Fortnite replays not working
— the four causes
“Not working” covers four different things, and they have four different answers: the list is empty, the entries are greyed out, you are on a console, or an upload sits stuck on processing. Find your symptom below.
Two of the four you can fix in a minute. One cannot be undone at all — and the honest version of that is more useful than a list of registry tweaks, because there is a setting that stops it happening again.
If the replay plays but the kills, health or HUD are missing, that is a different question — it is answered further down, together with the replay controls.
First: Fortnite still has replays
Nothing was removed. Epic’s own help pages still describe the replay system and call it the only way to look back at a past game. Epic lists it for PC, PlayStation and Xbox, and announced it for Nintendo Switch 2 at that console’s launch. For mobile and the original Switch, Epic lists no replay support.
The way in, as Epic describes it: in the lobby open the Career tab at the top, then Career on the left, then the Replays button in the bottom right. Pick a match and press Play.
Find your symptom
In rough order of how often it turns out to be the cause.
1 · The replay list is completely empty
The recording switch is off. Epic documents it in Settings: open the GAME tab and scroll all the way down to the REPLAYS settings group. The one thing to know before you go looking for your last match: recording starts with the next match, and matches you already played are gone.
While you are there, check you are looking in the right place. Epic documents the replay browser under the Career tab in the lobby — not in the match summary, and not anywhere in the settings menu.
2 · Replays are listed but greyed out, or refuse to play after a patch
This is the version rule, and it is by far the most common cause of a replay “breaking” overnight. Epic states that you can only play a replay back in the version of Fortnite it was recorded in, and that after a new update old replays are no longer valid unless they were saved. Nothing on your machine went wrong; the build moved underneath the file.
There is no way back for a replay already in that state. What there is, is a way to keep the next one: Epic’s instruction for saving a replay is to select it in the replay browser and rename it. A renamed replay survives the update while the automatic ones do not, and the new name is what you then see in the folder, which also makes it easy to pick out later.
Worth building into the routine rather than remembering in a panic: rename the match you want to keep the evening you play it. Patch days are not announced to the replay browser.
3 · You are on PlayStation or Xbox and cannot get at the file
Replays themselves work on console — Epic lists the feature for PC, PlayStation and Xbox, and you can watch them in-game as normal. Two limits are different there. Epic states that on PlayStation and Xbox you can save a total of 10 replays, while on PC the number is unlimited. And Epic documents no way of reaching the replay file on a console at all.
So anything that involves the file — copying it, sending it, uploading it to any tool — is a PC-only move today. That is a platform fact, not a limitation of any particular tool.
4 · An upload sits “stuck on processing”
When you hand a .replay to any analysis tool, something has to parse it. An upload that never finishes almost always means the parse did not succeed, and there are two usual reasons.
The build moved. The replay format travels with the game version, so structures inside the file shift on a patch. A parser that has not been updated for the build your match was recorded on will misread it. This is the same root cause as symptom 2, seen from outside the game — and it is why keeping a parser current is the ongoing work behind any replay tool. More on that in what a replay analyzer actually reads.
The file is incomplete. A replay is written as the match runs. If the game closed, crashed or lost the match connection before it finished, what is on disk stops mid-record. Nothing can repair that, because the missing part was never written anywhere to restore from.
What raises the odds: a replay from the current build, from a match you were in until your own match ended. If you want to sanity-check the file itself first, it lives here on Windows:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\FortniteGame\Saved\Demos
A full match is roughly the size Epic gives for one — about 10 MB. A file of a few kilobytes is the incomplete case, and you can tell before you upload anything. More on the folder: where Fortnite saves replay files.
The replay plays, but kills or health are missing
Three symptoms, one of them a single key.
The kill feed, health bar or whole HUD is gone
Press H. Epic documents it as the key that cycles through the replay’s HUD modes. Hiding the interface is what Epic recommends for clean shots, so it is easy to leave hidden by accident. Press it until the kill feed, your health and your inventory are back.
Other players’ health, shield or inventory never show
In a replay of your own match, health, shield and inventory are shown for your own player only. For other players they are not shown. What you do see is where they were and what they did inside the recorded area around you (next symptom) — the part of the match your own decisions shaped.
A fight or kill you know happened is not there
If the HUD is on and the fight is still missing, the one explanation Epic documents is distance. Epic gave it when the replay system launched in 2018, and nothing Epic has published since revises it: only the players and objects in an area around you are recorded. A fight on the other side of the map is outside that area, so there is nothing in your replay to watch. The fights you were close to are there, including the one that ended your match.
Replay controls on PC
| Esc Esc | Brings the on-screen control legend back if it was hidden. |
| H | Cycles the HUD modes. |
| C or 1–5 | Switches the camera mode. |
| , . | Previous / next player. |
| R | Resets the camera. |
| Mouse wheel | Zoom. |
| Q E | Pan; on the drone cameras, height. |
| W A S D | Moves the drone cameras. |
| - = | Drone speed. |
| Timeline | 15-second skips back and forward. |
The five camera modes Epic names are Third Person, Drone Follow, Drone Attach, Drone Free and Gameplay. In Gameplay, Epic notes, the camera cannot be controlled at all — switch to Third Person or a drone to look around freely.
On controller, Epic publishes no button map; the legend on screen is the reference. Epic does list one known issue there: the replay speed may not change with a controller. If it will not, the keyboard can.
Things that will not help
Said plainly, because the pages that rank for this question often suggest them anyway. Verifying game files does not restore replays — they are saved data, not installed data. Reinstalling Fortnite does not bring back a replay invalidated by a patch, and risks the folder. A .replay repair tool cannot reconstruct records that were never written; a replay is not a compressed video with recoverable frames.
And no converter turns a .replay into an MP4, because there are no pictures in it to convert — the images only exist while Fortnite draws the match again. Fortnite itself does not export one either; Epic says plainly that the replay system does not make videos. What works is Epic’s own route: set up the shot in the replay, hide the HUD with H, and record the screen with screen-recording software. The full explanation is on how to open and share a .replay file.
Getting something permanent out of the ones that do work
The version rule has one useful implication: a replay is a short-lived object, but what is in it does not have to be. Once a replay is parsed, the match record — the rotations, every fight with its location, where the match was decided — becomes a web page that keeps working after the patch that invalidates the file.
That is what Fortiq does with the file: upload it, and the report is ready in about a minute, with its own link that opens in any browser without an account. Free during the beta, unlimited reports, nothing to install. If a file is from an old build or was cut short, you find out in that minute rather than after an evening of scrubbing.
Questions about broken replays
They were recorded on the previous build. Epic states a replay only plays back in the version of Fortnite it was recorded in, and that old replays are no longer valid after an update unless they were saved. That one cannot be undone — saving the ones you care about beforehand is what prevents a repeat.
Usually the recording switch. Epic documents it in Settings under the GAME tab, in the REPLAYS group. Recording starts with the next match — matches already played are gone. Also check you are under the Career tab, which is where the replay browser lives.
The parse did not succeed — either the file was recorded on a build the parser has not been updated for, or it is incomplete because the game closed before it finished writing. A replay from the current build, from a match you played to the end, is the one most likely to go through.
No — and a tool claiming otherwise is worth doubting. A replay is a record; if part of it was never written, there is nothing to restore it from. The move that pays is forward-looking: recording on, and rename the matches worth keeping.
Save them: Epic's instruction is to select the replay in the replay browser and rename it. Renamed replays survive the update; automatic ones do not. On PlayStation and Xbox Epic states you can save a total of 10, on PC the number is unlimited. A parsed report also outlives the file.
Yes. Epic's help pages still describe the replay system, and call it the only way to look back at a past game. Epic lists it for PC, PlayStation and Xbox, and announced it for Nintendo Switch 2 at that console's launch; it lists no replay support for mobile or the original Switch. In the lobby: Career tab, then Career on the left, then the Replays button in the bottom right.
Two reasons, and the first is a single key. If the kill feed and the rest of the interface are gone, press H — Epic documents it as the key that cycles the replay's HUD modes. If a fight you know happened is missing entirely, the one explanation Epic documents is distance: only the players and objects in an area around you are recorded.
Press H until the HUD mode shows the game interface again; that brings back your own health and shield. In a replay of your own match, health, shield and inventory are shown for your own player only — for other players they are not shown.
Not inside Fortnite: Epic states plainly that the replay system does not make videos, and no converter can do it either, because a .replay file holds no pictures. Epic's route is to set up the shot in the replay, hide the HUD, and record the screen with screen-recording software.
Keep the match, not just the file.
Free during the beta, unlimited reports. The report link keeps working after the patch that retires the replay.