mkvmerge gui is corrupting my mkv files when muxing

[david3]

It may be an issue when using any NTFS volume (internal or external) with mkvmerge, then.

It's been a few years since I switched my external drives to exFAT, so I couldn't say if the newer mkvmerge versions still have the bug.

[Sco]

could someone give me a quick rundown on how to use mkvalidator? When i open the EXE file, it just flashes a command prompt window. I just re-downloaded ~95% of the files i had ruined, so i'm going to try to fix them again, on my desktop(and put the drive in through a SATA port) and i REALLY dont want to find out the files messed up again... though i'll definitely be keeping the master files on their own drive just to be safe.

[david3]

mkvalidator is a command-line tool, so you need to run it from the command prompt. Just pass it the filename you want to check.

i.e.
mkvalidator Z:\videos\videofilename.mkv

There's also these options.

Options:
  --no-warn   only output errors, no warnings
  --live      only output errors/warnings relevant to live streams
  --details   show details for valid files
  --divx      assume the file is using DivX specific extensions
  --quiet     don't ouput progress and file info
  --version   show the version of mkvalidator
  --help      show this screen

[Sco]

Yeah, but when i click the application file, the screen just flashes. The command line window is only open for maybe 1/4 of a second. I tried running it as admin too... Same result.

[david3]

You don't click it, you open a command prompt and type the command in. You'll want to run it from wherever you have saved the mkvalidator.exe file, or move it to a directory that's included in your path.

[Sco]

when i put the command in my command prompt(which i open from the run window) it says its not a recognized internal or external command. Do i need to extract the mkvalidator to a specific folder(Its just on my desktop at the moment)

[david3]

Yes, you'll want to extract it to a folder of your choosing, and then run it from there.

[Sco]

I got the program to open, but when i try it, it gets hung up on files with spaces.
Unknown parameter 'location before the space'
Unknown parameter 'location after the space'

When i remove the spaces(just to test it out. No way id do this to the ~1000+ files i have to test) it says it cant open the file for reading.

[david3]

If the filename has spaces in it, you'll need to put quotes around the filename, like "filename with spaces.mkv"

If the files are in a different directory, you'll want to give it the full pathname, too, like "Z:\directory\filename with spaces.mkv"

[Sco]

Okay, i'm clearly not getting this...

my mkvalidator app is in my root directory for my E: drive(which now has all my re-acquired content)
My files are all in E:\remux\movies
One of the ones i want to test is called district 8.mkv

I open cmd.
i change directory to E:

on E drive i type out:
mkvalidator e:\remux\movies\"distrcit 8.mkv"
I then get:
Could not open file "remux\movies\"distrcit 8.mkv" for reading

am i missing something? If I just type "mkvalidator" in that directory, it gives me the copyright, options and help info.

[El Heggunte]

.........

mkvalidator e:\remux\movies\"distrcit 8.mkv"

Try this: mkvalidator "e:\remux\movies\distrcit 8.mkv"

[Sco]

Tried it.
got:
Could not open file "e:\remux\movies\distrcit 8.mkv" for reading

[david3]

Is it "district 8" instead of "distrcit 8" ?

mkvalidator "e:\remux\movies\district 8.mkv"

or does the file exist?

dir "e:\remux\movies\distrcit 8.mkv"

[Sco]

I got it to work, by dragging the file i wanted to test to the root of the drive, and keeping the command as simple as possible.
(That is, name the file a 1 word name, and keep everything at root level)

Thing is, this is totally impractical for a large scale thing(again, 1000+ files) so i think i'll just keep the master files on my backup drive...

[barmah]

I run Windows 7 and I have also had problems for many years with mkvmerge gui occasionally creating corrupt files. I copy the file(s) I am muxing to C:\Videos, and exit all other video programs such as Handbrake and Vidcoder before running mkvmerge. I then check each muxed file with mkvalidator.

Download mkvalidator-win32 from https://sourceforge.net/projects/matroska/files/mkvalidator/
Move mkvalidator.exe to C:\Windows (as an Administrator) or to any folder in your path.
Open Notepad and enter:

echo off
FOR %%f in (*.mkv) DO (
echo %%f
echo %%f >> log.txt
mkvalidator.exe --quiet "%%f" 2>> log.txt
echo ----- >> log.txt
)
echo on

Save this as mkvtest.bat then move it to C:\Windows (as an Administrator) or to any folder in your path.
Then hold Shift and right-click on the folder that contains the mkv file(s) you want to test.
Select "Open command window here"
In the command window type "mkvtest" (with no quotes) and press Enter.
Wait until mkvalidator finishes, then inspect the file log.txt in the mkv folder.

To test all mkv files in a folder *and* all its subfolders, in Notepad enter:

echo off
FOR /R %%f in (*.mkv) DO (
echo %%f
echo %%f >> log.txt
mkvalidator.exe --quiet "%%f" 2>> log.txt
echo ----- >> log.txt
)
echo on

Save this as mkvsub.bat then move it to C:\Windows (as an Administrator) or to any folder in your path.

Run mkvsub.bat as for mkvtest.bat

I hope this helps.

[rebus_x]

Hi. Sorry for bumping an old thread, but the matter of file corruption is serious enough for me. I had this problem too, and I highly suspect that Comodo products are to blame for this. I had Comodo Internet Security 10 installed; now that I have deleted it - the problem seems to be gone.

So I think that the corruption of MKVs occurs (randomly) when either the Comodo software checks on your files, or when you write to your drive and Comodo monitors the writing. I'm not an expert on how Comodo works, but some say it integrates itself into OS processes, so it wouldn't help if you'd just turn it off. If indeed Comodo software is to blame, then it probably takes some byte sequences in MKV files as some dangerous code.

Would be really nice if people told if they had Comodo software in their systems too, and tried and delete it and check if that helps.

[barmah]

rebus_x @ #46, I had mkv file integrity problems, and I use Norton and *not* Comodo. The problem was solved by running mkvmerge gui *only* on files on my C: drive (and then checking the integrity as described in my post #45, above).

[rebus_x]

rebus_x @ #46, I had mkv file integrity problems, and I use Norton and *not* Comodo. The problem was solved by running mkvmerge gui *only* on files on my C: drive (and then checking the integrity as described in my post #45, above).

Thanks for the reply.

Okey-dokey... It seems that at least the majority of people who posted here have/had windows 7 (and me too). Only thing to relate to then is this thread https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/13a7426e-1a5d-41b0-9e16-1943...al-ntfs-drives . But I can't yet say for certain if I have exactly those symptoms...

E.g., I copied 10 GB of data to the external drive to quickly compare the checksum and all was perfect, whilst it says in the thread that roughly 30% of files get damaged (files were >500Mb, as described). I also have a qBittorrent client that downloads stuff to that same drive, and, I presume, it uses hash check on the files downloaded. I do sometimes get an I/O error from it, but that's quite rare, and that error is well-known (maybe related, too, but who knows?).

And finally, I haven't got a one MKV corruption so far, after I got rid of Comodo software. So that's kinda confusing. And it's not that I don't have any AV in my system now, I installed MS Security Essentials instead.

[Anonymous84]

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[gareth41]

Sorry to bring back an old thread, but this is the first result in a Google search for this particular issue with mkvmerge. I am running this on Ubuntu Server which is virtualized on a Hyper-V host. No GUI, mkvmerge is being used in a script I wrote which muxes mp4 files after they have been decimated/encoded with ffmpeg. The Hyper-V host has never had any issues itself and has been in service since 2017, it is running other virtualized servers with completely different roles which have never had any issues, so the issue with mkvmerge is *not* faulty memory/ram. The file system on Ubuntu is obviously not NTFS so that's not the issue either.

I find that around 1 in every 4 files I pass through mkvmerge via my script are corrupt - usually towards the end of the file in the last 90%. VLC pixilates, stops/starts etc... avidemux simply thinks the end of the file is where the corrupt part starts and wont read any further when opening. Windows Media player simply throws errors saying there was a problem playing the file.

The OS i'm using is Ubuntu 18.04, with mkvmerge v19.0.0 ('Brave Captain') 64-bit.

I will be adding another condition to my script to run mkvalidator in a while loop, then remux again over and over until a clean mkv is detected.

[barmah]

I don't know if this helps, but I find that I get fewer corrupt mkv files if the original and "merged" files are on the C: hard drive (in Windows 10).

[ProWo]

I wrote a simple GUI for mkvalidator (for Windows only). It needs .net 4.8.
It works for any CPU.
You can download it here
https://files.videohelp.com/u/292773/mkvalidator-gui_120.7z
Enjoy

NB March 7, 2022 update to v1.2.0