How can I retrieve a video capture after Snagit 11 crashed?
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I keep losing 8 hour recordings. Can't deal with Snagit anymore.
Every time I try to save the video, 5 to 24 seconds of it gets saved and the rest is nowhere to be found. Really pisses me off.2 -
@Flow-Like-Water - I've found Snagit to be able to record and save videos considerably longer than 8 hours on occasion when I've gotten distracted by other matters and forgotten about the recording. I've recorded up to at least 14 hours with no problem, and simply edited the file after it was saved using video editing software, so Snagit is certainly capable of recording and saving files longer than 8 hours. .
I've also had Snagit become corrupted and unable to save files that were not even an hour or two long in the past. When this has occurred, I've simply used a program such as Revo Uninstaller, Absolute Uninstaller, Perfect Uninstaller, or IObit Uninstaller (my current favorite) to COMPLETELY REMOVE every trace of Snagit from the system, then rebooted to ensure nothing was remaining in memory or any dll's needed to be released, and then did a fresh install. Without fail this has ALWAYS restored Snagit back to it's full functionality and reliability, including the ability to save files of 8 hours or longer.
You may want to consider trying this yourself if Snagit seems to have become unstable and less reliable than it seemed to be in the past. If it works, you get back your ability to record longer videos, if it doesn't you haven't lost anything other than a bit of time for the exercise.
I'm still running an older version of Snagit on both an XP machine and on a Windows 7 64-bit platform, and can record well in excess of 8 hours on either. I also have a Windows 10 machine that it works just fine for longer recordings on as well. So far, I've only had to remove and reinstall it on the XP and Win 7 machines a couple of times over the course of I can't even tell you how many years, but if it ever starts misbehaving on the Win 10 machine, I'll do the same refresh procedure (which has proven to work even when the "repair" feature has not fixed problems the app was having) and have no doubt it will work just as well on that OS, as well.
Give it a try... you might be very pleased with the results... ;-)
All the best...!1 -
I will leave snagit it, after some years, as I see there are no progress in this bug... despite I like the program, and it helped me a lot from last years, in this month I lost 2 important sessions video record and now I am speding my time trying to recover it from a bug. 1 -
Hello Jack,
I'm very sorry to hear that this happened. Here are a couple of places that you could look to see if there are any leftover files from your video :
%appdata%\..\Local\TechSmith\SnagIt\DataStore
%appdata%\..\Local\Temp
Sort the files by timestamp and look at the latest large files.
If you are somewhat sure that you have a file that might be your video there are utilities out there that can recover MP4 video.
One that I have used successfully before is called ffmpeg.
Thanks,
Adam Marks
Developer, TechSmith1 -
Hello Kumar, coul you tell me please where you found an caputre after Snagit were crashed ? 1 -
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
How do I compile video when compile incomplete due to system crash?.
Every so often, my computer crashes while snagit 11.1 is in the middle of compiling a video. Obviously, the file still exists somewhere on my computer, and I should be able to have Snagit resume compiling it rather than losing the capture after I've rebooted the computer. I can't seem to find any instructions on how to locate the raw captured file though, or any information on how to get the Snagit Editor to compile a video from the raw video file.
Where is the raw video file located, and how do I tell the Snagit Editor to proceed to compile it into a usable video format...?
Thx... .0 -
Hi there,
My Snagit got crashed due to disconnect of mic and reconnecting. I found my file under %appdata%\..\Local\Temp with the name _snagtmp.mp4 but am not able to play it. Could you provide how to fix it?
Tjanks..0 -
There is only one way that I know of to salvage files that have not been properly closed by the applcation, and that is to convert them. You can even convert them to the same format as long as something is changed, like the framerate. By doing this, the new file is given new header and tail files, and once completed, the video will then play. I have done this a number of times over the years, and as far as I'm aware, is the only way to repair broken, incomplete, or improperly closed video files. Give it a try and let us know how it works for you.... ;-) 0 -
Hi Glenn
Can you please explain the process to convert the files? I am trying tried to use an online file converter, but I get an error - file can not be converted as it may be corrupt. I tried to rename it to a different format but still can't play it. Please help!
Thanks0 -
Yeah, I never use online video converters because they usually have file size limitations, and they often have problems doing a conversion from any files that do not have proper termination and good indexes already in place.
I only use the full licensed versions of desktop applications for video conversion, as they do not have file size limitations, and can rebuild file indexes as they perform their conversions.
As far as just renaming files to other formats - you can't simply change a file's extension to a different one, because the extension indicates the formatting (the "language") that the file is coded in, and is associated with the program that a video file needs to decode it in order to play properly. (There are only 2 exceptions I know to this basic rule, and they are not video files). So, you can't simply change a video file's extension to a different one. You need to actually convert the file to a new video format, so it is coded in the new formats language. Only when it is recoded by a video converter program will it be able to be played by the new formats video program that it is then associated with.
However, if a video file is not playing due to a bad index, the lack of termination, or has some slight corruption internally, it can often be saved by using a video converter program. If the corruption is massive, however, it may be beyond a video converters ability to salvage it, or what is salvaged may be too short to be usable, or end up simply being an unusable section of the video.
The interesting thing is, If it is able to be saved by using a video converter program, you can even "convert it" into the same format it's already in with some converters, as long as you give it a different name than the original if you're saving it into the same folder, or simply save the output to a different folder so there's no naming conflict.
There are two video converter programs that I have used to successfully save videos that were not terminated properly, had bad indexes, or had a minor amount of corruption where they would simply freeze at a certain point during playback -
1. AVS Video Converter
2. Wonderfox HD Video Converter Factory Pro
AVS Video Converter is the primary one I use, and usually handles pretty much anything I need it for. It also lets you easily edit videos as a part of the conversion process, as well.
I don't recall now just what AVS was having trouble with that caused me to look for another video conversion program, but whatever the reason was, Wonderfox took care of it. I don't like the interface of the Wonderfox program as much though, so aside from that time or two, I've always used the AVS Video Converter.
So, get your hands on either of those, and if your file can be saved, they'll do the trick for you.
Best of Luck...! ;-)0 -
Great....Thanks Glenn Sir....! 0 -
This happened to me too. When Snagit froze during the video capture I was able to press the shortcut key to end the video:
Shift + F10
and was relieved to be able to continue to save the video.
this is usseful to try, but sometimes it didnt stop snagit from freezing.0 -
As we normally consider SnagIt for "down and dirty" screencasts, I'm not surprised in the least to hear it would crash after recording for 8 hours straight.
I might consider that it's akin to trying to load 8 tons of material into the bed of a light pickup truck and wondering why the axles break. ;)0 -
I wasn't aware that it was meant for smaller videos. Does Camtasia crash like this as well? I'm not looking to edit, just record my screen. 0 -
Thank you very much Glenn.
I really appreciate you taking up as much time as you did to give me such a detailed answer.
I'm using Snagit 13.1.5 on Windows 10 myself.
I too have had problems with smaller videos crashing and longer videos working just fine and have actually reinstalled as well in the past which seemed to have worked but wasn't sure.
I will try a reinstall as you stated first.
Thank you, I really appreciate it.0 -
UPDATE:
Recently, I totally forgot I had started recording something and went to bed. When I went back to the computer the next day, I saw Snagit was running and pressed F9 to bring up the control screen to find it had recorded just over 21 hours. I said "why not...? Let's see what it is..." and pressed F10 to finish and saved it. Upon reviewing it, the file was just fine, although I only wanted a small piece at the beginning of it.
I used a video converter/editing program to quickly locate the part I wanted and saved that, and just deleted the original that Snagit had created. But 21 hours was no problem for Snagit to record at all, provided you have the space available.0 -
hello adam
thanks for your help. it worked0 -
Thanks alot Marks... It worked for me and you saved my huge time. 0 -
Hi Jack,
My case is different as I accidentally locked my laptop and forgot that Snagit is still recording. I tried the above but I cannot locate the recorded video. Is there any other way how to solve my issue?
thank you0 -
Solution that worked for me:
First I downloaded/installed ffmpeg, which seems to need to be run from the cmd line with lots of arguments. I couldn't figure out what cmd line to use, so I didn't figure out how to use ffmpeg.
However, I tried a different approach I found online and it worked: I downloaded a free program called 'untrunc' (which I found at https://github.com/ , I installed the Windows version), and it was very easy and it worked. It just asked to point to a normal/good/uncorrupted mp4, the broken mp4 (which was the _snagtmp.mp4 file referenced elsewhere in this thread), and I clicked repair and it just created a new file which was the fixed file, and it played normally.
Before trying any approach, I recommend copying the _snagtmp.mp4 file to a different folder to make sure you have it and don't lose it (e.g. if you run a different snagit capture).
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I need some help here...
I was capturing the funeral of my mom as I can't travel to my homecountry when my computer crashed. I retreived the file call _snagtmp.mp4 from the folder %appdata%\..\Local\Temp.
The file is about 5Gb and the timestamp is matching the time that my computer crashed.
I've bought the full version of AVS4You suggested by Mr. Glenn.
Now, when I'm trying to add the file I'm getting the message "The following errors occurred while opening files: _snagtmp.mp4 -File format error."
I've downloaded the free version of Wonderfox and I'm getting a similar message when trying to add it.
I had a look at the 'untrunc' but found it a bit tricky. I'm not sure where to download the windows version and the command given to install it from the git.. seems to be linux. I'm running on Windows 64bit.
What can I try now?
I'm desperate to be able to watch this video and be able to generate some snapshots. Thanks in Advance for your best advice.
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Hi j_fecteau,
Sorry to hear of your loss, and of the trouble you've encountered with your video as a result of your computer crash.
To begin with, let me just say that if neither AVS4You or WonderFox are able to open the file, that's an indication that the file has been too corrupted and, as you can see, unusable with those programs. (Remember I mentioned they can handle slight corruption, but not more than that).
Those programs can be used to edit videos that may have been improperly closed, that may have bad indexing, and simply need to be edited into smaller segments...but unfortunately, they can't repair files that are heavily corrupted and are unable to be opened.
So, they're kind of hit and miss as far as their ability to repair files, and can only handle slight imperfections within the encoding of the data. For more significant levels of corruption, you need a different type of program.
What you would need in this situation is a "video repair software" program, like Stellar Video Repair. These programs are used to repair and restore corrupt video files, which is something video editing programs aren't designed to do.
Try Stellar Video Repair, which seems to be the most highly rated program of this type. If that doesn't do the trick for you, don't worry, as I've had this kind of thing happen in the past myself... just do a search for "video repair software" to locate other video repair programs and look for ones that are specifically designed to repair corrupt video files.
That would be your best approach to remedy this situation, I believe...
Wishing you a successful recovery of your file...! ;-)
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Hello j_fecteau,
Sorry to hear about this. Here are some links to Untrunc for Windows, untrunc-w :
To download - https://github.com/SuslikV/untrunc-w/releasesDocumentation on how to use : https://github.com/SuslikV/untrunc-w
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I had the same problem today, but I fixed it using the method shared by Eduardo Briceño. First step is to salvage the file from temporary folder, after that just download the GUI for untrunc from https://github.com/anthwlock/untrunc When running the script you may have to check "skip unknown (-s)"
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Chuan,
I would love to know how you ran the Windows GUI version of untrunc. I downloaded this file untrunc-w32.7z and extracted it which gave me (4) .dll files and a untrunc-w.exe. When I double click the exe, a get a black screen that flashes an goes away.
I then tried moving these unzipped untruc files to the root of C: along with my broken 15mb "tempRecordingFile.mp4" file and then tried running C:\untrunc-w32>untrunc-w tempRecordingFile.mp4 from the command prompt and it said:
GOP count to build the interleaving mask: 1
GOP count to loop the interleaving mask: 1
Samples per chunk (0 - get it from the working file): 0
Reading working file: tempRecordingFile.mp4
(tempRecordingFile.mp4) file size= 14672764 bytes
Missing movie header box (mvhd)However, I never got the nice GUI box you show in your comment. How do I get that screen to pop and in your GUI it has an area for "Reference File" and "Truncated File". I have only one file which is "tempRecordingFile.mp4" and it needs to be repaired...which box do i stick it in and can I leave the other one blank then?
Appreciate any pointers.
Shawn
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Hi it-department, where did you download the file? I downloaded the file "untrunc_x64.zip" from here. I ran the GUI by double clicking "untrunc-gui.exe" as shown below.
The reference file is required to fix the recording, you can't leave it blank. For me, the reference file and broken file have to be from the exact same Snagit. I can't even use Snagit recording from another laptop as the reference file.
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Hello Chaun,
When I go to your download page I am only presented with this. I don't see anything to click on to download. Thoughts?
Thanks,
Shawn
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Haha try that triangle dropdown near Assets
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Chaun,
Duh? Thanks for bringing that to my attention. Okay, I have the gui downloaded and open. So for reference file...are you saying I just need to make a small recording on the same PC with same version of snagit and have it save successfully and then I point to that as a healthy version of what a good file looks like then I point the truncated file with my broken 15MB mp4 that crashed and won't open?
Thanks again,
Shawn0 -
Hey Chaun,
Can you help me with my last question then I think I might be able to fix it.
So for reference file...are you saying I just need to make a small recording on the same PC with same version of snagit and have it save successfully and then I point to that as a healthy version of what a good file looks like then I point the truncated file with my broken 15MB mp4 that crashed and won't open?
Thanks so much,
Shawn
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