Simple Burner CD reading error

[silkthinker]

Hi all.

All of a sudden, SB stopped recognizing CDs inserted in any drive: burned cds, original cds, cd+extra cds. Nothing.

I already uninstalled/installed as per the guidelines but so far, nothing. Sonic Stage, annoyingly, works like a charm.

Any ideas PLEASE?

I am running Windows XP SP3, Simple Burner 2 with CDDB patch, MZ-ND600D via USB cable.

[sfbp]

I wonder if SP3 is to blame? Perhaps you and the other guy have the same problem. Sony may have relied on some sort of impersonation or possibly doing something that violates DEP (Data Execution Prevention).

1. Make sure the update didn't cripple your permissions (figure out how to make yourself an admin)

2. Turn off DEP for applications.

See this:

I have a feeling this may be turned on by default in SP3

Good luck - please let us know how you get on

Stephen

[silkthinker]

I wonder if SP3 is to blame? Perhaps you and the other guy have the same problem. Sony may have relied on some sort of impersonation or possibly doing something that violates DEP (Data Execution Prevention).

1. Make sure the update didn't cripple your permissions (figure out how to make yourself an admin)

2. Turn off DEP for applications.

See this:

I have a feeling this may be turned on by default in SP3

Good luck - please let us know how you get on

Stephen

Thanx Stephen. YOu mean I should add Simple Burner to the applications that are exluded from DEP, right? I'll give it a try.

[sfbp]

Thanx Stephen. YOu mean I should add Simple Burner to the applications that are exluded from DEP, right? I'll give it a try.

I think you should TURN OFF DEP (except maybe for Windows itself - the setting in the picture).

[silkthinker]

I think you should TURN OFF DEP (except maybe for Windows itself - the setting in the picture).

Didn't work, Stephen. It's quite strange cause Simple Burner does read CDs correctly (even tags them via CDDB) but every time I press the red REC button, it blinks and fails.

[sfbp]

Didn't work, Stephen. It's quite strange cause Simple Burner does read CDs correctly (even tags them via CDDB) but every time I press the red REC button, it blinks and fails.

You didn't tell me that part. (that the CD could be read BY SB).

Do you have another computer?

[silkthinker]

You didn't tell me that part. (that the CD could be read BY SB).

Do you have another computer?

Not really, and the ones I could have access to have Vista or Win7. Darn!

[sfbp]

Ok, lets try another tack.

Where does SB normally put its temporary files (converted) before transferring them to the MD?

I'm thinking that may be a source of problems, if that directory had some sort of ACL protection before that changed.

[silkthinker]

By default, it's a very long route, but I always change it to C:temp. Let me do a quick check and verify its permissions. Fingers crossed!

[silkthinker]

Hmmmm... I just noticed something odd: every drive fails the "CD Drive Check", physical and virtual drives (image mounted files), that is.

It looks like SB cannot access the drives, while Sonic Stage can.

I correct myself:

Both programs can access the drives, but simple burner can only detect and tag cds, but it cannot transfer their content to the minidisc devices (i tested with 2).

[sfbp]

I wonder if c:\temp has not got write permission to all the people it needs to.

I vaguely recall that XP-SP3 started enforcing some of the user control stuff that has been in Vista and W7 for a while now.

I'm pretty sure I have a SB install on my SP3 machine that works, but I don't think I changed any defaults. Of course all files created under the \Documents and Settings\ root for a given user will have permission to that user.

Also somewhere along the line Microsoft changed the "everyone" permission in ways I never understood. It may well be that you need to grant WRITE/CREATE/CHANGE (ie "Full") access to any user that actually wants to put files in that directory.

[silkthinker]

Full permissions for Admin and my account (which is also an admin account) in the temp folder. I have uninstalled/installed again so that SB points to its default temp folder and that folder also has Total Control/Full Permission (read/write).

This looks like a dead end.

[sfbp]

Try right-clicking the SB shortcut and doing Run As......

[silkthinker]

It runs just like before. Detects CD, tags it, but wont transfer and will fail the CD Drive check. I have a last option. The new drive is SATA. I still have a IDE drive in my office. I will mount it and disable the SATA one, just in case that would shed some light into the subject.

I have neglected to THANK you, Stephen, for your time and help.

THANK YOU!

[sfbp]

Ok. We're not done yet. Next up is to see what happened to Px-Engine. This is a shared component that talks to the disk.

If you did in fact swap drives before the failures started, I can well believe this is the root cause.

Just one small problem.. I've never had to deal with this. The expert on such is Avrin. He can likely tell you (in the event switching to IDE drive makes no difference) what got messed up with the Px Engine. You might have to deinstall or install some other piece of Software that talks to the CD, eg Nero, Roxio CD Creator, etc. What comes to mind is maybe the update (to that) refuses to talk to SB.

Have you updated SB to the last known version (2.0.05.25150)? Could it be as simple as that?

[silkthinker]

Px-engine. Is this a shared Windows component? I might have to reinstall Nero then. And I do not have the latest SB. The one on my installer cd is 2.0.04018080. I wish it was as simple as that!!

Is 2.0.5 available as a download?

Found it. I will install it and report.

Thanx again, Stephen!

--------

Same as before. I will reboot just to make sure.

--------

Sad to report that I have same behaviour as before.

[sfbp]

The fact that you had an old version of SB suggests you have an old version of SS. How old?

If I look at Help->About on SonicStage it mentions the version of Px Engine as: 4.16.15.0

[sfbp]

The following article may be absolutely irrelevant, but I have just spent an entertaining half hour disabling something called "plugin-container.exe" on all my PCs.

Seems that this has been there in recent versions of Firefox, 3.6.4 and on.

I noticed that it was taking 30-40% of CPU, which is a lot on a modern processor. As all it achieves is crash protection (which we were fine without before) it may well be that having this constantly going during Sonic Stage or other software that depends on polling loops and other stuff to communicate with MD units, you (and everyone else) might do rather well to either:

1. Stop running firefox when doing anything timecritical like sound recording, conversion, up/downloading, editing etc. ; or

2. Disable this STUPID addon which is running down your battery on laptop without your realising it (not to mention other possible effects) as follows:

Here is the link to techdows.com. As far as I know it's quite safe to go to this site, and you don't need any software - it just contains instructions on how to reconfigure Firefox.

[silkthinker]

The fact that you had an old version of SB suggests you have an old version of SS. How old?

If I look at Help->About on SonicStage it mentions the version of Px Engine as: 4.16.15.0

Last night I went to Roxio's website, dloaded Px Engine 4.18.16a and updated it. Nothing again.

I think I will (once I make up some room) install another Windows XP session just install SS/SB to check if this is not a hardware issue, before attempting a disc reformat.

1. Stop running firefox when doing anything timecritical like sound recording, conversion, up/downloading, editing etc. ; or

2. Disable this STUPID addon which is running down your battery on laptop without your realising it (not to mention other possible effects) as follows:

I will confess I am downloading at the moment, but several of my trials were done right at startup, when nothing critical was running, and I had previously disabled the dreadful plugin-container.exe from firefox. They say it would free up FF's RAM intake when almost everyone can see that it actually DOUBLES it. Bad move, FF.

Thanx again, Stephen.

[sfbp]

What about SS version?

If you aren't on 4.3 then I cannot answer for the behaviour of your system.

[silkthinker]

What about SS version?

If you aren't on 4.3 then I cannot answer for the behaviour of your system.

It's actually 4.2. Hmmm. I thought I had the latest. I will have to find 4.3, uninstall everything and reinstall. I guess I never felt the need to update since everything was working fine. I'll get back to you when I have the latest version, Stephen.

Thanx again.

[sfbp]

Over the top should be fine. Find Avrin's "Ultimate" version, though.

[silkthinker]

Over the top should be fine. Find Avrin's "Ultimate" version, though.

Found it, thanx.

[sfbp]

One more thing.... try uninstalling the virtual CD driver completely.

[silkthinker]

I went REALLY back and, just for fun, installed my very old OpenMG version 1.5, from my MZ-S1 unit and works PERFECTLY. Simple Burner 1.0 reads audio cds perfectly and transfers them to the MD unit, but of course it has no HiMD compatibility.

So my problem is specificaly with SB 2.0. Grrrr.

[sfbp]

If the CD fails the Drive Check in SS, then it's some common component shared by SB and SS, correct?

What about OpenMG?

Have you got some firewall on that is preventing OpenMG from authenticating (which I believe at some point it must)?

My conclusion from your experiment is that you have failed to remove some piece of the very old OpenMG from the initial install before putting SS and SB 2 on the machine.

Isn't it the case that the sound files used by early versions of SS/OMGjbox are completely incompatible and have to be upgraded when going to Version 3?

Stephen

PS one thing that also got upgraded was the database. The current one is definitely MS Access 2003. So in 2001 (early NetMD and OMGjbox) it must have been Access 97.

[silkthinker]

The CD Drive check only fails in Simple Burner. And only Simple Burner 2, since SB 1 reads and transfers to NetMD pefectly, but not to HiMD.

Once again I followed the steps featured here, went even further by searching Sony, Sonicstage, Simple Burner, etc., entries in my registry and deleting them, running CCleaner, running TuneUp Utilites, rebooted everytime it was necessary, and finally installing SonicStage 4.3 + Simple Burner 2 (the latest), PX Engine, CDDB Update patch and, annoyingly, the problem persists.

I guess it's time to consider reformatting.

[sfbp]

The CD Drive check only fails in Simple Burner. And only Simple Burner 2, since SB 1 reads and transfers to NetMD pefectly, but not to HiMD.

Once again I followed the steps featured here, went even further by searching Sony, Sonicstage, Simple Burner, etc., entries in my registry and deleting them, running CCleaner, running TuneUp Utilites, rebooted everytime it was necessary, and finally installing SonicStage 4.3 + Simple Burner 2 (the latest), PX Engine, CDDB Update patch and, annoyingly, the problem persists.

I guess it's time to consider reformatting.

I had NOT understood that the CD drive check WORKS in Sonic Stage, for you.

Maybe it's time to clean up your device map? Do you know how to do that?

[silkthinker]

I had NOT understood that the CD drive check WORKS in Sonic Stage, for you.

Maybe it's time to clean up your device map? Do you know how to do that?

Yeah, it's the strangest part. I even make tests with my firewall turned off, so I can rule out any firewall interferance with Simple Burner, but as I tested before, Simple Burner 1 works flawlessly, while Simple Burner 2 does not work properly.

And the CD Drive check for Sonicstage also works as it should, even with virtual drives.

I don't know how to clean up my device map, I'll check it out, Stephen. Thank you once again for making this problem yours as much as mine. We're not there yet, but boy! Have I learned a LOT!

[sfbp]

Start here

You can basically delete any device thats "greyed out"

I also recommend deleting all CD and DVD drives. Don't worry, they will reinstall automatically.

[silkthinker]

Start here

You can basically delete any device thats "greyed out"

I also recommend deleting all CD and DVD drives. Don't worry, they will reinstall automatically.

Uninstalled about 15 different entries for NetMD, all the cd/dvd drives, all the Generic Drives, Usb Mass Storage devices that were semi transparent, and anything relevant as pointed in the link you provided, and STILL, nothing. I went to test my MD and the 4.3 SonicStage + 2.0 Simple Burner with a neighbour that has windows XP and of course, it works perfectly, but why NOT on my system? He also has SP3.

Do you think System Restore being active as anything to do? What about codec packs? I have the k-lite ones installed.

One thing I did notice is that eventhough my Simple Burner tags CDs, it does not show the track timings. I guess it is only reading the TOC, but partially. When I tested the Simple Burner at my neighbour's, Simple Burner made the CD Drive check up (progress bar and all), tagged and then showed the track timings. So I guess my Simple Burner is NOT communicating properly with my DVD drives.

[sfbp]

This is getting to be annoying. Forget about System Restore. Then you undo all the good work you've done.

Could it be the drive is simply busted? DVD drives have 2 lasers, you know. DVD laser and CD laser.

[silkthinker]

This is getting to be annoying. Forget about System Restore. Then you undo all the good work you've done.

Could it be the drive is simply busted? DVD drives have 2 lasers, you know. DVD laser and CD laser.

One of them is a brand new drive. Two weeks, tops. The other is about 5 years old, but none of them are working with Simple Burner only. They play, read, burn data, video and/or audio media without a problem.

And yes, it's becoming quite annoying. For such a lite program as Simple Burner to have become so cumbersome for me, it's just plain ridiculous.

What I meant about System Restore was if it being active would tamper with Simple Burner in some way. I guess not, right?

Let's give it a day or two, Stephen. Maybe we can find or think of something we haven't yet.

Thanx again!

[sfbp]

Just one more thing, did you get rid of your virtual CD driver? I remember some drive-letter confusion.

I agree about leaving it a day or two as now you will at least get a system restore point. But System Restore REALLY does not agree with OpenMG.

More to the point, try UNMOUNTING (using Drive Management) all drive letters except C:. Just as a test.... I bet your neighbour has only 1 drive letter, and I bet you like me have about 5.

[silkthinker]

Just one more thing, did you get rid of your virtual CD driver? I remember some drive-letter confusion.

I agree about leaving it a day or two as now you will at least get a system restore point. But System Restore REALLY does not agree with OpenMG.

Hmmmmm. Yeah, I know about System Restore's idiosyncracies, which is why I automatically disable it after a fresh install, but since I switched my video card, I wanted to have a restore point if anything went wrong, but then forgot to turn it off.

I did uninstall the virtual drives and its drivers (nero and deamon tools), like you suggested.

[sfbp]

Wait a second... something popped into the memory stack here.

I recall that some event has to occur to trigger OpenMG considering this a "new" drive.

What I think you have to do is to disable or disconnect ALL your DVD or CD drives, and then reinstall OpenMG. When you reconnect the drive(s) it should now check them properly.

Getting desperate here..... another stupid idea.... does SB depend on LASTDRIVE or whatever the modern equivalent is?

[silkthinker]

I'll give the "disconnect drives" theory a try.

About the LASTDRIVE, I really don't know.

[sfbp]

dollars to doughnuts your neighbour has hdd=C: dvd=D:

if you can prove that works for you, there's a chance of finding the logical error SB install has made. Looks like SOMEWHERE in the registry there's some setting that persists when you don't wish it to do so.

Another thing: have you tried disabling Simple Burner from running automatically at start up? Do that, and also wait 2 minutes between getting the login screen for Windows and logging in. I have a strange condition where some of my user startup items fail if the network card(S) don't initialize before I log in. Waiting until the network connections are finalized gets rid of this.

Yet another idea: download Process Monitor and try to see what files SB is opening.

[silkthinker]

Yeah, that's correct: C: hd, D: DVD.

Not me though, C: HD, D: recovery partition: E: First DVD, F: Second DVD:

Any hints as to what I should see in Process Monitor? Should I point to Simple Burner? If I do so, I get an entry every second, but I cannot determine if this is good or bad. If I press the Play button, nothing changes. I hoped I would see a secondary process trying to open/read the cd.

Whoa! Is it normal that Simple Burner has entries every second literally? Shouldn't it be idle if it's not doing anything??

I see some NAME NOT FOUND and some BUFFER OVERFLOW lines...

[sfbp]

Yeah, that's correct: C: hd, D: DVD.

Not me though, C: HD, D: recovery partition: E: First DVD, F: Second DVD:

Any hints as to what I should see in Process Monitor? Should I point to Simple Burner? If I do so, I get an entry every second, but I cannot determine if this is good or bad. If I press the Play button, nothing changes. I hoped I would see a secondary process trying to open/read the cd.

Whoa! Is it normal that Simple Burner has entries every second literally? Shouldn't it be idle if it's not doing anything??

I see some NAME NOT FOUND and some BUFFER OVERFLOW lines...

Haven't tried to do anything useful with PM. Yet.

But the next thing I think you should do is to go into disk management and UNMOUNT that wretched D: partition. There's absolutely no reason for it to show in normal Windows operation. My guess is SB wants to write to it and there's no room. Yes, probably a bug. Also I am certain that changing or deleting the mount point will do nothing to your ability to actually RUN the recovery partition.