How can I repair corrupted 3GP audio files?

[Gale Andrews]

So MediaInfo does not get as far as to know what codec the file is using.

Actually, it does.

For the corrupt files it does not, which was the MediaInfo output I quoted.

I think you may probably be in the hands of the commercial repair vendors, though copying the data to a new container is bound to be one of their techniques too.

Have you tried this Android app https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... x&hl=en_GB or searched for any other Android apps there may be? Most of the repair utilities seem to be for video and audio, though, not audio only.


Gale

[Alonshow]

It worked! Just for the voice recorder, though. It looks like for the time being the app only works with the AAC codec, which is the one that my voice recorder uses.

In case someone else wants to use this solution, there's a caveat: The app doesn't detect files with a 3gp extension. The solution is simply to change the extension to mp4.

Thank you so much, Gale. It's a shame this forum doesn't use a kudos system, I'd give you a lot

Any ideas about what to do with the AMR file?

[Gale Andrews]

Any ideas about what to do with the AMR file?

Use a search engine, for example https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=repair+AMR+file.

Obviously, exercise caution. In my experience easy solutions offered in YouTube videos with a link to a download are often scams or virus traps. Stick to downloading apps from the app manufacturer's site.


Gale

[Alonshow]

Use a search engine, for example https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=repair+AMR+file.

I spent hours googling for a solution before posting here. Here's a quick summary of the links returned by that particular query:

• Link 1: Offers two tools that sound like they could be useful: AMR Repair and AMR Recovery. Weirdly enough, the installer for both tools installs a program called Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery, which, even more weirdly, turns out to be a recovery tool for corrupted storage drives. Looks great, but doesn’t repair audio files.
• Links 2 and 4: Advertise amrrepair.com, a website that is not even online.
• Link 3: Advertises the same program that I downloaded from link 1.
• Link 5: Temporarily offline.
• Link 6: Tool for novice users who don’t know how to play an audio file.
• Link 7: A guy asking for help with the same problem I have. He didn’t get any, unfortunately.
Etc.

[Gale Andrews]

This is not an Audacity problem, and we have already gone beyond call of duty helping you in your quest.

I did not investigate the links in the search query I gave and it is not our job to do so.

Feel free to let us know if you find a solution.

Gale

[steve]

One last shot - it "may" be possible to persuade "EaseUS data recovery" to recover some of the AMR data. Definitely no guaranteed of success, but perhaps worth a shot.
This is their web address: http://www.easeus.com/storage-media-rec ... -card.html
I can't help with that software as I've not used it for many years and it has probably changed a lot since then (and I'm not on Windows )
Also I've not checked if the free version supports AMR recovery.

[Alonshow]

it "may" be possible to persuade "EaseUS data recovery" to recover some of the AMR data.

I sent them a mail and I was quite surprised by their answer: Sorry that we don't have a tool to fix audio files, Data Recovery Wizard can only recover the lost files. The last paragraph in this page seems to mean the opposite. I've sent them another mail asking for a clarification.

[Alonshow]

Since it looks really hard to repair the AMR files I checked again the online service I mentioned before. I was ready to pay 30 bucks to fix the file that I'm currently more interested in. Unfortunately, it turns out that they charge a lot more to repair this file: 90 bucks! I find that price unfair.

The website is mp4repair.org. I have looked for cheaper options, but I haven't found any. Do you know a cheaper alternative?

[Gale Andrews]

mp4repair.org don't seem to claim support for AMR, unless you found something to say they do.

http://grauonline.de/cms2/?page_id=5 don't claim to repair AMR either but they are cheaper and there are alleged ways to make the software repair the entire file for free (I won't say what those ways are here).


Gale

[Alonshow]

http://grauonline.de/cms2/?page_id=5 don't claim to repair AMR either but they are cheaper.

I tried their program, but it doesn't repair my files. I sent them a mail asking for help, but they didn't answer.