of sound decoded in two seconds of playback (0 means silence, even though the picture played and no error appeared):
| Sound in the MP4 | Chrome 155 | Edge 155 |
|---|---|---|
| AAC | played | played |
| MP3 | played | played |
| Opus | played | played |
| FLAC | played | played |
| Dolby Digital (AC-3) | 0 bytes, no error | played |
| Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3) | 0 bytes, no error | played |
| No sound track | 0 bytes, no error | 0 bytes, no error |
| Two tracks, first one silent | only the silent first track | only the silent first track |
Two things stand out. First, a file Chrome cannot decode does not produce an error: the picture plays and the sound is simply missing, which looks exactly like a file with no sound at all. Second, the same Dolby file played with sound in Edge on the same PC. Edge hands Dolby audio to Windows’ own decoder; Chrome does not. That is why a video can be “fine on my laptop” and silent for the person you sent it to.
Cause 1: the sound is Dolby Digital
Films, TV recordings and many downloads carry their sound as Dolby Digital (AC-3) or Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3), often 5.1 surround. TVs, home cinema receivers, VLC and, in our test, Edge on Windows play it. Chrome reports AC-3 and E-AC-3 as unsupported in its own media checks, and plays such files silent. It often surfaces after converting an MKV film to MP4: the conversion copied the Dolby sound across unchanged, and now the MP4 is silent in some players.
Fix: convert only the sound to AAC, which plays everywhere, and copy the picture as it is. MKV to MP4 does this by default for MKV files and also accepts an MP4 or MOV with Dolby sound. In our test the AAC version played in both browsers, and a 5.1 track whose dialogue sits in the centre channel kept the dialogue when mixed down to stereo. If the file is only for the TV, you can leave it alone: the TV plays Dolby.
Cause 2: there is no sound track
Screen recordings with the microphone off, clips exported from an editor with the audio box unticked, and some security-camera and drone footage have no sound track at all. No player can help, because there is nothing to play. To check:
- Windows: right-click the file, Properties → Details. Under Audio, a file with sound shows a bit rate; for our file with no sound track that line was blank (checked on Windows 11).
- Mac: open it in QuickTime Player, then Window → Show Movie Inspector, and look at the format line (not tested by us).
- Any browser: drop it on Extract Audio from Video, which says “This file has no audio track” when there is none, or on MKV to MP4, which lists every sound track with its format.
If there is no track, the only fix is to export again with sound enabled, or to add sound afterwards: music or a separately recorded voice-over with Add Music to Video.
Cause 3: two sound tracks, the wrong one first
Video files can hold several sound tracks: two languages, a director’s commentary, a silent placeholder from an editing app. Most players start with the first one, and browsers give you no way to switch: in our test both Chrome and Edge played only the silent first track of a file whose second track had sound. VLC lets you choose under Audio → Audio Track. To fix the file itself, open it in MKV to MP4, untick the tracks you do not want, and the remaining one becomes the first.
Cause 4: it came out of a converter without sound
“Converted MKV to MP4 in VLC and there is no sound” is a frequent search. We did not test VLC for this guide, but the usual explanation in its forums is the conversion profile: the chosen profile re-encodes the sound into a format or with settings the target does not accept, and the result is silent. The safer route for MKV to MP4 is a converter that copies the streams and only re-encodes what has to change. That is what our page does, and it tells you per track what it copied and what it converted.
Cause 5: the sound is there, just very quiet
Phone videos of a talk from the back of a room, or a screen recording with the microphone set low, can be so faint they seem silent on a laptop speaker. Check with headphones at full volume. To fix it without touching the picture: take the sound out with Extract Audio from Video, raise it to a standard loudness with Increase Audio Volume (it holds the peaks so they do not distort), and put it back with Add Music to Video set to Replace. The picture is copied, not re-encoded, in every step.
Before blaming the file
- Check the browser tab is not muted (a crossed-out speaker on the tab) and that sound comes out of the device you expect, not Bluetooth headphones in another room.
- Play another video in the same player. If that is silent too, the problem is the player or the system.
- Try a second player. A file that has sound in VLC or Edge but not in Chrome points to Dolby audio (cause 1).
- Only if the file is cut short, will not open at all, or stutters should you suspect damage from an interrupted download or copy. Copy it again from the original source before reaching for repair software.
If the problem is an iPhone video that will not play on a Windows PC at all, picture included, our guide on iPhone videos not playing on Windows covers that case.