Some jpg files not opening on Windows 11 but do on Windows 10 using Photo Viewer

I have had the strange problem of a few (maybe 10) JPG photos on my Windows 11 system not opening with Photo Viewer. It says the file is either corrupt or the file format not supported. All the photos were copied from my Windows 10 machine and all opened without problem, using the Photo Viewer. There are no problems on the M.2 drive as the Photo Viewer won't open them on a USB stick either.
Photoshop Elements will however open the files without problem and if I "Save As" back to the same file, the new files will now open with Photo Viewer on Windows 11.
So all the problem JPG files have been corrected.

It is clear there must have been an issue with the files, but what and why this happened I don't know.

Has anyone else experienced this problem or got any insights into this? Don't want this to happen again.

Only ever with Tiff files having to be saved as the same tiff file again so they can be opened in Photoshop. But that’s usually due to a bad scanning process of the originals.

I have not come across this with jpg’s. Perhaps Windows 11 handles them differently. Pretty odd.

Ai response

If some JPG files won't open in the Windows 11 Photo Viewer, it's likely due to file corruption where the image data is damaged, preventing the viewer from properly reading the file; this could be caused by issues during transfer.


Update the Windows Photos app through the Microsoft Store to ensure you have the latest version.

Thanks for the replies. I believe I have the latest version of Photos on both my Windows 11 and Windows 10 machine. These are both version 2024.11120.5010.0
I have put all the dodgy files on a USB stick. When I look at these on the Windows 10 they open OK, but when looked at on the Windows 11 machine they can't be opened. Exactly the same files, using the same version of Photo App. The only difference is the Version of Windows.
Incidentally if I try to remove all personal information from the files, I get the attached message. If I do the same on Windows 10, it works OK and the resultant copy can now be opened on Windows 11.

All very strange - I think it must be something in the header that Windows 11 itself does not like.

Probably you are a victim of Microsoft's "precautions" (bad access rights rules). Microsoft think they know better what is good for us and they restrict some rights to certain applications to "protect" our privacy (here we laugh). Since these photos come from a USB flash drive they are "suspicious" and have limited access (much like the "read-only" mode in Word when you open an attached document and you have to click to "enable" to be able to modify or even print it).

spapakons said:

Probably you are a victim of Microsoft's "precautions" (bad access rights rules). Microsoft think they know better what is good for us and they restrict some rights to certain applications to "protect" our privacy (here we laugh). Since these photos come from a USB flash drive they are "suspicious" and have limited access (much like the "read-only" mode in Word when you open an attached document and you have to click to "enable" to be able to modify or even print it).

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, but don't think that's it. I actually copied the files originally from an External Hard Drive and there are thousands of similar files that open correctly. Also, they open on Windows 10 without problem. It must be something peculiar in the header of these jpegs that Windows 11 does not like. Anyway, as I mentioned, they will open in Photoshop and Canon DPP, but not in Microsoft Photo App or in Paint on Windows 11.

Download some portable program and take a look.



I don't know, maybe some plugins will need to be activated.

Thanks abactuon,

I might have a look at that. See if I can figure out any differences.

Right-click on a jpeg that doesn't open and go to Properties. Maybe it is blocked and you have to check the unblock box to remove any restrictions.

spapakons said:

Right-click on a jpeg that doesn't open and go to Properties. Maybe it is blocked and you have to check the unblock box to remove any restrictions.

Click to expand...

Actually if I right click the properties are shown, but all show blank down to the File section. When I open with Photoshop and save back, the correct properties all appear - so they have not been deleted.
I did a bit of research by extracting the meta data from the files and got results as attached. All 12 of the dodgy files have a space before the Modified Date.
Don't know if that is the problem or how it happened. Obviously not an issue now as I have corrected all the dodgy jpegs.

MCHome said:

Thanks for the replies. I believe I have the latest version of Photos on both my Windows 11 and Windows 10 machine. These are both version 2024.11120.5010.0
I have put all the dodgy files on a USB stick. When I look at these on the Windows 10 they open OK, but when looked at on the Windows 11 machine they can't be opened. Exactly the same files, using the same version of Photo App. The only difference is the Version of Windows.
Incidentally if I try to remove all personal information from the files, I get the attached message. If I do the same on Windows 10, it works OK and the resultant copy can now be opened on Windows 11.

All very strange - I think it must be something in the header that Windows 11 itself does not like.

Click to expand...

According to google.com ,

Error code 0x88982F61 in Windows indicates that the system can't load RAW files. Unlike a smartphone which captures images as JPG, a DSLR stores RAW files. The RAW files hold the full range of color and tone. But they are much larger files (about 10x larger than a JPEG of the same resolution).

Maybe go to the Microsoft Store shortcut from your taskbar and install "Raw Image Extension" by Microsoft.
Maybe that'll help your situation?

Good luck

PCUser said:

According to google.com ,

Error code 0x88982F61 in Windows indicates that the system can't load RAW files. Unlike a smartphone which captures images as JPG, a DSLR stores RAW files. The RAW files hold the full range of color and tone. But they are much larger files (about 10x larger than a JPEG of the same resolution).

Maybe go to the Microsoft Store shortcut from your taskbar and install "Raw Image Extension" by Microsoft.
Maybe that'll help your situation?

Good luck

Click to expand...

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply. I looked up the error message myself and saw the bit about RAW files.
However, these are JPG files not RAW files. RAW files have the extension of .RAW, these have .JPG.

p.s.
I have two DSLR cameras which either shoot in JPG, RAW or JPG and RAW. I only shoot in JPG as I find processing RAW files is too much effort for me.

abactuon,

Downloaded and Installed IrfanView as you suggested. It opens the dodgy files with no problem. Looks like a great utility.
I guess if I really want to investigate this, I will have to examine both a dodgy file and a working file side by side in IrfanView and see if there are any differences.
May just call it a day on this one as I have already corrected all the problem files.
Not sure if I can mark this thread as closed though as still don't know why Photo App won't open the original files.

You can also restore the good old Windows Photo Viewer and use that instead of the modern Photos app. See here, it also works in Windows 11:

I am still investigating this issue. I have attached a jpg that will not open on Windows 11 24H2 using Photo Viewer.
The file was created on a Windows 10 Machine using Photoshop Elements. It can be opened on Windows 10 using the same version of Photo Viewer. It can also be opened in Photoshop Elements and other photo editing software without problem. Saving the photo to another file corrects the problem.

I would be grateful if someone who still has Windows 11 23H2 could see if they can open the file - or even see the Thumb Nail. The image can be seen after uploading to the server here. I have attached the photo in a Zip as well, in case the upload has corrected the problem itself.
I want to see if this is a Windows 11 24H2 problem. I have seen other reports about this going back to October last year with images created by other editing software.

This is not a virus or hardware related problem and my supposition is it is an interaction between Photoshop Elements created files and Windows 11 - possibly only 24H2. I have jpgs created by Photoshop Elements 12 on a Windows 10 Machine and Photoshop Elements 2025 on a Windows 11 24H2 machine. Both exhibit this problem. It is only a few files though - maybe 1 in 500.

I think that the headers in these files have something that is ok on Windows 10 and possibly Windows 11 pre 24H2, but 24H2 does not like them. I have examined the headers using Irfanview64 and don't see a problem.

I have submitted a bug report to Microsoft, but not had any feedback yet.

Have a look outside the square ... the sun doesn't always shine out of everything Microsoft

Irfanview (freeware image management/viewer)

MCHome said:

I would be grateful if someone who still has Windows 11 23H2 could see if they can open the file - or even see the Thumb Nail.

Click to expand...

I have 23H2 Pro (see my Computer specs), I can see the thumbnail in File explorer (not tweaked by any tweaking app):



And I can see the image in Photo Viewer (I use the Classic Photo Viewer):



I did a test on my VirtualBox test system as well, which has 23H2 (Home edition) installed without any changes.

There it is correctly displayed in 'Photos'' :



BTW.: I used the ZIP file, because the pictures posted in this forum are automatically converted to a .webp file format.

If this is due to access rights, copying the picture in another folder or a USB flash drive might open in Windows Photos Viewer without issues. It might also be the metadata (header of the file or whatever) that are not interpreted properly by Windows Photo Viewer and hence it cannot open it. I have seen that when trying to open photos from a smartphone and I thought it was because of the image size being too large.

I did some testing with your sample file.

On Windows 10, it opened in every program l tried including Photos, Snip & Sketch, and Paint.Net 5.1.2.

On Windows 11 24H2...

it opened in Irfanview, XNview MP, Krita, FireAlpaca, and PhotoMind.

It failed to open in Photos, MSPaint, Snip & Sketch, and, surprisingly, Paint.Net 5.1.2 (error report attached).

Like I said, poor interpretation of metadata. If you open it and Save as another jpeg file, you get rid of these metadata and it opens everywhere.