mp4 files became useless after moving to another folder

[Umen Pich]

HI All,
sorry for posting this in "Editing" but I could not find a better subforum.
Here is the story in short:
- I encoded about 30 files (2-20Mb each) by Avidemux using x264, aac in a MP4 container, optimized for streaming.
They are cuts of the raw files from my camera.
- After each encoding I played the file in VLC to make sure my start and end points were properly chosen.
- All was good until I moved the files to a new subfolder of the original folder. The move was instant and without any errors.
- Now, if i play those files only 7 (in random order) are still OK - the rest cannot play. By "cannot" I mean the screen is black, there is no sound, the progress indicator moves as usual, VLC can show properties with Ctrl-J -- again all seems normal there - the framerate and the bitrates of the video and audio.
- If I open in MediaInfo - again everything looks normal there.
- With different players: KMPlayer - Black screen, no audio, no progress indicator, no error. MPC-BE - black screen, no sound, no error, after a second of "playing" turns into "paused" mode. Windows Media player shows this err: "Windows Media Player encountered a problem while playing the file."
-Avidemux opens them showing a black screen. If you hit the play button the screen turns green. No error message.

I spent 3 hours editing those before the disaster happened. I wanna cry! (And no, and don't have a cryptovirus, this same behaviour happened to me several times for the last few months but not as bad as today. Every time I check my disk with "chkdsk" and it finds nothing wrong. Also the S.M.A.R.T. parameters of the hdd are all good.
I am not 100% sure but I think this happens only when Avidemux was used (not with Handbrake) - but it does not make any sense - they all, without exception, played just fine before moving to another folder.


Investigating with a hex viewer also doesn't reveal any obvious damage (e.g. areas filled in with all the same bytes). Sent to a friend - VLC cannot play them there as well.


Friends, any ideas?

Any way to restore those files?


Thank you!

[jagabo]

Copy (not move) the files back up to the original folder. Do they play there?

[Umen Pich]

Copy (not move) the files back up to the original folder. Do they play there?

they don't.

[jagabo]

Stop using AviDemux? It's a very unreliable program.

[raffriff42]

this same behaviour happened to me several times for the last few months but not as bad as today.

This seems like a very unusual problem. I tried googling for "video file error after move" etc with no results. Have you ever heard of someone with a similar problem?

Guessing here, but is it possible Windows is busy indexing the files, generating thumbnails, building your WMP library etc? (if so, it should be done by now!)

[Umen Pich]

this same behaviour happened to me several times for the last few months but not as bad as today.

This seems like a very unusual problem. I tried googling for "video file error after move" etc with no results. Have you ever heard of someone with a similar problem?

Guessing here, but is it possible Windows is busy indexing the files, generating thumbnails, building your WMP library etc? (if so, it should be done by now!)

I have indexing off. I search only by TC.
Of course I googled myself before asking in the forum. Only useless answers like
- Get another player!
- Oh, man thank you so much, all works now...

[Budman1]

You might also try using AtomicParsley to display the format since they are MP4. Compare a non working one with a working one and see if it displays any errors or missing 'Atom' in each. It may be a little time consuming but not bad and the videos sound important to you.

It will display something like this: (~ is unknown atom)

C:\Users\Bud\Desktop>atomicparsley C:\Users\Bud\Desktop\[dp]Manjandani-1.mp4 -T
Atom ftyp @ 0 of size: 28, ends @ 28
Atom free @ 28 of size: 132, ends @ 160
Atom mdat @ 160 of size: 12502223, ends @ 12502383
Atom moov @ 12502383 of size: 85743, ends @ 12588126
Atom mvhd @ 12502391 of size: 108, ends @ 12502499
Atom iods @ 12502499 of size: 24, ends @ 12502523
Atom trak @ 12502523 of size: 58484, ends @ 12561007
Atom tkhd @ 12502531 of size: 92, ends @ 12502623
Atom mdia @ 12502623 of size: 58348, ends @ 12560971
Atom mdhd @ 12502631 of size: 32, ends @ 12502663
Atom hdlr @ 12502663 of size: 33, ends @ 12502696
Atom minf @ 12502696 of size: 58275, ends @ 12560971
Atom vmhd @ 12502704 of size: 20, ends @ 12502724
Atom dinf @ 12502724 of size: 36, ends @ 12502760
Atom dref @ 12502732 of size: 28, ends @ 12502760
Atom stbl @ 12502760 of size: 58211, ends @ 12560971
Atom stsd @ 12502768 of size: 218, ends @ 12502986
Atom avc1 @ 12502784 of size: 202, ends @ 12502986
Atom avcC @ 12502870 of size: 54, ends @ 12502924
Atom uuid=6b6840f2-5f24-4fc5-ba39-a51bcf0323f3 @ 12
502924 of size: 28, ends @ 12502952
Atom colr @ 12502952 of size: 18, ends @ 12502970
~

[poisondeathray]

also mp4box for info (lot of overlap with atomic parsley in terms of atoms, but it provides other info on tracks)

MP4Box -info -v INPUT.mp4

Also try remuxing / stream copy with ffmpeg or mp4box or mkvtoolnix into a new container

[Umen Pich]

remuxing with mp4box or mkvtools works without any errors but the result is as useless as the input files. Same behaviour. I havent tried the parsley yet, since I don't have it (never heard of it)

BTW, here is one of the problematic files:
https://app.box.com/s/vo8tscc9qedhtkw93i5vhiucta44nk1u

[jagabo]

Try: Remo Repair Mov (it works for MP4 too). You'll need the bad file and a good file that's similar.

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/384770-Newbie-Help-corrupt-mp4?highlight=mp4+repair#post2494479

But I doubt you're ever going to get anything out of those files. 3 hours isn't a lot of time. Just byte the bullet and encode them again. And stop using AviDemux.

[Keyser]

I also use Windows 7 64-bit and I wouldn't be the least surprised if it was Windows that messed up your files. Not trying to bore you, but let me just tell you what happened to me, not once, but twice already (and I hope it won't happen again).

I was deleting some folder from my D: partition using Shift-Delete (cause that's the way I like it. I hate Recycle Bin) and this wasn't a folder at root level, it was just some subfolder of some other folder. Windows asked me if I wanted to permanentely delete folder "X" and, naturally, I clicked Yes...

...and then magic happened. The ENTIRE contents of Drive D: disappeared before my eyes. Everithing! Drive properties reported 100% free space, 0 files/folders in drive. Just like a newly formated drive. And, as I said, it already happened to ne twice.

So, I know this won't help your case, but maybe it will make you better understand the kind of crap we have installed in our computers.

[Budman1]

Shift is a powerful additive function key but be very careful to go slow when you use it. Holding shift and double clicking something on your desktop will launch everything there as if you used it to select multiple icons which it is mainly used for. I assume delete may also be affected as you point out. Very vareful...very slow with it.

[Umen Pich]

I uploaded a file to this site http://mp4repair.org/pwt6/preview.html - a 11 seconds clip and after some analysis they showed me 2 frames of the video along with a few seconds of audio. The frames and the audio looked perfect. They ask $49 to repair the video. Ridiculous price for a 11 seconds clip. For all my damaged files the bill would easily go beyond $1K
At least from what I saw the file is repairable.