A few days ago I found a family mp4 video storing on my old pc from 2004, while wanting to watch its contents I ended up with a corrupt MP4. Cannot play it even in VLC or other video playback. So I investigated the problem and saw that there are tons of nice paid services or shareware out there to fix corrupted videos. But none convinced me and I was then convinced that there was better and therefore a solution to my problem..I first tried it with ffmpeg using the following command to make an (uncorrupted) copy of my corrupted video.
ffmpeg -i VideoCorrupted.mp4 -c copy Video.mp4
But all I got was the following error:
moov atom not found VideoCorrupted.mp4: Invalid data found when processing input
I didn’t know this stuff, so I looked for a definition.Moov Atom contains all the information about the video file read by video players. Video encoders often automatically move metadata at the beginning of video files to make them accessible on the web.https://www.ezs3.com/public/Checking_Metadata_or_Moov_Atom_Location.cfmIt is therefore the metadata that is not present but the video itself is there. Especially since my corrupted file weighs several giga, so it was sure, there is something in this MP4. It only remained to find how to access it.And I found !!! This is a software called Untrunc which can repair corrupt MP4, M4V, MOV and 3GP. So I will tell you how to fix corrupted video file.So first of all you have to know that untrunc is software for Linux. But that it is possible to run it in a Docker, and that’s what I’m going to explain to you today so that you will have a universal solution that will work on all OS capable of running Docker.See also Windows 11: open File Explorer on “This PC”And all in 3 small steps! Magic magic!
Step 1 – Download and install Docker
Go here and download Docker for your operating system. Then install it and launch it.
If you are on Ubuntu, here is the procedure:
sudo apt-get install curl apt-transport-https ca-certificates software-properties-common curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo apt-key add - sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable" sudo apt update sudo apt install docker-ce Et pour vérifier qu'il tourne : sudo systemctl status docker
Step 2 – Download and install the image
There are several untrunc images on the Docker repository and I chose the one from synctree because it is the most downloaded.
So to retrieve it, in a terminal or a command prompt, do:
docker pull synctree/untrunc
Step 3 – Start the repair
You should know that to repair the file, untrunc needs 2 videos. Your corrupted video of course, but also a perfectly readable reference video, produced with the same tool, under the same conditions, in order to be able to recompose the corrupted metadata.So still in the terminal, enter the following command:
docker run -v / directory / of / videos: / files -it synctree / untrunc /files/VideoOK.mp4 /files/VideoCorrupted.mp4
Remember to replace “/ directory / of / videos” by the path to your videos. “/ Files” is a kind of alias which will then point to “/ directory / of / videos”. This is why you will be able to indicate the path of your videos using the alias like this “/files/VideoOK.mp4”. I hope to be as clear as possible.Validate and let it run! You should see a lot of things like this scrolling:
It may take longer or shorter, but in the end, you will have a file like VideoCorrupted.mp4_fixed.mp4 which will be created and your video will be playable!See also Windows 11: turn off Bing search in the Start menuIt is possible that the sound is shifted, this is something that happens quite often. In this case, remember to readjust it with your favorite video editing software.
