"There are problems with the contents" — how to open the document anyway.
Word showed "The file cannot be opened because there are problems with the contents." because it could not parse the document package cleanly. Upload the .docx to see paragraph and word counts plus a redacted excerpt from a rebuilt copy. A one-time $14 — and only if the repair works.
Free preview — pay only if you download ($14)
Your files auto-delete within 48 hours
No person looks at your file as part of repair
Uploading your file.
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Starting upload...
Recovering what we can.
Analyzing your file...
Here's what we recovered.
Review the watermarked preview before checkout. Previews are capped at 90 seconds.
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.
Download repaired fileYou preview before you pay. If the download is materially worse than the preview you approved, we'll refund you.
Good news — your file isn't damaged. No charge.
There's nothing to repair. If it still looks broken, the issue may be the player, codec, or viewer on your device rather than the file itself.
We couldn't recover this one.
The file is too damaged to rebuild, so there is nothing to preview and no charge. You can try another file.
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.
FileFix can't fix that kind of file yet.
Right now we repair video, audio, and document files (MP4, MOV, M4V, MKV, AVI, TS, MTS, M2TS, MPG, MPEG, VOB, 3GP, WebM, M4A, WAV, MP3, AAC, FLAC, OGG, AIFF, XLSX, DOCX, ZIP, and PDF). We're adding support for more formats over time.
Something went wrong.
The request could not be completed.
Why this happens
This message means Word reached the document package but found a part it could not read — often a malformed or truncated word/document.xml, or ZIP relationships that no longer describe the package consistently. Word stops rather than guessing at the missing structure.
Word may offer to open and repair the file; try that on a copy first. When it cannot produce a document, the readable paragraph XML frequently still exists in the bytes even though the package around it is broken.
FileFix scans the surviving members, recovers word/document.xml with a fault-tolerant parser, and writes a minimal valid .docx around the recovered body. An independent reader then opens the result and counts its paragraphs, and the summary shows a redacted excerpt so you can judge the text before paying.
What we can and can't recover
We can usually fix
- documents that show "Word found unreadable content"
- documents Word refuses to open
- documents cut off mid-save or mid-transfer
- files that show the right size but won't open
We can't fix
- password-protected/encrypted documents
- genuinely empty (0-byte) files
- deleted or formatted files (that's data recovery, a different job)
- the old binary .doc format (this repair is for .docx)
How it works
- Upload. Drop the file in. It uploads over an encrypted connection.
- We rebuild it. The repair runs automatically — no person looks at your file.
- Read the summary, then decide. You see exactly what we recovered — paragraph and word counts and a short excerpt of recovered text. If the summary shows what you need, unlock the repaired Word document for a one-time $14.
You see a recovery summary built from your actual file before you decide anything — so you never guess.
Upload your document
Free recovery summary · files auto-delete within 48 hours
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Questions
What part of a .docx is usually the "problem" here?
Most often the main document body XML or the package relationships. Text can survive in the body even when those wrappers are damaged, which is what the rebuild targets.
Should I use Word's Open and Repair before uploading?
Yes, on a duplicate of the file. Save any recovered result under a new name; if Word still refuses it or the text you need is missing, upload the untouched copy for a separate rebuild.
Will the recovered document keep its layout?
The rebuild prioritizes readable body text over formatting. Styles, images, and headers are not promised, so use the excerpt and counts to evaluate text recovery specifically.