Invalid movie atom!!!

Have been reading the posts on this subject but there doesn't seem to be any solution. Can't play certain QT files since I upgraded to quicktime 7.3.

This happened to me too. I added some Ren-Stimpy vids, which I ripped, to iTunes. I then typed in some info about season etc.. iTunes was then doing some sort of indexing of the movie files after I added the info to the files. This process was making my HD work quite hard (it was actually changing something with the entire movie file) and it seemed to take a very long time and I cancelled it. Now the movie files are unusable by anything, including VLC and MPEGStreamclip.
When I added the movie files to iTunes it did not copy them to the iTunes directory.
How can iTunes just destroy movie files??? After I made the info changes to the files the indexing began without asking me. So, iTunes will just willy-nilly change the original files (if they aren't copied to the iTunes library) and potentially destroy them. Thanks, Apple. That's some great software.
Does anyone know of a way to recover from the atom error?
Mace

Similar Messages

'An invalid public movie atom was found in the movie' Error Message

I was just tidying up all the music in iTunes and came across an album that half the songs are unplayable... I get no action with iTunes. I tried opening one of them with Quicktime and I get the following message:
An invalid public movie atom was found in the movie
I wonder if there might be a fix. I have the original CD at home but I am traveling and won't be back for a few months...
Thanks!

I tried to play video clips on from lynda.com and the Q appears but only the audio plays.I am new to Mac and have no idea what to do. The same clips play on my windows pc just fine and that is version 7.3.

QT "invalid public movie atom" problem - iPod Classic

I encountered a strange "invalid public movie atom" problem relating to my brand new iPod classic (80GB):
I used QTpro 7.4.1(14) to convert several movie/avi files for iPod (the standard procedure via the offered converting methods).
After copying them to the iPod via iTunes, they showed flawlessly on the iPod and i was also able to watch them on my TV.
Then i converted another file, copied it to iPod and tried to start the video, the result was a fuzzy green screen (like some encountered it with the album art) and the the iPod crashed (restarting automatically with the grey apple-logo screen).
I did this a second time, it crashed, and after restarting again, i tried it with one of the videos that worked fine before. One of them then caused the same problem, green fuzzy screen, restarting automatically!
When i tried to open these two files mentioned with QT from the movies folder in my iTunes library, i got the "invalid public movie atom" message and, well, the videos don´t play anymore. (keep in mind, they played before!)
Important: i did a clean install about two weeks ago, installing all updates (OSX, QT, iPod, etc.) before doing anything else. The first videos im talking about are older, but worked well after the cleaninstall/update procedure was done. Since then nothing was changed and now suddenly the problem appears?!
Some thoughts: i read here in other posts that A the iPod sometimes crashes because of that "album art problem", but that doesn´t have anything to do with video?! B since it worked before (the last days since i did the clean install) the bug , or whatever it is, "appeared" based on another issue?
Thx :-/
Hardware/Software involved: PowerMag G5 dual 2GHz., iPod Classic 80GB, OSX 10.5.2, QT 7.4.1(14), iTunes 7.6.1(9), iPod 1.1.1
I also posted this in the QT for Mac OS section:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1442446&tstart=0

There is a little piece of code that tells iTunes which movies can be played on iPod. It is called the iPod Atom. If you have a movie that is fully compatible with iPod BUT doesn't have this atom, it just won't sync regardless the movie can actually be played by the iPod. I have been having trouble with these little bastards myself...
My guess on your problem is that the converted movies weren't 100% compatible with your iPod but they had the atom so they synced. Some AVI movies plays partially on QT.
May I suggest that you instal Perian which adds a lot of codec handlers to Quicktime and try to re-encode some of them.
On my side, I have been trying to find how to insert the aforementioned iPod Atom on movies that have already been encoded so I don't have to re-encode them again... But that's my personal quest. Good Luck!
Alec
Costa Rica

Invalid public movie atom with digital camera videos?

I've shot videos with my digital camera, uploaded through iPhoto and edited on iMovie HD before
but a couple weeks ago I have not been able to upload on IPhoto:
Open on Quicktime:
Or edit on iMovie HD:
My least concern right now is being able to watch these videos because I can view them on the VLC player.
I urgently need to edit them on iMovie HD for class projects and want to know why this "Invalid public movie atom" came out from nowhere.
Can it be fixed? I am desperate for help with some videos I shot today in class because I need to edit them for Tuesday
Thank you!

I'm afraid I can't be of much help, except to tell you what the error means...
It means that at a very low level, something is messed up in your movie.
A QuickTime movie is made up of a heirarchy of containers, called "atoms". Atoms come in two varieties: atoms may contain other atoms, or they may contain data. The first four bytes of the atom give tthe length of the atom in bytes, the next four give the name of the atom, and the rest of the bytes are the data carried by that atom: either raw data or more atoms. The error is telling you that the structure of the movie is wrong, that the actual file does not match its description.
If you are truly lucky, then the problem is an invalid length specification for the top level "moov" atom. Normally, the first four bytes of a QuickTime movie give the length of the moov atom, which is equal to the total length of the file. Try making a copy of the movie and opening the copy with a hex editor. If the first four bytes are not the same as the length of the file, try fixing them and see if that repairs the movie. If not, then the problem is deeper and/or more complicated.
WARNING: Perform surgery ONLY on COPIES of your movies!
--Dave Althoff, Jr.

'Invalid Public Movie Atom' after moved movies across HDD's

hi all.
im kind of freaking out because i have just lost over 1TB of movies when purchasing a new usb HDD.
now all i did was copy the movies from 1 USB hdd to another USB hdd and now they won't work, i get the error 'Invalid Public Movie Atom' or 'this is not a movie file'.
They are all .mp4
i tried dropping one of them into visualhub and it came up with an error.
is there a way to recover or fix all my movies.
edit: one of the movies happens to work. i have moved my data to a WD MyBook mirror edition, its status currently is RAID 0 +HFS, the moveis were on a MyBook 1TB formatted MacOS Extended (journaled)
Message was edited by: j4y Gr4y

Hi,
I suggest to start looking at this:
http://aeroquartet.com/movierepair/container%20structure%20correction.html
http://aeroquartet.com/movierepair/missing%20resource%20fork.html
'I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.'
Regards, BJ

Invalid Public Movie Atom????? HELP!

I get this message for a home movie from my video camera.
"An invalid public movie atom was found in the movie" .... It was my absolute favorite movie and now it just doesn't work! Can anyone help?!?!

I'm afraid I can't be of much help, except to tell you what the error means...
It means that at a very low level, something is messed up in your movie.
A QuickTime movie is made up of a heirarchy of containers, called "atoms". Atoms come in two varieties: atoms may contain other atoms, or they may contain data. The first four bytes of the atom give tthe length of the atom in bytes, the next four give the name of the atom, and the rest of the bytes are the data carried by that atom: either raw data or more atoms. The error is telling you that the structure of the movie is wrong, that the actual file does not match its description.
If you are truly lucky, then the problem is an invalid length specification for the top level "moov" atom. Normally, the first four bytes of a QuickTime movie give the length of the moov atom, which is equal to the total length of the file. Try making a copy of the movie and opening the copy with a hex editor. If the first four bytes are not the same as the length of the file, try fixing them and see if that repairs the movie. If not, then the problem is deeper and/or more complicated.
WARNING: Perform surgery ONLY on COPIES of your movies!
--Dave Althoff, Jr.

An invalid public movie atom

HEEELP,
Is Apple letting me/us down.
I have terrabites of original QT files captured from camera that are all getting the massag:'An invalid public movie atom'
I discovered this when I had to re-edit a project I made a year ago. I constantly got the message :General Error' when rendering.
After hours of trying to find the bug I discovered that all my original media is corrupted and giving the massage:' An invalid public movie atom'
when I tried to open them with QT.
What to do????
André

We're talking native HDV streams here, correct?
If you can't find an appication that can decompress (or play) the source footage with your current setup, you're going to have to restore your system (or use a friend's system, if available) to the same software set up as when you were last able to open the files. For example, you might need to go back Mac OS X 10.6.8, QuickTime 7.6.6, Final Cut Pro 7.0.3 or further back to Mac OS X 10.5.11, QuickTime 6.x, Final Cut Pro 6.0.5, etc. Then, convert your HDV source to the Apple Intermediate Codec using Media Manager or Compressor. You could also use ApplePro Res422, but AIC is the codec that Apple implemented specifically for HDV footage.
Also, before committing too much time to this, convert one clip 1st and then test it. Although, any AIC or APR clips should be good to go in any recent version of Final Cut Express or Final Cut Pro (X included).
Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for a simple software change (like QuickTime 5 to QuickTime 6) to reak havock on your workflow.
One way to protect against this is to always have a bootable backup of your startup disk. Make sure that your "working" system is currently backed up and then run and/or install a software update. If things go all "atom" on you, you can restore your bootable backup and/or boot directly from it.
-Warren

Invalid public movie atom was found in movie

Mostly all my HDV files tonight I can't edit in FCP. Now what. Yesterday fine today I am screwd.
Apple you need to fix this problem.
What if any is the solution to this problem..
Clients can't wait for there work..

I had a similar issue with ProRes 4444 files in FCP. After poking around Creative Cow's forum and reading some other posts here, the problem may be with iTunes 10.5 or Security Update 2011-006 - one or both of these is causing random Quicktime files to return the "invalid public movie atom" error. I was in the middle of editing a film on FCP, took a two week break, came back to this error. I did a reformat and reinstall of Snow Leopard, reinstalled FCP, and it worked. The Quicktimes open and play down without a problem. I would avoid upgrading to iTunes 10.5 and the Security Update for the time being. Hope this helps, and here's another discussion on the same issue:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3273077?start=0&tstart=0

Invalid Public Movie Atom

Certain proxies will not playback on Mac or Windows clients and throw an error "The movie could not be opened - An invalid public movie atom was found in the movie". These proxies are mixed in with good proxies created at the same time, same path, same codec from nightly scans.
If we Analyze the same clip again, the proxy is recreated and is then playable without error.
Love to troubleshoot but not sure where to begin. Any ideas what the "atom" error refers to? Thanks.

This is a bug associated with QT 7.3; it's been cropping up with various video files and Apple so far hasn't responded with a fix.
Unfortunately in your situation there isn't any workaround other than outputting a file in another format - assuming iTunes/ATV will accept it.
I suggest calling Apple tech support and put in a trouble ticket; this "invalid public movie atom" issue is widespread and you're not alone but we need Apple to get cracking on a fix.

An invalid public atom was found. *** is an invalid public atom?

While trying to export a movie, at the end of exporting, i get the message...an invalid public atom was found...
That kills the export job i just spent 2.5 hours waiting on (all HD video files, big export job)
Does anyone know what an invalid public atom is and how to deal with them, get rid of them, get around them...or otherwise stop them from killing my exports?

I'm having the same problem. It must because of a recent QuickTime update. I suspect the iTunes 10.5 update is the culprit. I shoot with a FireStore (FS-C) and have 5 Macs that can no longer read any of the .mov files. All the Macs (MacBook,Pro 8,3 / MacBookPro 8,2 / MacBookPro 5,2 / MacBookPro 2,2 / MacMini 4,1) are running 10.6.8 and all were capable of reading the FireStore files...until very recently. The last footage I edited was on October 9th. Somewhere between then and today (October 25th), an Apple update made the .mov files unopenable. When I try to play the files in Final Cut Pro (7.0.3), I get a "General Error" message.
I've installed VLC and the files will all play properly in the VLC player, so the files themselves are intact.
UPDATE: Yes, the problem stems from a recent QuickTime update. This has been confirmed in the following support notice from VITEC:
http://www.focusinfo.com/dynassets/documents/downloads/MACOSX_Supp_Anncmt_10.21. 11.pdf
I'm going to try downgrading my installed QuickTime and I'll post the results.
MattLTH

Writing Tags in iTunes Results in "Invalid Public Atom"

I've been using QT to export some TV shows to my iTunes library and in turn to my iPhone. I'm using the QT "export to iPhone" setting.
Anyway, they play fine after I add them to iTunes and also play fine on my iPhone. The problem starts when I try to change the info for the shows. Changing them from "Movie" to "TV show" and adding the Episode and Season. More and more lately that process has pretty much locked up while "writing new tags" and I've had to force quit iTunes. After that the movies will no longer open and get the "Invalid Public Atom" error.
Anyone have any ideas? It's weird as sometimes that "writing new tags" process is nearly instantaneous, but I know that if it's taking too long it will result in a newly corrupted movie.

I can confirm this. In experimenting with copying some of my video files into iTunes, 3 out of 6 files were corrupted. The first two I canceled after the "writing tags..." was taking over 5 minutes and resulted in the public atom being corrupted. The third finished after a couple minutes but resulted in a file that previously played fine in Quicktime now heavily corrupted in both iTunes and QT- pixization, frames being merged, long "green" patches as if iframes were randomly removed. I had imported the files into my library and was setting Genre tags when this occurred, both in the library itself and via the "get info" interface. I'm surprised to find that iTunes maintains file information actually in the file, which clearly runs the risk of corrupting the file each time metadata is changed and an aspect of the file, I assume the header, is rewritten. Lucky I believe in backups.
Some information about my configuration: Files are not copied locally but are on a nfs mount of a linux dataserver. All files are H.264 mpeg4 encodes and a mixture of Handbrake backups and encodes via Compressor. All the files are over 1G but under 3G. Based just on this data, there is not a pattern in the failures. iTunes 8.0.2(20), Leopard 10.5.6, Macbook Pro2,2

Movie atoms

Wow - I never had this error msg before: Tried to play a movie that I converted myself, and ATV refused to play it. QT player gave me the msg: "Movie couldn't be played - it contains an invalid public movie atom" (my translation from German).
Any idea what that means? Anything radioactive coming out of my Mac??

i am also curious about this issue...
i have a nikon coolpix L10 stills cam witha movie function stored as .mov
yet its flakey... image stalls when played in QT or VLC and is un-editable in QTpro or able to be imported into iMovie either
-2002 error
or public atom error msg...
i have tryed so many little things including refering to Nikon the issue who palmed me to Apple see below
"""Dear Anthony,
Thank you for contacting Nikon Asia Technical Support. Your case has been forwarded to us.
We will assist you from here.
You should contact Apple for information on their file format.
Nikon use the .MOV file toi shoot movies however du to the file being an Apple product they need to support it.
Sorry for the palm off but we do not have any data on their file format and they require all customers to deal with them.
Thank you once again for your support on Nikon Products. We hope that we have addressed your concerns.
Please feel free to contact us for more information.
With regards,
Nikon Technical Support Agent
Customer (anthony magen) 04/11/2007 06.13 PM
gday
i have a intel 10.4.10 macbook and i have L10 nikon camera and the .mov files from my camera a playing ok in quicktime 7.1.3pro
BUT
i need to edit them and i cannot import them into iMove ___error__.
i cannot export them or do very much to them ie alter import/export ...in quicktime without getting -2002 error (bad public movie atom)
i may have used the nikon software (image capture 3.0.3)to tranfer from my SDcard to computer but in some instances i would have dragged them across.
i am really frustrated that i cannot edit my own videos .mov in quicktime (at all)! is this a common issue. any suggestions on remedies?"""
so my work arounds are thinning to zero now and any additional ideas are super

Can't add movie file / bad movie atom error

Hello,
I'm having a very strange problem. I just started within the last few days trying to organize an Itunes movie database so that I could see all of my movies streamed over my Apple TV. Most of the movie files I have been able to add with no issue, aside from the fact that they always initially get added to the "Home Movies" folder and then I have to move them into the other movie category. So then I come to one of my files which is a rip of one of my BluRay movies. It is in MP4 format, so that should be no issue. I was initially able to add the movie, and it did appear in the Itunes Home Movies section. But I didn't like the way the file was named, and I wanted to add the poster art. I right clicked and went to change what I wanted, the first being the name of the movie. Well prior to me changing the name of the movie, I had the tab option where you could add the movie art. As soon as I changed the file name, that tab went away. Well, I figured maybe I should delete the movie out of the Itunes database and try to re-add it.
Well from this point it's been downhill. Every time I try to add the file back in, it won't appear in Itunes. I then tried playing the file in VLC player, and the file appears to open, and the ticker is moving along, but there is no video or sound. Now this file played just fine before I tried to move it to Itunes. I then tried playing it via Quicktime and I get some weird -2002 bad movie atom error. What the heck is going on! I have searched the net on this error, and the fixes seem to be all over the place, and none of them have worked for me. One thread talked about the tags somehow being changed, but I cannot figure out what tags people are talking about or how to fix this. If anyone has a solution to this I would greatly appreciate that. thanks.

It is against the rules of the forum to discuss extracting from film blu rays. Blu rays used for data storage fine.
I am sure there are plenty of sites out there that can advise on the correct steps to take here.

Error -2002: a bad public movie atom was found in the movie

I have a Nikon Coolpix L10 (about 2 years old) that records video in the .mov format.
Most of the time when I play the videos on my computer I used to get a bad flicker and the video would often freeze. When I used a video editing program I found that for every two frames of video there was a black frame.
So I thought maybe Quicktime wasn't 100% compatible with the file type or version. So after some deliberation I got Quicktime Pro and I have the newest version 7.6.5. The flicker is gone but the video still freezes.
So I tried exporting to MP4 or AVI or anything and I keep getting
"Error -2002: a bad public movie atom was found in the movie"
It wont allow me to export the video to a different format.
Sometimes when I cancel the export Windows pops up a screen that it's searching for a reason that the Export Controller stopped working.

Thank you very much for the help. I tried copying and pasting the video file that is a .mov file to my zip drive and then I tried to an .avi file. The reason for doing this is so I can edit it with microsofts windows movie maker. After I had it on the zip drive and tried to export it so I could change the file it still defaults to the error 2002 message saying there is a bad public movie atom. I have done a bunch (5) other movies from the camera and they all worked and then the last one would not. So I assume there is a random factor that happens such as file size or something in the recording that causes the random atom attack. Maybe the difference is not being a mp4. It would be great if there was a definitiion of what bad public atom was and what it meant. Computers and technology is great.
I did another search and found that a person commented on zipping the file. Well I tried to zip it from the external drive I have to my desktop and it would not work. Then I ziped the file again. Saved to a external drive then unziped it to the same external drive. From that file I then did the file export and it went fine. So the moral of the story is if the video you took is important keep searching and trying and thanks for everyones help. Why is it the vendor of the product does not post solutions? Anyway now I can go on making movies and editing them. It must be a file corruption issue so that by moving the 1's and 0's around it fixes it's self. Is it a bug with the camera recording or is a bug with quick time?

Bad public movie atom

I have a couple of clients trying to use FCS client at home over our secure company network with very limited success. Mostly they receive constant "caching" messages. I am telling them that I cant guarantee them they can do this at home but one of them received the message "bad public movie atom was found". Can anyone help with the diagnosis of this problem?

Over what protocol are you allow the remote users to hit Final Cut Server?
Also, what ports are available from the remote users systems to the server running FCS? At minimum, 8821 and 8826 need to be open for the client to work properly.
- James Heliker

Invalid movie atom!!!

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