iPhone 3GS voice recorder files corrupted

[jalla1980]

Hi, I'm trying to help a friend of mine with some corrupted voice memo files.
The voice memos will not play on her iPhone, so I extracted them from her phone via Phoneview and tried to open them in various applications, but no one worked. iTunes won't recognize them, VLC tries to start them but just stops. Songbird does not work either.

Any tips on other applications that might work or any solutions to get them play?

When the phone doesn't play them, is there any hope left?

Another thing,
she has taken backup of the phone some days ago, is there any applications that let me open the backup she took and get the voice memos from there? If so, what application and what is the procedure?


Appreciate any help.

Best Regards

 

[JamesMB]

she has taken backup of the phone some days ago, is there any applications that let me open the backup she took and get the voice memos from there? If so, what application and what is the procedure?

Try this...

http://www.iphonebackupextractor.com/

 

[jalla1980]

Tried the iphonebackupextractor and got access to her backups. Extracted the voice recordings from the backup, but the m4a files still didn't work.

BUT, used expert mode on iphonebackupextractor and navigated down to the recordings and noticed that there were 2sets of the same filename, but with different filetypes. The original .m4a files were there but also .mov files. Extracted the .mov files and and she now has her recordings.

So thanks JamesMB for your help.

But this arises another question. Why does the iPhone change filetype and makes the recordings unlistenable on the phone, and the only possible way to get the recordings is via a third-party software?

 

[JamesMB]

So thanks JamesMB for your help.

But this arises another question. Why does the iPhone change filetype and makes the recordings unlistenable on the phone, and the only possible way to get the recordings is via a third-party software?

If I make a voice memo on my phone, it plays fine on my phone, so I have no idea what happened.

 

[jalla1980]

There were a total of five voice memos on her phone. Three of them worked fine, the other two didn't. The three working ones was .m4a and the two that didn't work was both .m4a (not working) and .mov (working) files.

Well, it remains an Apple mystery.

She got her voice recordings back so all is well.
(It was for her Masters Degree, so she desperatly needed them)

Once again, Thanks JamesMB!

Best Regards