"PDF header not found".
"PDF header not found" means the reader could not locate the marker that identifies the bytes as a PDF. Upload the file for a repair attempt and see a free watermarked preview if FileFix can rebuild and validate the document.
Free preview — pay only if you download ($12 USD)
Your files auto-delete — delete them sooner anytime
No person looks at your file as part of repair
Uploading your file.
Keep this tab open while the file transfers. Large files can take longer.
Starting upload...
Recovering what we can.
- Upload received
- Repair in progress
- Result ready
Analyzing your file...
Here's what we recovered.
Review the watermarked preview before checkout.
Repair your file
Choose a supported file to see what can be repaired before checkout.
Simulated checkout — no payment is processed.
Optional — we'll email your private download link.
You preview before you pay. If the download is materially worse than the preview you approved, we'll refund you.
Your files auto-delete — delete them sooner anytime
No person looks at your file as part of repair
We couldn't recover this one.
The file is too damaged to rebuild, so there is nothing to preview and no charge.
What stopped you continuing? One tap tells us why.
Try a deep repair
The repair engine can try a longer pass on the file you already uploaded.
Machine-only processing; no human views files; nothing is sent to an outside AI.
Have another clip from the same device?
A healthy video recorded on the same device — ideally the same settings — gives the repair engine a template to rebuild from. It can unlock repairs that fail on their own.
Unrepaired files are kept encrypted for up to 30 days, then deleted.
FileFix can't fix that kind of file yet.
Right now we repair video, audio, document, and image files (MP4, MOV, M4V, MKV, AVI, TS, MTS, M2TS, MPG, MPEG, VOB, 3GP, WebM, FLV, M4A, WAV, MP3, AAC, FLAC, OGG, OPUS, AIFF, XLSX, DOCX, PPTX, ODT, ZIP, RAR, PDF, AI, HEIC, and HEIF). We're adding support for more formats over time.
Something went wrong.
The request could not be completed.
Why this happens
A PDF normally begins with a header that identifies the format and version. This error appears when that marker was removed by truncation, shifted behind stray leading bytes, or never existed because a different kind of response was saved with a .pdf extension.
The missing header is separate from the page objects and cross-reference data later in the file. If those objects remain readable, a rewrite path can construct a new PDF wrapper and cross-reference structure around them; if the upload is actually HTML, an image, or an empty file, there is no PDF document to rebuild.
FileFix tests recovery candidates and reopens them with recovery disabled. A candidate must contain at least one readable page before a watermarked page preview is shown.
What we can and can't recover
We can usually fix
- PDFs that show "the file is damaged and could not be repaired"
- PDFs Chrome or Edge won't open ("Failed to load PDF document")
- Files cut off mid-download or mid-save
- PDFs with a broken cross-reference table or trailer
We can't fix
- Password-protected or encrypted PDFs
- Genuinely empty (0-byte) files
- Deleted or formatted files (that's data recovery, a different job)
- Pages whose content was never written to disk
How it works
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Upload Drop the file in. It uploads over an encrypted connection. The repair runs automatically — no person looks at your file.
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Free watermarked preview You see watermarked pages from the repaired PDF and the recovered page count.
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Pay & download If the preview shows what you need, unlock the repaired PDF for a one-time $12 USD.
You see watermarked pages from the repaired PDF and the recovered page count before you decide anything — so you never guess.
See what's recoverable.
Free watermarked page preview · private & auto-deleted
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Questions
The reader could not locate the marker that identifies the bytes as a PDF. The marker may have been removed, shifted behind stray bytes, or may never have existed because another kind of file was saved with a .pdf extension.
Sometimes. If readable PDF page objects remain later in the file, a rewrite can place them in a new PDF structure. If the upload is HTML, an image, empty, or otherwise contains no PDF document, it cannot be rebuilt as the expected PDF.
FileFix only reports a candidate after reopening it without recovery mode and finding at least one readable page. The free preview shows watermarked pages from the validated PDF and the recovered page count.
A one-time $12 USD — and only if the repair works. Seeing what was recovered is free, and checkout is only offered when the engine produces a validated repaired file.