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I have an unusual problem, of which I am struggling to find any answer.

After cleaning out my Windows installation, I found an m4a song file set as hidden in my documents (The Mother We Share by CHVRCHES). It was last modified in 2016, and I do vaguely remember putting it there.

The song will play perfectly fine, up until 2:20 - when it crashes the audio player.

Comparing this file to the original I have in my music library; the files are different. The compare plugin in Notepad++ shows lots of lines in the middle of the file are altered, and the mystery hidden version is shorter than the original.

Notepad++ Compare screenshot


I believe something is hidden inside The Mother We Share.m4v - but I've tried everything I can think of to extract the data and I can't find anything. I checked my google history from that date but no clues.

I am cautious about posting the mystery file online, just in case I hid something sensitive inside the file. I have posted about half of the modified lines below (from lines 14183 to 14625) - maybe someone can help me uncover the truth about this unusual file?

Link to pastebin dump

XDGFX
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1 Answers1

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Well, did you hide something in it?

If it hasn't been touched in years then it probably wouldn't be too far off to assume the file just got corrupted during some transfer or update or something.

Maybe try playing the file with a different audio player and see what happens. I don't think you can really hide something in a file like that.