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

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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
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ITunes: Editting Meta data stuck / bad public atom

Hi All,
I've leopard with itunes 7.5 (fully uptodate)
I've some mp4 files (converted using QT pro) which play fine in QT, iTunes and my apple TV.
However, if I edit the meta data, to include TV show data, this works, but as soon as you click OK, the status box appears and says 'writing tags'
This doesn't go away. If you cancel this, the meta data appears to have been written.
However, whilst they will play in iTunes, these files WON'T play in my apple TV (sync'd) and produce an erro message in QT ro (Bad public atom)
I haven't tried writing the tags in QT (not sure if you can)
Any ideas? My movie list on Apple TV has grown exponetially recently

I'm having the same issue (under Tiger), except mine won't even play in iTunes or QT after the invalid public atom error. I was sure glad I had backups.
It doesn't happen to all files, though. Sometimes after clicking Cancel, it turns out the tags have been written and the file still plays OK (and shows up under TV Shows, which is my main aim in doing this to begin with). I haven't figured out if there's a pattern to which files are affected.
I read in another thread about looking at atoms with AtomicParsely, available here: <http://atomicparsley.sourceforge.net/>. Perhaps someone more tech-savvy than me can use that to figure out what's going on.

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

'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...
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Problem with Grouping Tag in iTunes

Hi,
I am trying to use getID3 to read the 'Grouping' tag from iTunes. It would seem that iTunes is writing these tags to my MP3 files, as, when I open them in Media Rage the Grouping Tag shows up OK. However, when I then upload the tracks to my server and use 'content_group_description' to read these tags (the getid3 code for the 'Grouping' tag, nothing shows up. If however, I change the Grouping Tag in Media Rage, and then re-upload, the Grouping Tag does show up.
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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

Writing Tags very slow

I have a itunes library on a external USB drive and if I alter the info of a song or movie a writing tag progress window opens and takes forever, blocking itunes in the process.
Is there a way of speeding this up.

I still have this issue as well (I posted a previous thread with about the same response you got here). I'm ripping my DVD collection to an external drive to play through my xBox360 and although I don't get 30 minutes, it's at least 10-15 minutes.
The goofy thing is once I change one attribute and after the beach ball goes away, I can change all other attributes instantly.
It's like the first time, iTunes goes through some "reindexing" process, then once it does that, it's fine. I can also see my drive thrashing the entire time this process runs.
I REALLY hope Apple addresses this sometime soon.

Writing Tags

I have been writing tags for my tv shows. Sometimes they show up in Apple tv and sometimes they don't. Is there a way to get them to always show up.
I have two series of the same show both starting with a W but they are not appearing alphabetically on my itunes. Is there a way round this one.
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I have been writing tags for my tv shows. Sometimes they show up in Apple tv and sometimes they don't. Is there a way to get them to always show up.
Newly added shows should show up immediately in the tv show list on the tv when viewed by date, peculiarly if the show is a show that you don't already have previous listings for, you will need to disconnect your library (choose another source) and reconnect to it before the show will show up under tv shows when listed by show and not date.
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Message was edited by: Winston Churchill

Invalid Public Movie Atom

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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.

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You can also export your journal to iTunes as a folder of files, which you can post on your own webserver.
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I have not reloaded the App from the App store!
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Has any one else run across this problem? I try to edit track information for any mp3 or mp4 by right clicking the title and using the Get Info tab. A popup window with the tabs SUMMARY INFO VIDEO SORTING OPTIONS LYRICS ARTWORK appears. I try editing one field, like adding my own album art, or changing or adding a composer or genre and iTunes takes upwards of 2 minutes "Writing tags ..." for each track. Has anyone experienced this problem? Is there a known work around? Is there a config file somewhere that I can do a batch edit?
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Writing Tags in iTunes Results in "Invalid Public Atom"

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