I Somehow Borked A MKV File - PC Crashed While Recording Paused, Video Unacessable.

[Armuta]

Log File: https://obsproject.com/logs/jY7cIM2Ifpk8ARpm (though this current session has nothing to do with the crash)

Hello! I recently stumbled my way into a little puzzle box with MKVs. I record all my footage (predominantly Capture Card game play) in MKV so I don't have to worry about crashes killing my videos. I ran into a problem though, I was recording a 12 hour session of gameplay with the actual recording being paused (but not stopped) intermittently. I paused the recording to grab something and the power in my home cycled, turning off my pc. This shutdown left the file in a weird flux state. Properties in windows file browser shows it's 290gb size and it does still show up as a mkv but when I try to open it it doesn't work. I'm assuming this is due to the fact it crashed/was cut off while it was paused, left in an unfinshed unsafe state. I've tried a few "MKV REPAIR" programs to no avail. Initially the file showed up as only a few kb but after moving to a different drive it showed as it's proper file size. I know all the footage is there, I'm just unable to access it. Has anyone else ran into this hyper specific issue and have advice? Or should I just give up on trying to recover this footage?

 

[koala]

You mkv file should be usable up to the point of interruption. The 290 GB should contain valid video data.
Remuxing this file would probably repair the missing graceful file closing. Keep in mind you need another 290 GB free space, because any remuxing or repairing will create a copy of the file.
If you're familiar with ffmpeg, use ffmpeg -i "<interrrupted mkv>" -c copy "fixed.mkv" for remuxing a damaged file.

 

[Armuta]

You mkv file should be usable up to the point of interruption. The 290 GB should contain valid video data.
Remuxing this file would probably repair the missing graceful file closing. Keep in mind you need another 290 GB free space, because any remuxing or repairing will create a copy of the file.
If you're familiar with ffmpeg, use ffmpeg -i "<interrrupted mkv>" -c copy "fixed.mkv" for remuxing a damaged file.

Thank You! I'm encountering errors with the remuxing but this is still a step further then I was before.

V:\Youtube\staged files> ffmpeg -i filename.mkv -c copy fixed.mkv
ffmpeg version git-2020-08-31-4a11a6f Copyright (c) 2000-2020 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 10.2.1 (GCC) 20200805
  configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-sdl2 --enable-fontconfig --enable-gnutls --enable-iconv --enable-libass --enable-libdav1d --enable-libbluray --enable-libfreetype --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-libshine --enable-libsnappy --enable-libsoxr --enable-libsrt --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvpx --enable-libwavpack --enable-libwebp --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxml2 --enable-libzimg --enable-lzma --enable-zlib --enable-gmp --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvmaf --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libmysofa --enable-libspeex --enable-libxvid --enable-libaom --enable-libgsm --enable-librav1e --enable-libsvtav1 --disable-w32threads --enable-libmfx --enable-ffnvcodec --enable-cuda-llvm --enable-cuvid --enable-d3d11va --enable-nvenc --enable-nvdec --enable-dxva2 --enable-avisynth --enable-libopenmpt --enable-amf
  libavutil      56. 58.100 / 56. 58.100
  libavcodec     58.101.101 / 58.101.101
  libavformat    58. 51.101 / 58. 51.101
  libavdevice    58. 11.101 / 58. 11.101
  libavfilter     7. 87.100 /  7. 87.100
  libswscale      5.  8.100 /  5.  8.100
  libswresample   3.  8.100 /  3.  8.100
  libpostproc    55.  8.100 / 55.  8.100
[matroska,webm @ 00000230ba7ed640] Format matroska,webm detected only with low score of 1, misdetection possible!
[matroska,webm @ 00000230ba7ed640] 0x00 at pos 0 (0x0) invalid as first byte of an EBML number
[matroska,webm @ 00000230ba7ed640] EBML header parsing failed
filename.mkv: Invalid data found when processing input

Any further advice?

 

[koala]

Sorry, no. You said there was power interruption, so the filesystem might have been damaged in addition, and this can affect files that are being written to.