Repairing corrupt MP4 files

NealR

NealR

NealR

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Joined
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Location
Chelmsford, Essex
Hi all!

I have a collection of MP4 files from a GoPro that have been corrupted at some point. I cannot retreive them back off the source card, as it has been used since to capacity.

I have some reference files from the same day which have worked fine, and are 100% playable, audio included. But the collection of about 20 files all have size to them, but nothing else, and when attempting to play via VLC/W10 Films&Video/Windows Media Player all bring up corrupt errors.

Does anyone have any programs that could be used to repair the MP4 files to get back the video/audio from them?

Thanks in advance.
 
I had this issue but it was a while ago and I found a fix/guide online. I'm relatively code-techy so I think I did the fix pretty manually by copying code out from working files into the corrupted ones.

Sorry I can't be of more help but that should be enough to go on to find a proper guide. You'll need software that can read the source of files like Hex Editor: https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

Using that as a search term brings up quite a few results and tools: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=gopro+corrupt+hex+editor. Good luck!
 
Russinating said:
I had this issue but it was a while ago and I found a fix/guide online. I'm relatively code-techy so I think I did the fix pretty manually by copying code out from working files into the corrupted ones.

Sorry I can't be of more help but that should be enough to go on to find a proper guide. You'll need software that can read the source of files like Hex Editor: https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

Using that as a search term brings up quite a few results and tools: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=gopro+corrupt+hex+editor. Good luck!
Click to expand...

Thanks for that. I think it's narrowed down my issue at least. The corrupt files are pure blank space. This is all the way through, not just the headers. I compared against my working reference file. Looks like that's all lost footage :(
 
There is also a single JPG in the mix of corrupt files, and this also shows no HEX values.

But then it all "magically" seems to work again toward the end of the file set I've got, as the last 5 files all MP4's, are all working 100% again.
 
Using a CLI app, Recover_MP4_To_H264, this is the output of one of the corrupt files, doesn't look good. Ran same command against a working file, and there was a lot more output, and the h264 file created was about the same size as the MP4, whereas the corrupt file produced a 0Kb h264.

D:\downloads\recover_mp4_to_h264\recover_mp4_to_h264>recover_mp4_to_h264 GOPR0068.MP4 GOPR0068.h264 GOPR0068.aac
recover_mp4_to_h264 v1.19 (C) 2011-2014 Dmitry Vasilyev <[email protected]>
http://slydiman.homeip.net

Reading 'avcc.hdr'...
Reading 'mp4a.hdr'...
Writing 'GOPR0068.h264'...
Writing 'GOPR0068.aac'...
Assuming audio stream is AAC, 48000 Hz, 2 channel(s), profile 1
AVC SPS count: 1
AVC SPS[0] len: 56
Assuming AVC video 1920x1080, Main Profile, Level 4.2
AVC PPS count: 1
AVC PPS[0] len: 4
Searching 'mdat' atom in 'GOPR0068.MP4'...
Cannot find 'mdat' atom in first 64MB of 'GOPR0068.MP4'
WARNING: Assuming the location of 'mdat' atom is 0x0
'GOPR0068.h264' created, size 68 (0%)
'GOPR0068.aac' created, size 0 (0%)
 
Have a search for handbrake. There's a trial version that recovers 50% of a file, but can be tricked into doing the lot if you are inclined;) Used it to save some of my gopro stuff over the years.
 
Thanks for all your help. I ended up looking through with a HEX editor, and all the 'corrupt' files are simply blanks, and every script/application that claims to be able to repair a damaged video file is unable to do so. But not that surprising given that HEX is showing all 00's :( oh well :/
 
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