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@eana@s.1a23.studio
2026-03-10 20:52:40

A simple write up on how to partially recover data from QR code that won’t scan.

Recently I found a modern artwork titled “It won’t scan because there are 4 of them” by kaqdai (fig. 1). Taking a closer look at it, I found that all the other bits (timing patterns, format information, and the remainder of the alignment pattern all look quite legit. So I decided to see if…

The QR Code from fig. 1 with the 4th finder pattern erased, and the alignment pattern re-drawn.
A modified 25x25 QR code where there are 4 finder patterns instead of 3. Except the added finder pattern (with the 1 cell quiet zone around it), everything else looks normal.
QR code in fig. 2 loaded into QRazyBox, with color coded regions:
- Red: fixed patterns
- Blue: version/format info
- Gray: unknown bits
QR version : 2 (25x25)
Error correction level : L
Mask pattern : 4
Number of missing bytes (erasures) : 8 bytes (18.18%)
Data blocks :
["????????","????????","10000111","01000111","01000111","00000111","????????","????????","????????","11110111","10000010","11100110","0011????","?????1?0","?1?10010","11110110","01110110","01010110","11100011","01000101","11110111","01000111","00110111","01010111","00110110","10000110","10010110","11100000","11101100","00010001","11101100","00010001","11101100",…