Video stalls during rendering batch file. How can i recover it?

[Master Tape]

Been having this problem for a while now where i render a batch file with FFMpeg, but it can stall at any random point. I just left a file to render overnight and it only had a couple of minutes left to render, but it stopped. So now i have an unplayable MP4 4GB file.

How can i recover this file, so i can just render the last few minutes and splice append them together? As i really dont want to start from scratch again only for the same thing to happen. I really need to get a new CPU.

[videoAI]

few Questions ..

1 - have you tried more forgiving playback tools like VLC?
2 - Can MPC-BE play it?
3 - can Media Info be generated from it?
4 - Have you ran ffprobe on it? Any output?
5 - is the original file damaged towards the end? seek problems, etc ?
6 - what container is it in? Mkv, Mp4?
some containers handle file corruption better than others. [ex: Mkv, Mov]

Tip for future encoding [rendering]:
- Use a GUI, which can retry, skip, continue or close the already
rendered part with proper headers when failures occur.

[Master Tape]

VLC or MPC wont play it.

Media Info isn't generating anything besides this

General
Complete name                            : D:\Video.mp4
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media
Codec ID                                 : isom (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41)
File size                                : 3.72 GiB

Not sure how to use ffprobe.

No, the original file plays fine. It's a 1080i MP4. And is being rendered as an MP4 at 1080p.

Oh the GUI would be handy, and would have saved me alot of hassle before if i knew about it sooner. Thanks for that.

[videoAI]

As for the 4Gb file, don't bother trying to recover it.
IMHO, it is not worth the time and effort. just re-encode
the file ..

Try Clever FFmeg-GUI ..

Another free tip : use FFmpeg 8.x, it is faster ..

Oh the GUI would be handy, and would have saved me alot of hassle. Thanks for that.

[Master Tape]

I'll cut my losses then! Hopefully there'll be no more stalls with the GUI version.

Shame i can't choose libx264 from the drop down menu, it's what i usually use on my batch files. Would x264 (avc) give me the same quality?

Glad they've just released a faster version of FFmpeg, but will need to figure out how to install it, as can't see any installation file in the folder.

[jagabo]

In the future use the "-movflags faststart" option.

<EDIT>
Nevermind, doesn't work.

Use one of the MP4/MOV repair programs. They copy the MOOV atom from a similar good file onto the end of the bad one.
</EDIT>

[videoAI]

My replies ..

Shame i can't choose libx264 from the drop down menu, Would x264 (avc) give me the same quality?
x264 (avc) = libx264
but will need to figure out how to install it
I have a script for that ..
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/396490-clever-FFmpeg-GUI-small-FFmpeg-UI-fully-por...14#post2778514

[Master Tape]

It doesn't allow me to choose the output file, just MKV. Some videos i may upload to Youtube, and they recommend uploading in MP4. Does it matter if i keep them as MKV or would i have to remux them to MP4? For quality and compatibility?

Also when i'm rendering from an AVS file, it deletes the source file (my AVS) after it's done! How can i stop it from doing so?

[abolibibelot]

Not sure if that could help in a situation like this (and perhaps OP has got a new CPU by now) but... perhaps it would be possible to render to MPEG4-TS instead? Then in case of SNAFU partial TS encodes could be merged, then muxed (losslessly) into MP4.
Also, not sure what was intended by “batch file”, but if it involves some complex filtering (for instance denoising or deinterlacing), it may be wiser to first render as a lossless intermediate (or several that can then be stitched together with a simple Avisynth script as I did a looong time ago), then compress to H.264 (as doing it all at once may be too much for an underpowered computer).

It doesn't allow me to choose the output file, just MKV. Some videos i may upload to Youtube, and they recommend uploading in MP4. Does it matter if i keep them as MKV or would i have to remux them to MP4? For quality and compatibility?

Not sure what “it” was, but if it's not possible to replace “it” with something that allows to choose, I would guess that YouTube can handle MKV files with a single AVC stream and a single AAC stream just fine. MKV files can contain a lot more than that, including rare video and audio formats, multiple streams and whatnot, which may cause issues.

Also when i'm rendering from an AVS file, it deletes the source file (my AVS) after it's done! How can i stop it from doing so?

I still don't know what “it” is (perhaps I missed something), but anything that deletes files without being expressely asked to do so ought to be ditched without pity in my humble opinion.