Video Thumbnails Reloaded

1. Ensure you have saved any changes to your post.
2. If you are using a a plugin or theme that stores videos in a special location other than the main post content area, be sure you’ve entered the correct custom field on the settings page. If you don’t know the name of the field your video is being saved in, please contact the developer of that theme or plugin.
3. Copy and paste your embed code into the “Test Markup for Video” section of the Debugging page. If this doesn’t find the thumbnail, you’ll want to be sure to include the embed code you scanned when you request support. If it does find a thumbnail, please double check that you have the Custom Field set correctly in the settings page if you are using a a plugin or theme that stores videos in a special location.
4. Go to the Debugging page and click “Test Image Downloading” to test your server’s ability to save an image from a video source.
5. Try posting a video from other sources to help narrow down the problem.
6. Check the support threads to see if anyone has had the same issue.
7. If you are still unable to resolve the problem, start a thread with a good descriptive title (“Error” or “No thumbnails” is a bad title) and be sure to include the results of your testing as well. Also be sure to include the name of your theme, any video plugins you’re using, and any other details you can think of.

Video Thumbnails uses high-resolution widescreen thumbnails whenever they are available. If a video is not in HD, a fullscreen thumbnail is used. This can result in letterboxing when the video is actually widescreen. Users of the pro version can select an aspect ratio in the settings if this is a constant problem. More info.

No, Video Thumbnails only uses thumbnails provided by the source. If you’re posting videos from your own account, many providers allow you to choose the thumbnail.

No, it will only fetch thumbnails for videos from the list of supported sites. Decoding local video files to create thumbnails would require server resources and packages unavailable to most users, so we only focus on supporting major video sites.

The most likely problem is that your theme doesn’t support post thumbnails. If thumbnails are supported, you should see a box titled “Featured Image” on the edit post page. If thumbnails aren’t supported, your theme will have to be modified to support Featured Images or to support one of our custom functions.

On the Video Thumbnails settings page just enter the name of the custom field and the plugin will scan it.

Yes, but be sure to include the post ID as a parameter. For example: <?php $thumbnail = get_video_thumbnail(25); ?>

If the service allows a way to retrieve thumbnails, I’ll do my best to add it.

The settings page includes a checklist of all your post types so you can pick and choose.

<?php if( ( $video_thumbnail = get_video_thumbnail() ) != null ) { echo "”; } ?> will only display a thumbnail when one exists, but I recommend using the Featured Image setting and the_post_thumbnail template tag.

The best solution is to use the Featured Image setting and the_post_thumbnail template tag.

As an alternative you could assign a class to the element and style it with CSS.

Every theme is different, so this can be tricky if you aren’t familiar with WordPress theme development. You need to edit your template in the appropriate place, replacing <?php the_content(); > with <?php the_excerpt(); > so that only an excerpt of the post is shown on the home page or wherever you would like to display the video thumbnail.

The Vimeo API has a rate limit, so in rare cases you may exceed this limit. Try again after a few hours.