So frustrated, was looking for a baseball bat or an iPod...

[PolyWogg]

For those who might be interested, here's my story of the weekend -- no problem to solve, as I've "solved" a different problem and things work, but thought I would share...

First of all, I consider myself fairly competent to read manuals, find suggestions on forums, fix the majority of software problems...network cards, any sort of internal hardware will always give me grief and I know my limits. But software config? No problem.

Then I spent an incredibly frustrating weekend with my MD player. I run XP, P4 @ 2.4, 2MB Ram, decent express video card. And for my MD pleasures, I have the drivers and OPENMG installed, but I never do anything other than transfer with a full version of RealPlayer. Transferred a bunch of files in late November over to a disk, burned some stuff for my gf about to travel, things were working fine. Between then and March, I thought I burned again, but perhaps not ... however, I go to burn last week and RP lets me see disk, even erase old files, but not burn. It bails out at 7% of the first file, tells me to check if there is room. No problem, maybe needs to be reformatted/initialized, right? Nope. Won't let me do anything. Hmmm...try it in OpenMG -- gets to 7% or so of first file and hangs. Maybe it's my MD player, won't burn -- install my gfs player, nope, no difference, definitely software related.

Okay, so what did I change since last time? I installed a registry fixer -- ah-hah, that must be the culprit. Wiped the Reg fixer program, reinstalled everything from my last working setup order (I even made notes last time, pat myself on the head), go to transfer -- no dice. Hmmm...maybe I installed it wrong, wiped it all, reinstalled, no change. OK, maybe it is something to do with Norton's Internet Security recently installed -- I love norton's but some people have had challenges with it the way I hate McAfee. Disabled Norton's, no change. Update drivers? Nope, no change. Wipe everything then re-use new drivers. Nope.

Check all the forums again, find a ref back in 2003 (!) to someone having a problem with an update to Windows shutting something down -- hmm, his description sound eerily familiar, same errors, so I back out successively of all XP updates back to November when it was working, wipe everything, reinstall, Ta-da! No change, still won't work.

At this point, I'm thinking a baseball bat and some spring training for my Net MD machine might be in order, and I tried threatening it with an iPod sex change. I even almost went out today and bought a new flash machine, maybe iRiver that I can hook to a future Linux box. Instead, I grabbed some take-out, and thought, why don't I spend the evening installing it on my laptop and see if that works? Or my gf's machine? Sigh, will I really burn using those options, though? I guess I can always reinstall from my November backup when it *did* work, but what a pain as it will change everything else since then (e-mail archives, data changes, uggh!). I start trolling back through the community archives again, finding nothing that addresses my specific quirk but maybe I'm just missing it.

Oh look, link for full new version of sonicstage installer, well it couldn't hurt to have latest and best version, even if I don't use it, maybe it will at least give me better error messages, right? Nope, no error messages -- full install, everything works just tickety-boo. I have no idea why, my job is not to ask why, just do or die...and I'll choose do for now.

If anyone knows what the problem might have been, I'd love to hear suggestions -- at the very least, it would solve my frustration that I didn't go with my first approach with errors of this kind which is to update everything to see if it's already been resolved. Oh, and just for the fun of it all? RealPlayer likes the changes too -- Spiderbait's Black Betty sounds awesome on my MD player...

PolyWogg

a little less frustrated, but not a whole lot wiser yet

[Strungup]

Get AVG , instead of Norton , Norton is Crap . AVG is Free and works WAY better . Spybot search and destroy along with AVG and you wont have the other associated XP issues (I still have XP , But I am on a Mac now,

The older SS prog had bugs galore , and Real Player And SS probably stopped drinking together because of Reals over bearing personailty , and SS just said Up yours! then Real decides Well I will just cause a Driver conflict and Sho Him. (You know how real is She doesnt like anyone else in control)

And since neither of them are into S&M , they couldnt stop fighting .

This is the Matrix you know

[A440]

If your version of the program was Open MG, count yourself lucky that you didn't have a meltdown before now. That program had more bugs than the Mosquito Coast during a heat wave.

It does seem, as a general rule of software, that the most recent program installed will work because it makes everything already installed compatible with itself--fixes those drivers. fiddles with registry keys, etc., making itself a cozy little nest in your computer.

And then the next new program comes along and messes everything up again....

Edited April 3, 2007 by A440

[Syrius]

Could it be the disc itself? Or does it happen with every disc?

[pata2001]

To be honest, I've been using Sony software from OpenMG jukebox all the way to Sonicstage 4.2, under win98/98SE/ME/2K/XP, and I never actually have problems. Most of crashes/problems are related to windows itself.

1. Make sure you have XP SP2 + all the latest patches (there are already TONS of patches even after SP2)

2. Check for spyware/trojans.

3. Uninstall un-needed codecs (eg. codec packs)

This is the main drawback of using a PC. There are just too many house cleaning and maintenance stuff to be done regularly. Easiest way out is to get a Mac + iPod... :D

Edited April 4, 2007 by pata2001