mpg file playback problems, gives error in VDub

[miffed]

Hello, I'm new here, but I've been visiting this place for awhile now because it has some great help available and has solved problems for me before. So I post in the hopes someone has the answer this time as well.

I have an mpeg file that does not fully play. WMP lists the full time as 37 minutes. It plays to about 31 minutes and automatically stops. It does the same when I try to seek to beyond the 31 minute mark. I did not make this file.

I opened the file in VirtualDub. The video frames beyond the troublesome 31 minute mark show up when I seek, meaning they are intact, but when I try to play beyond that point, an error message comes up saying, verbatim:
"Internal error: MPEG audio header in sample list has bad sync mark (C:\p4root\dev\VirtualDub\source\Mpeg.cpp:1482)"

I tried extracting the source audio as a .WAV to see what would happen. Same error message. I tried to direct-stream copy both audio and video as a new file, but "the source video stream uses a compression algorithm which is not compatible with AVI files. Direct stream copy cannot be used with this video stream." So then I tried full processing mode but the bad sync mark thing comes up and the job can't finish.

Does anyone know how to fix this so that the file can finally play back properly? Or is it just corrupt and totally beyond hope? Thanks for just taking the time to read this. More thanks if you have help...

[setarip]

"I did not make this file."

Try obtaining another copy...

[miffed]

I don't think I can.
I got it from a friend. She has that one copy.

[setarip]

I guess you win some, you lose some...

[miffed]

That's that, I guess. =\
Well in any case, thank you very much, setarip.

[setarip]

"thank you very much, setarip."

My pleasure ;>}