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fix my .m4a corrupted file

Hello All,


I have been trying to fix a recorded interview from my iphone for the last 4 days without reaching anywhere. Send me an email to send you the file please (hicham.z<at>gmail<dot>com)...


please help...


Regards,

H


<Email Edited by Host>

iPhone 4, iOS 5.0.1, corrupted m4a file recorder iphone

Posted on Dec 9, 2011 2:30 AM

Reply
6 replies

Dec 9, 2011 4:44 AM in response to hichamza

I doubt you are going to be able to recover this file. I wasn't able to open it in Amadeus Pro, Audio Hijack Pro, iTunes, Toast, QuickTime X or Quicktime 7.


This problem has arisen before: David Nathan suggested 'Open your file in "Edit View" and click on open audio from video file (in Adobe Audition)' - I have no idea whether this is likely to work, and Adobe Audition probably isn't cheap.

Dec 9, 2011 4:44 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Well thanks for your response... I have tried all above + much more but nothing has happened. The solution is by fitching the recorded data (even partial) and deal with it in the RAW format. I personally don't know how to do it but there must be someone who can!


every format has a coding mechanism and if you know it you can rebuild the file again!

Dec 27, 2011 12:23 PM in response to hichamza

Hi there


I realise the original poster has since more than likely deleted the file but in case it is of use to them or anyone else, I am having the same issue with files being corrupted, only from recordings made using Radioshift. As Radioshift records to my hard drive, abet in a folder that is hidden by default, and the files were large, I was fairly certain the audio still had to exist in the file somewhere.


It appears I was right, based on what I've read online. It seems that the issue is caused by the file headers getting corrupted. The header of each file tells computer what file type it is; how long it is and so on. What one needs to do is replace the corrupt header with a good header from another file of the same type and possibly same length.


This can be done using a program known as a hex editor. This I am currently trying to figure out so I can't be more helpful than that. Other than to say I found the following discussion thread very helpful in pointing me in the right direction: http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=45156


Of course if your not technically minded and why should you be, then you may find this more difficult to look into. If it's really important though, I'm sure there might be companies out their who could recreate the header for you.


Kind regards

Dec 28, 2011 5:23 AM in response to infobleep

Many thanks for your valuable reply.

I have made teh following approaches without a possitive result:

  1. tried more than 30 applications starting from Adobe products to Sonic to the smallest scripts to fix or export/import the file... the message was always: file corrupted
  2. tried some file editors (including note and text editor) to copy part of the contents to another healthy (almost same size and recording length)... took the header once, footer, middle contents, inserted part of my file into the healthy one, nothing worked.
  3. held a $100 reward online for anyone who can fix it. 35 people responded with failur.

finally... I gave up 😟


thanks to everyone who participated in this. I think apple should look seriously into this mater debugging the root of the problem.


All regards, Hicham

Jan 3, 2012 8:17 PM in response to hichamza

Hi,

If you were runing iTunes in Windows and had System Restore turned on, and your iPhone was synced to the iTunes before the m4a file was corrupted, you may have a chance to restore the file.


In your iTunes, go to the playlist where your corrupted m4a file is located, right-click it and choose "Show in Windows Explorer". Then, right-click the hightlighted m4a file in Windows Explorer, and click "Restore previous versions" in the popuped context menu. A window will then popup and shows if there are previous versions available. If there are, choose the version that is before the date of corruption, and click "Restore" and then "OK".


Hope this may help. Good Luck.

fix my .m4a corrupted file

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