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theredheadhenry
Known Participant
July 4, 2020
Question

Really old AE file Corrupted. Can I Recover?

  • July 4, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 955 views

Hello!

 

I have a very old After Effects file from 2009. It was made with version CS3 I believe. This file was lost on my old laptop (Windows XP) after a system restore years ago. Using a recovery tool (that I used today), I found the file. It currently reads as 24MB, last modified 9/23/2009.

 

When I go to open this file in CC 2018 or CS5 (on a completely different machine) I am presented with the error messasge:

After Effects warning: Unable to import file "PATH" as project (bad format ot not readable)

I've tried everything I can think of to open this file. Below is what I have tried:

  • Made a new project, and tried importing it [Failed]
  • Tried opening it in Premiere [Failed]
  • Tried renaming the file/copying the file [Failed]
  • Tried extracting the data from the file using 7-zip [Failed]
  • Tried moving it to a different drive [Failed]

 

Keep in mind I am trying to open this 10 year old file on a completely new computer/OS (Windows 10). Do we have ANY WAY to somehow extract the data or open the file? I read a rumor that over the years an Adobe Tech person can somehow, take the file and use some sort of magic to allow the file to be opened again. Is this fairytale true? Is all hope lost? Should I give up on trying to recover this file?

 

Thanks in advance for any help/comments you can share.

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

T
theredheadhenryAuthor
Known Participant
February 9, 2022

Hello, I'm posting in this thread again because I'm wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction to try and get some help with this issue. If someone knows of a software that can fix my problem, or a specific website/person I may be able to reach out too, I would greatly apprecaite it.

Thanks!

Mylenium
Mylenium
Legend
July 4, 2020

It would probably be most efficient to provide the file somewhere for download so people can have a look and try to import it on their own machines. Sometimes weird combinations of settings can make it work. If its headers or data streams are genuinely damaged, chances are slim, though. AE has no clearcut way to reconstruct the binary code due to the complex dependencies and historically messy format, so patching up a few bytes might not fix anything.

 

Mylenium

T
theredheadhenryAuthor
Known Participant
July 4, 2020

I have the file uploaded below. In all honesty I don't think it's possible to recover this file. Did a lot of googling and it seems like this may be a lost cause. Grantred if the file did somehow get opened, all the assets in the library of the file would need to be resynced, and that's fine. What boggles me is if these rumors are true about somone(s) from Adobe who are able to take these corrupt files and make them work, how excatly are they doing that...

http://www.mediafire.com/file/fdl7z3msdhtw7sn/DB_revamp_gokuvs_goku.aep/file 

Mylenium
Mylenium
Legend
July 5, 2020

There may be internal development tools to fix headers and some data in the files, but those are not publicly available and you'd still have to know your way around a development environment. Looking at your file, all the data appears pretty jumbled and lacks the typical recognizable formatting for AE. The overall structure seems to match that of a typical AE project, the binary encoding is just completely off. If whatever recovery tool you used offers alternate modes or even has options to "learn" file types by comparing the lost data with intact files there may be a tiny glimmer of hope, but otherwise this may indeed be a lost cause.

 

Mylenium

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