A slightly different "handbrake with out-of-sequence chapters" question

[Simon_Haddad]

Like many of you, I've ripped one of my DVDs only to find the resulting MKV's chapters are in the wrong order. Examining the disc using VLC or Handbrake reveals NO DECOY TITLES. As one should expect, there's only one long title (the movie) and a bunch of much shorter titles (special features, trailers, menus and such). If I just rip the DVD and play back the regular DVD file structure, everything's fine.

I've looked all over the place, and the only solutions are for discs with decoy titles. "Play back the disc in VLC, take note of the title being played back and rip that title in Handbrake" doesn't apply to this problem.

Has anyone encountered anything like this before? If so, what can I do about it? I don't want to just stop chaptering my movies.

[Baldrick]

Have you tried something like ChapterGrabber and use those chapters in the mkv? Same problem?

[Simon_Haddad]

Have you tried something like ChapterGrabber and use those chapters in the mkv? Same problem?

Solved!

I went a different way, Baldrick, after I downloaded ChapterGrabber and was told to get an API key, and to sign up for an account to get the key, and to logon using my real name, but only using Google or Facebook or a third thing.

Anyway, I investigated further, and found out the video played and skipped back and forth properly in VLC, but skipped through the chapters out of sequence in XBMC. I used mkvmerge GUI (from the mkvtoolnix package) to export the chapters to an xml file, re-import them, disable the embedded chapters, and save out the resulting mkv.

I got the same problem.

I then disabled the chapters completely, saved out the chapter-less file, opened it in a new instance of mkvmerge GUI, imported the xml file and saved out the resulting mkv.

This time, the video played properly and in order, but two of the chapter marks had disappeared completely (the ones which were jumping in without permission).

I then opened the xml file in Notepad++ and changed all of the UID numbers from random numbers to sequential, saved it out, and imported it into the chapter-less file and saved out the resulting mkv.

It works perfectly now, all of the chapters are there and in the right order on VLC and XBMC.

I don't know why it works, but it works.