Help Needed: No EBML Header found

[hulubulu]

Hello to everyone and a happy new year!

I hope anyone can help me with this problem.

I have a serious issue with some of my most important family holiday videos.
I converted them all to mkv format and now some of them are not working with the same error:
German: (MKVInfo) Es wurde kein EBML-Kopf gefunden.
English Translation: No EBML Header found

After converting them I checked them and all of them worked but now suddenly they stopped working.
I checked my backups and they are also not working with the same error.

I did many hours of research in the internet but couldn't find anything that can help me.
I tried all possible mkv tools, but none of them starts working, because it seems that the EBML Header is not there.

I'm really desperate about this and hope to get any help.

BR

[Grauhaar]

I converted them all to mkv format and now some of them are not working with the same error:
German: (MKVInfo) Es wurde kein EBML-Kopf gefunden.
English Translation: No EBML Header found

Never seen this error or have any trouble with it. EBML is the header with all describing informations of the MKV file.

What do you mean with "Converted them all to MKV"? With Makemkv? From which format? I assume that this is not an real DVD format (Family Video) and maybe this is not supported at all by MakeMKV. So what it the original format of the video? Many video formats can be read with "MKVToolNIX GUI" and the tool creates an mkv file from it.

[hulubulu]

Hi Grauhaar,

yes, I made mkv from a DVD with makemkv for backup purposes.

It is a normal DVD with a DVD menu etc.
For me it looked like a normal DVD so I'm not sure what you mean about the original format.

What is really strange is the fact, that after creating the mkv it worked. But now after some time I have this error on that files and I'm not able to repair it.

What I did some months ago is to copy this files from one HDD to another one. Is it possible, that the format was managed with this process? I think I copied it with rsync.

BR

[Grauhaar]

What is your viewing software?
Can you open the file in "MKVToolNIX GUI" (part of the MKVToolNIX package)?

Bad thinks can always happen during copy files from one volume to an other with special software which my be copy only parts of the file. Why not re-rip the DVD?

Edit:
If the MKV header is not there or defect, I think to tool can repair it. This is the description of the mkv file itself.

[hulubulu]

I try to open it with VLC.

MKVToolNix is able to open it, but when I try to multiplex it, it fails with the following error:
mkvmerge encountered broken or unparsable data in this AVC/h.264 video track. Either your file is damaged (which mkvmerge cannot cope with yet) or this is a bug in mkvmerge itself. The error message was:

Unfortunately that is all text, no error message in the output.

rsync is not that special I think and is widely used to copy or sync data in the linux world.

I'm currenlty re-ripping currenlty the DVDs, which I already have. But it seems that I don't have all of them.

I suppose there is a typo in your last sentence and you wanted to write 'I think no tool can repair it', is that correct?
That would be very sad.

I don't have many knowledge about ripping and mkv, but as mkv is described as a container format, isn't there a way to open the container and take out what is inside and get it back? - Possibly this is total nonsense, but I will try everything to get the films back.

Thanks for your help

[Grauhaar]

I suppose there is a typo in your last sentence and you wanted to write 'I think no tool can repair it', is that correct?
That would be very sad.

Yes, the "No" correct. If the description of the contens which holds the IDs, the number of bocks, the timestamps etc. are corrupt, how should this be done?

[hulubulu]

I have no idea. That was my initial question, if this could be fixed in any way.