MP4 xtra atom remover

Summary


"MP4XtraAtomRemover" is a Windows Freeware that can be used to recover some corrupted MP4 video files. Such corruption may happen on Windows 7. It is due to the presence of a field called "Xtra Atom" that is added in the header of the MP4 file. When this problem happens, if you try playing the video, the progress bar will move but the screen remains black and there is no sound (whatever the reader that you use: VLC, Windows Media Player...etc).
This program will edit the header of the MP4 and remove the fields causing the problem. The video can then be seen again.

 

Presentation



All this story started when I recently found that some video of my baby were no more playing! All of them were MP4 video files recorded with my Android smartphone.

 

Strangely enough the problem happened only on some of them. That was a dramatic finding because some video contained some important moment of the first weeks of my baby! I couldn't imagine to lose them!

 

I'm an embedded programmer guy working on Settop Box development so I'm familiar with video standards. I decided to investigate the problem with the strong hope to find out how to recover my videos.

 

I first started by using a Freeware called "MediaInfo" to get information about the corrupted video. By comparing the ones that are working and the ones that are not working, I have found a difference. The corrupted ones have a field called "Xtra : WM/MediaClassPrimaryID"

 

 

 

 

 

The working and non-working video have been recorded with the same device so this difference was strange.

 

After some research on internet, I found that this "Xtra" information is indeed the root cause of the problem and that removing it would fix the issue.  On some forums, some people are saying that it is "wmpnetwk.exe" (Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service) that is writing and corrupting the files but I can't confirm.

 

In my case, I know that the problem happened when I was sorting my photos and videos: I was moving or renaming some files. I have noticed that a preview of the video was displayed on the File Icon but suddenly, after a file rename, it started to display the VLC icon. At that time, I didn't pay much attention to this. This is only later on that I noticed that all the video with the VLC logo where no more playing!

 

To fix the issue, it is necessary to parse the header of the MP4 file and to remove some fields. This is a bit tedious to do on each file so I wrote a program to do it. "MP4XtraAtomRemover" was born!

 

I have decided to publish this program and to make it available for free. I have had this problem on several files so it is likely that some other people will have it also and I will be very glad if this program can help you to recover your video! If you have some corrupted MP4 videos, try "MP4XtraAtomRemover" and see if it fixes your issue. The work is done on a copy so there is no risk to lose or damage further your video.

Please read our FAQ for more information.

 

I would be very happy to hear testimonies of people who have recovered some important video thanks to this program. You can click here to send me a message.

 

And if you like this program, if it helps you to recover some important video, you can make a secure donation through Paypal or Credit Card by clicking here.

 

how to use it?


The program is pretty easy to use:

 

Select the corrupted video file and press the "Clean File" button. A new file, suffixed with "_clean" will be generated. It contains the same video but without the "Xtra" field causing the issue.

 

 

 

The audio and video data are not changed at all, only the header of the MP4 file gets updated so, if the file after clean-up is playing fine during a few seconds, then it is likely that all the video is working.

 

Once again, the original source file is not modified so there is no risk to further corrupt it!

 

To be on the safe side, it is recommended to keep the original source files for some time before deleting them.

 

Donate


 And if you like this program, if it helps you to recover some important video, you can make a secure donation through Paypal or Credit Card by clicking here.

 

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