MX Player Custom Codec 3.1.0

MX Player Custom Codec 3.1.0 is the current decoder pack, and it is the file to grab if your player is refusing to play a soundtrack.

It restores AC3, EAC3, DTS, MLP and TrueHD audio, the formats MX Player cannot bundle for licensing reasons.

If you are not sure which of the five downloads suits your phone, take the all-in-one ZIP and stop worrying about it.

Why 3.1.0 When My Player Says 3.0.13

This trips up almost everyone, so it is worth clearing up first. There is no MX Player 3.1.0, and you are not looking at the wrong file.

The codec version follows MX Player's internal decoder, which is numbered separately from the app you install. MX Player 3.0.13 is the release that asks for custom codec 3.1.0.

The two numbers have drifted apart for years. Codec files labelled 1.87.0 served player versions in the 1.9x range, and the pattern has held through every release since.

What This Add-On Actually Does

MX Player ships with a decoding library that deliberately leaves out several audio formats, because shipping them on the Play Store would mean paying licence fees. The result is the error people know well: video plays, picture looks fine, and there is no sound at all.

The custom codec swaps that stripped-down library for a complete one. Nothing is installed in the usual sense - you point MX Player at a ZIP file and it loads the library from inside.

It is built from the FFmpeg source code MX Player publishes under the LGPL, so it is the same decoder the app already uses, with the missing formats switched back on.

Which File You Need

Check the architecture MX Player names under Settings > Decoder > Custom codec, for example ARMv8 NEON, then match it below.

Current MX Player 3.0.x builds require a 64-bit Arm processor, so neon64 is the answer for nearly everyone running an up-to-date app. The 32-bit files still matter if you are on an older player release or a TV box.

The all-in-one file is around 24.7 MB because it carries all four libraries; the single-architecture files are roughly 6 MB each. Our guide on which custom codec you need walks through the same choice in more detail.

How to Install It

1. Download MX Player Custom Codec 3.1.0 and leave the ZIP exactly as it is. Do not unzip it.
2. Open MX Player and go to Settings > Decoder > Custom codec.
3. Tap the entry and browse to the ZIP you just downloaded, usually in your Downloads folder.
4. Confirm the restart when the app asks. MX Player reopens with the new decoder loaded.

If the app rejects the file, it is a version mismatch rather than a broken download. Older player releases ask for older codec builds, so update to MX Player 3.0.13 before trying again.

Why Your Old Codec Stopped Working

Every time MX Player updates its bundled decoder, it bumps that internal version and stops accepting the previous file. That is why a codec working perfectly on Monday throws "custom codec is out of date" on Tuesday.

There is no way around it from the outside. Renaming the file to fake a different version used to work occasionally, and stopped being reliable somewhere around the 2.7 releases.

If you are stuck mid-upgrade with a player and codec that will not agree, our guide on getting custom codecs working again covers the pairing in full.

What Is Inside 3.1.0

The pack contains four shared libraries, one per architecture, named for the version MX Player expects:

• libffmpeg.mx.so.neon64.3.1.0
• libffmpeg.mx.so.neon.3.1.0
• libffmpeg.mx.so.x86_64.3.1.0
• libffmpeg.mx.so.x86.3.1.0

The underlying decoder is still FFmpeg 4.2, which is where MX Player's published source has sat for several years. AV1 decoding comes from dav1d, also unchanged for some time.

Format support is the point rather than raw speed, so do not expect this build to decode faster than the stock one. It decodes more.

The Formats This Fixes

Most people arrive here because of one specific soundtrack. The usual culprits are Dolby Digital in older films, DTS in disc rips, and EAC3 in streaming captures.

• AC3 and EAC3 - Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus, the most common cause of silent playback. Our walkthrough on fixing EAC3 audio not supported covers this exact error.
• DTS and DTS-HD - standard on Blu-ray rips and a frequent source of silent MKV files.
• MLP and TrueHD - the lossless Dolby formats found on higher-bitrate releases.

Video formats are a separate question, and the answer is usually that you already have what you need. Xvid is one people ask about constantly, and our guide explains why Xvid needs no extra codec at all.

Who Should Look Elsewhere

The tell is simple: if you find yourself back on this page every few weeks because MX Player updated again, the version-chasing is not worth it for you.

VLC for Android has every one of these decoders built in and never asks for a separate file. Our comparison of players that handle EAC3 natively covers the rest.

For a full media library rather than a file player, Kodi for Android covers the same formats with library management on top. If your viewing is mostly live TV, OTT Navigator is the better fit.

Users of a different player entirely may want KMPlayer Custom Codec, which does the same job for KMPlayer. Both sit in our Android APK section.

Quick questions

Before You Download

Read the codec version out of MX Player first, under Settings, Decoder, Custom codec. It takes ten seconds and avoids the single most common complaint we get about this file.

Not sure what your files actually need? Our Codec Finder identifies the audio and video formats inside them.

Sideloading the player rather than using the Play Store is fine, and our Play Store Check tool tells you whether a given APK will run without Play Services.

Download MX Player Custom Codec 3.1.0 and see how it handles your files, or tell us how you got on if you have used it before.