SimpleBurner cause CD clicks?...

[Frank Davey]

Hi,

I recently installed SimpleBurner, drivers, Daemon Tools, M3U2SB and Nero Image Drive for my pet MZ-N910. Maybe coincidentally ("it was working a minute ago!"), my CD-R drive then suddenly developed audio playback faults - random glitches, clicks and bursts of noise/static.

The drive's audio glitches occur during CD audio playback through Media Player. They can also be seen as ugly deformations in the waveform when ripping to .wav using Wavelab 4.0. But its neighbouring DVD-ROM still plays/rips CDs perfectly!...

I've uninstalled everything, but the CD-R audio glitches remain. Is this some bizarre anti-piracy measure (I'm a musician trying to put my old songs onto MD, bug-free, and also to the web)? Should I have installed SonicStage first (not my favourite program)?.... Can someone suggest a solution, or refer me to a previous posting?

many thanks!

[kino170878]

I think you may need to install Sonicstage in order for SimpleBurner to work properly

[Frank Davey]

I think you may need to install Sonicstage in order for SimpleBurner to work properly

Thanks, Kino170878, for your reply.

But - will this then stop audio-CDs glitching in Wavelab, Media Player, and basically every non-Sony program?

The glitches are at random intervals, sound like damaged vinyl, and look like this:

[THIS SUCKS]

there is a setting in windows when you right click on the drive letter. i cant remember what is says but there are settings for playback and recording. see if maybe they have been changed by one of the programs you installed.

[Frank Davey]

there is a setting in windows when you right click on the drive letter. i cant remember what is says but there are settings for playback and recording. see if maybe they have been changed by one of the programs you installed.

Many thanks. I checked the CD-R drive's Properties page - it all appears normal, and nothing seems to have changed there.

Interestingly, playing an audio CD currently causes two things: 1). a moderate amount of CPU activity, roughly 50% usage; 2). a frantic amount of hard drive activity.

I guess that could mean some process (SimpleBurner?... or some coincidental trojan?) is dumping audio CD data onto the hard-drive while it's playing. Hence the glitches. The moment I press "stop" in Media Player, the last active/open file at that point is called "catdb" and is located here:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\CatRoot2\{F750E6C3-38EE-11D1-85E5-00C04FC295EE}

It's about 4Mb in size. Anyone recognise this file, or process?

[Strungup]

System32 is core system area, part of the OS , CatRoot , Catalouge Root file , is part of a database file structure which will contain many files .

it sounds like you have a bug , and it is hiding in the CatRoot file structure , but came thru the open window in Simple Burner data collection from the internet

Use AVG from Grisoft.com and "Spybot Search and Destroy " bothe have freeware versions

if you have Norton or MacAfee , get that junk off your system , get a real AV prog .

Just a thought .

Edited May 19, 2008 by Guitarfxr

[Frank Davey]

System32 is core system area, part of the OS , CatRoot , Catalouge Root file , is part of a database file structure which will contain many files .

it sounds like you have a bug , and it is hiding in the CatRoot file structure , but came thru the open window in Simple Burner data collection from the internet

Use AVG from Grisoft.com and "Spybot Search and Destroy " bothe have freeware versions

if you have Norton or MacAfee , get that junk off your system , get a real AV prog .

Just a thought .

Hi Guitarfxr, thanks for your advice.

Actually, I don't run Norton or MacAfee. They tie up system resources & do horrible things when recording audio. But I do run Spybot - it hasn't detected anything unusual.

Could it be some sort of rootkit? I've run a couple of anti-rootkit programs - Rootkit Reveal & Panda AntiRootkit. They found nothing. Can AVG Free detect rootkits?

My PC is otherwise fine. It's interesting this bug, rootkit or whatever it is, is specifically targetting audio CD playback/ripping. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

[Strungup]

Had AVG on my Dell for many years , the Dell finally died of stress , not Viruses ( I had it seriously overclocked hehehee!)

On a Mac now

Edited May 22, 2008 by Guitarfxr

[Frank Davey]

Had AVG on my Dell for many years , the Dell finally died of stress , not Viruses ( I had it seriously overclocked hehehee!)

On a Mac now

Yes, Macs are more secure. But I can't afford one.

BTW, AVG picked up a only one trojan - and the audio CD clicks still remain!!!

I think it's a deliberate SimpleBurner rootkit because:

1). of the infamous audio CD rootkit fiasco

2). Sony Soundforge plugins, when used in Wavelab, make a similar click

3). the clicks are only on one of my optical drives

4). hard drive activity when audio-CD plays (only on one CD drive)

5). the clicks started right after SimpleBurner installed

6). the "bug" affects audio-CD play/rip only! Nothing else!

Am I right?... How do I fix it?...

Edited May 24, 2008 by frada1974

[Strungup]

sad to say but if you have installed , then uninstalled SB and it still remains , you may have to reformat .

Corrupted drivers can be hard to track down just exactly which one it is , as that there are some 30,000 plus drivers on a Windows system .

It does indeed sound like a driver issue .

[Frank Davey]

sad to say but if you have installed , then uninstalled SB and it still remains , you may have to reformat .

Corrupted drivers can be hard to track down just exactly which one it is , as that there are some 30,000 plus drivers on a Windows system .

It does indeed sound like a driver issue .

Okay, many thanks Guitarfxr. Your advice is much appreciated.

Dang it! I was hoping to avoid reformatting.

If I may permit myself a quick rant: it seems there are too many pitfalls like this one with MD software of any kind. I love my MZ-N910 - it's faithfully recorded major life events in my family (the birth of my kid, my grandfather's stories just before he died), as well as the occasional jam session. When it was stolen, I hunted until I found it in a pawn shop 50km away. But its software is fatally flawed by corporate greed and paranoia. A device like this shouldn't damage people's personal property! Enough said.

Thanks to all on this excellent forum.

[Strungup]

That is why we use Audacity and Real time recording , standard wave files are exactly that ......STANDARD

[Justin42]

Sounds like your CD burner has dropped into PIO mode, instead of DMA-- which basically means the CPU is controlling everything. It slows down the computer insanely. It is a bug in Windows XP that causes an optical drive to drop down slower and slower if it encounters too many read errors-- copy protected discs are notorious for this. The problem is it never then speeds it back up!

Try following these steps--

http://www.cdrlabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7625

And if those don't work, more in depth instructions are here--

http://www.cdrlabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6645

In other words, it's probably not any software's fault specifically, it's just bad timing. (and the kick down to PIO mode can be caused by a million things-- a poorly burned CDR with errors, bad data disc, copy protected music disc, etc) It's a pain, but once you learn to recognize the symptoms it's usually an easy fix. (about 75% of the time just uninstalling/reinstalling the IDE channel works for me, although I've had to use the registry editing in the 2nd link a couple times)