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When Social Networks Reject Your Videos

If Meta - Facebook, Instagram, or Threads - or X (Twitter) keeps rejecting your video posts when publishing, even after a post retry attempt, the problem may not be with the platform, but with the video encoding itself.

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Common Issue with Video Encoding

Meta platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and Threads) and X have specific video format requirements: Facebook Media Guidelines, Instagram Video Guidelines, Threads Video Guidelines, and X Video Guidelines. Some video creation tools occasionally produce videos with encoding that Meta’s systems don’t accept. At times, their output needs to be re-encoded for compatibility.

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One Solution: Re-encode with FFmpeg

If your video uploads are failing, try re-encoding the video using FFmpeg, an open-source tool for video processing: 
ffmpeg -i your_original_video.mp4 -c:v libx264 -preset medium -profile:v high -level 4.0 -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a aac -movflags +faststart meta_compatible_video.mp4
This command converts your video to use the widely-compatible H.264 video codec and AAC audio codec, which Meta platforms accept. Re-encoding “normalizes” your video to use standard encoding parameters that Meta’s platforms are designed to process, without sacrificing quality. If you see these errors regularly, this simple step can save you frustration when sharing your creative content.

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FFmpeg Installation and Usage

Installation instructions:
  • macOS: brew install ffmpeg
  • Windows: winget install ffmpeg
  • Linux: sudo apt install ffmpeg (Ubuntu/Debian) or sudo dnf install ffmpeg (Fedora)
Parameters:
  • -c:v libx264: Uses H.264 video codec
  • -preset medium: Balance between encoding speed and quality
  • -profile:v high -level 4.0: Compatibility settings
  • -pix_fmt yuv420p: Standard pixel format for maximum compatibility
  • -b:v 5000k: Video bitrate (adjust as needed for quality)
  • -c:a aac: AAC audio codec
  • -b:a 192k: Audio bitrate
  • -movflags +faststart: Optimizes file for web streaming