Corrupted MP4 - Any suggestions?

[steve495]

I recorded a flight today that was about 10 minutes. Normally, I would not let the video record for such a long period of time, but I was just doing a distance test in an open area with cold conditions. (Made it 4,600 feet before I turned back when the connection got flakey.)

Anyway, the video file is 2.64 GB but I can not play the file. Tried with QuickTime Player (Mac) and it said the file was not compatible with QT Player
Tried with VLC Media Player. No joy and even though the file is 2.64 GB, the duration in VLC is reading as 00:00.
Tried with Handbrake. No joy there either - No valid source found.
I also tried opening with Windows Media Player on the Win10 side of my iMac using VMWare Fusion ... nope.

Any suggestions?

 

[WooZie]

if you did the record on the sd card, it is possible not to stoped the recording before to turn off the drone, if you did that, put the card in the drone, turn it on and let a few seconds to finish the record

 

[old man mavic]

did you stop the recording before you powered off the drone if not this could be the cause put it back in the drone and turn on the drone and then off and try it again in your computer

 

[old man mavic]

if you did the record on the sd card, it is possible not to stoped the recording before to turn off the drone, if you did that, put the card in the drone, turn it on and let a few seconds to finish the record

you beat me to it my friend

 

[steve495]

Yeah, so although I thought I stopped the file, it's certainly possible I shut down the drone prior to stopping the video. Likely.even.
That said, guess what stupid thing I did once I copied the file over to my desktop - I deleted the file on the SD card!

I tried to use a recovery program on the SD card (free trial) and it did not see the file so I could not recover it and try your suggestion.

It's not a disaster, just a lesson learned. I was absolutely freezing by the time I landed and started packing stuff up too fast. I bet when I caught the drone I immediately shut it down and started folding it up prior to stopping the video on my iPhone.

 

[WooZie]

you beat me to it my friend

i am sorry for that, but i am trying to be faster than you )) too bad that my english is poor, on this occasion maybe i will learn better

 

[sirbadger]

Yeah, so although I thought I stopped the file, it's certainly possible I shut down the drone prior to stopping the video. Likely.even.
That said, guess what stupid thing I did once I copied the file over to my desktop - I deleted the file on the SD card!

I tried to use a recovery program on the SD card (free trial) and it did not see the file so I could not recover it and try your suggestion.

It's not a disaster, just a lesson learned. I was absolutely freezing by the time I landed and started packing stuff up too fast. I bet when I caught the drone I immediately shut it down and started folding it up prior to stopping the video on my iPhone.

Why can't you just copy it back onto the SD card?

 

[steve495]

Why can't you just copy it back onto the SD card?

Tried that without any luck.

 

[Dave Maine]

The file that is recorded has the image data inside it, but the metadata is missing when drone power is lost before the file is completely written. When you stop recording, the software makes a number of calculations, and updates the drone video file with this file closing information. This is info needed for any software to open the file.

This is a known issue for all digital,cameras - Nikons, Canons, etc.Give the cameras. Few seconds to empty the recording buffer by writing it to disc, and update the metadata, and you will ever have a problem. All the camera manuals that I have read, including DJI clearly identify this issue,

 

[Michael Ainsworth]

I use Disk Drill. Ask long as you haven’t reformatted or copied over the card it may work. Has worked 90% for me.
Although as stated other data probably missing now.

 

[MWcz]

If you first time tried to recover the file directly on SD card (in your PC/notebook) and after that you return this card into Mavic, it is too bad.
I had the same problem. First time i have copied the MP4 into a computer, then i have tried the copied file to recover it. False.
But if I returned the card with original (no recovered) file into Mavic and want to go fly, then the corrupted file have repairs.

 

[netsonic]

@steve495 the key is not to panic and start some sort of software because you believe to know better. Just leave it untouched, put it in the drone power on and then back off and it's playable. It should be as simple as that, like you said, lesson learned.

Safe flights !

 

[AlbertJH]

There are possible reasons are listed below:

1. Corruption of header file resulting in QuickTime media player screen going black.
2. Corruption of the MOV slider.
3. Corruption of the MOV video-duration.
4. Corruption of the video movement (MOV blurredness).
5. Corruption of the sound (no sound, distortion).
6. Hardware problem with the source device (i.e. low battery of DSLR, Smartphone).
7. Erroneous transfer of the HD MOV videos.
8. Problem with the desktop’s media player (outdated media player version).
9. Inaccurate video file conversion (inaccurately converting the MOV to MP4 etc.).
10. Trojans, malware and viruses (unsafe MOV file storage on the hard drives).

I also can repair my file when Quicktime didn't play. I use Stellar Repair for Video software which can help me to fix my corrupt video files it also fix corrupt videos of file formats SD/HD videos files from Drone cameras, digital camera, memory cards including many DSLR . I hope this information help you!

 

[steve495]

Thank you all. This is not a big deal since it was only a test flight ... although a long one. Losing the video is no real loss at this point. Lesson learned.

 

[GaryDoug]

Here is where to go to get a free recovery program. Ross, the author, has just updated his pc program for the Mini in January and I can say it works perfectly. The file produced will be a h264 format and can be played with VLC. You can use another app to convert from h264 to mp4 like "ffmpeg <FFmpeg> -c copy"

Repairing Corrupt DJI Video Files

Just putting the file back into the mini will NOT fix it. The format is different for the Mini than other DJI products and has to be recovered.

I had the same problem and asked Ross to look at his app. Here is his response in December:

Gary,

Thanks for the note. It turns out that DJI changed the format of their video files for the Mavic Mini; I needed to update the “djifix” software to handle this new format.

I have now updated “djifix” (except for the Windows binary version; that will be delayed until early January) to handle this new format.