ImgBurn doesn't save log if Shutdown is selected

[Conqueror]

Hi,

 

I've been using ImgBurn a few times to burn dual layer DVDs. I normally burn a DVD at night and go to sleep and select the "shutdown" options to have the computer shutdown after burning.

 

However, the problem is that the next morning I check the log to see what happened with the burn and there is no log information for the burn in previous night.

 

The log saved fine if I don't select the "shutdown" options.

 

I would like to know if there were any errors or problems during the burn when I wake up. Otherwise there is no way of checking it the burn was successful or not.

 

I even select the "verify" option to have ImgBurn verify the content of the DVD after burning. But the results do not get saved to the log file.

 

Please have ImgBurn save the log file before shutting down the computer.

 

Thanks.

 

 

Edit: I'm running Vista 32 bit

Edited October 28, 2009 by Conqueror

[LIGHTNING UK!]

It does attempt to, the shutdown is just happening too quickly.

 

I've changed the priority of the 'exit' function which controls the shutdown/restart/logoff etc code (something I didn't know I could do!) and so now it happens after the forms are destroyed (the log is saved when the log form/window is destroyed you see).

[Conqueror]

Yes, I knew it was because the shutdown process was occurring before the program got the chance to write the log.

 

So we should see it work in next version?

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Yes, it'll work in 2.5.1.0 when it's released (no date yet).

[Conqueror]

Looking forward to it. Thanks.

[Conqueror]

I don't know if I should have posted the following in the "suggestions" section of the forum, but this is a follow up on the above.

 

I have experimented and used a 3rd party program to automatically shut down the computer 1 hour after the burning process starts. In ImgBurn, I had selected "verify" and "close program" after completion so that the results could be saved (I wasn't sure if a log would be written if I didn't close the program, which is why I ticked "close program".)

 

Now here are the results in the log:

 

 

; //****************************************\\

; ImgBurn Version 2.5.0.0 - Log

; Friday, 06 November 2009, 07:53:17

; \\****************************************//

;

;

I 07:31:22 ImgBurn Version 2.5.0.0 started!

I 07:31:22 Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition (6.0, Build 6001 : Service Pack 2)

I 07:31:22 Total Physical Memory: 3,406,012 KB - Available: 2,157,492 KB

W 07:31:22 Drive Z:\ (FAT32) does not support single files > 4 GB in size.

W 07:31:22 SPTD can have a detrimental effect on drive performance.

I 07:31:22 Initialising SPTI...

I 07:31:22 Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices...

I 07:31:22 Found 1 DVD±RW/RAM and 1 BD-ROM/HD DVD-ROM!

I 07:53:08 Close Request Acknowledged

I 07:53:08 Closing Down...

I 07:53:17 Shutting down SPTI...

I 07:53:17 ImgBurn closed!

 

 

 

My question is, why isn't there any results for the verification or the burn process? Results should be output in the form of "verification successful" or "verification failed" and "burning process successful" or "burning process failed".

 

 

When I woke up to test the DVD this morning, my dvd-rom drive could not detect it. The dvd-rom light keep flashing endlessly trying to recognise the DVD and it never does.

 

Now, I don't know what to blame, the DVD itself for being bad media (I used "TDK Double Layer DVD +R 8x speed" and burned it at "2x speed") or ImgBurn for not burning properly. But it would have helped if ImgBurn outputted the results of burning process and verification so I would know where something went wrong. I have burn few DVDs before using ImgBurn using the same media without problems but did get couple of coasters.

Edited November 7, 2009 by Conqueror

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Nothing happened in that session of ImgBurn. It looks like you opened the program and just close it down again some 20 odd minutes later.

 

It's unclear from your post if you took the disc out and put it in a DVD-ROM drive (which then just flashed its light) or if the light on the burner was flashing when you checked it in the morning.

 

If it's the latter, that would explain things - the drive wasn't ready.

 

ImgBurn's logging is not selective. Stuff gets put in the log window and then ALL of it is saved to the file when the program closes.

[Conqueror]

Nothing happened in that session of ImgBurn. It looks like you opened the program and just close it down again some 20 odd minutes later.

.

.

ImgBurn's logging is not selective. Stuff gets put in the log window and then ALL of it is saved to the file when the program closes.

 

Then, in that case, ImgBurn doesn't write the logs properly. That is the only entry I have in my logs for this morning.

 

As I said, I used a 3rd party program to shut the computer down to give ImgBurn time to write the log. I have the log for this shutdown program and it is showing that I had started the shutdown program at 7:00am and scheduled the shutdown for 8:10am.

 

I started the shutdown program at the same time as I started the burn process with ImgBurn.

 

Therefore, the log in ImgBurn should have started at 7:00am. The completion is correct since the remaining time in ImgBurn while it was running was projecting to around 7:50am.

 

 

I did mentioned in my first post in this thread that if I selected "shutdown" after completion, the computer does shutdown, but ImgBurn doesn't write a single entry in the log file, for which you said it does try to, but the shutdown process interrupts it for being too quick.

 

Therefore, it seems the log is written with a delay. But from the evidence here, it also seems that ImgBurn misses a lot of information in the log and the time those events occurred.

 

 

It's unclear from your post if you took the disc out and put it in a DVD-ROM drive (which then just flashed its light) or if the light on the burner was flashing when you checked it in the morning.

 

If it's the latter, that would explain things - the drive wasn't ready.

 

The PC was swithced off when I woke up. I wanted to check the DVD. At first, since the DVD was already in the drive when I switched the PC on this morning, my computer wasn't booting since the disc could not be recognised during boot. It was just frozen at a black screen. The DVD was simply a data disc and non bootable, so it should have been skipped by the boot process. I took the disc out and PC booted up. The I tried to check the disc in windows, but it still could not be recognised since the DVD-ROM drive's light was flashing all the time trying to read from the disc, and making those noises which are common to when a disc is scratched or damaged and it cannot be read.

 

When I started the burn process, I made sure that the burning had started, and everything was OK before I went to bed. When everything was OK, and the progress bar for the burn had started and was on 5% or something, that's when I left the PC and went to bed. So the drive was definitely ready and it was writing.

Edited November 7, 2009 by Conqueror

[mmalves]

If there is an error while burning/verifying ImgBurn displays a message box showing such error and waits for the user's decision on how to proceed.

 

The problem is that your shutdown program later told Windows to shutdown, and after a timeout Windows forcefully closed ImgBurn, preventing it from saving the log.

[Conqueror]

If there is an error while burning/verifying ImgBurn displays a message box showing such error and waits for the user's decision on how to proceed.

 

The problem is that your shutdown program later told Windows to shutdown, and after a timeout Windows forcefully closed ImgBurn, preventing it from saving the log.

 

I don't think you have read the whole thread.

 

In my first post, I reported a problem where ImgBurn wasn't writing a log file if "shutdown after completion" was selected.

 

LIGHTNING UK! responded by saying that it's because shutdown process was interrupting the writing of log.

 

From this, you can conclude two things:

 

1) Log is written only after completion of burning

2) Shutdown process within ImgBurn doesn't give time for ImgBurn to write the log

 

Therefore, I used a 3rd party application to give time for ImgBurn to write the log. I scheduled the shutdown with this 3rd party application to shutdown after 1 hour and 10 min from the time burning started.

 

3) Since the log WAS written, it means the 3rd party program DID NOT PREVENT ImgBurn from writing a log. Otherwise, as in points (1) and (2), no log should have been written if ImgBurn was interrupted.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

The fact of the matter is that it's not going to have only written the first and last parts of the log (not to mention so perfectly missing everything useful out), that's just ridiculous.

 

So basically, the log you posted in post 6 is NOT the one for the session where you left it burning.

[Conqueror]

The fact of the matter is that it's not going to have only written the first and last parts of the log (not to mention so perfectly missing everything useful out), that's just ridiculous.

 

So basically, the log you posted in post 6 is NOT the one for the session where you left it burning.

With all due respect, you can either take my word for it or leave it. I don't see a reason why I would complain here and waste my time by giving information which isn't correct. I took care in copying and pasting exactly what I saw in the log. That was the only piece of information in the log.

 

Even I had realised that the log wasn't right. That was the reason why I pasted the full log for that day exactly as it was written.

 

Clearly the logs are not being written properly, whether you give the program time or not after the burn is complete.

 

It's up to you whether to fix this or even look into this or not. I am merely reporting something here to be fixed in order to help you make the program better.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

With all due respect, you can either take my word for it or leave it.

 

Thanks but on this occasion I'll leave it.

 

I've fixed the initial problem but I don't believe one exists for the 2nd issue, sorry.

[Paladin77]

OK this has dragged long enough. First Let me say thank you LUK for fixing what isn't really an Imgburn problem (which I will explain why).

 

Conqueror I will tell you why your log is empty even though you used a shutdown utility or w/e. First lets get to the roots of this problem: you're probably using an "optimize and tweak" utilities to speed up your boot up and shutdown, This lowers the process kill sequence deployed by windows to kill all processes to safely shutdown the pc (Default is 120 seconds i.e if all your programs are shutdown in under 5 minutes computer will shutdown; once it hits the 5 minute mark, Windows kills it and shuts down sort of like end process of task manager to make the analogy close to you).

 

Now as for why your log appeared empty even with a 3rd party shutdown program and Imgburn having enough time to dump a log of what apparently is a failed burned is that Imgburn displays a dialogue box that needs user interaction (Either Retry or Cancel or OK or Cancel). Your disc has failed lets say with w/e error (we will never know) Imgburn displayed an error message requiring your attention (but since you were in dreamland it was impossible). The entire program kept displaying this box till shutdown sequence was sent and process was killed before Imgburn could have any chance to dump any log of the failed burn. As for that log you posted, it is probably the log of another instance (Window) of Imgburn that was open which you probably shutdown before you go to sleep (you were awake at 7:50 weren't you?). That is the only plausible explanation (besides someone else messing with your PC while you were sleeping )

 

Of course you could have saved yourself the entire fiasco if you haven't lowered the process kill sequence as for prompts & warnings read the guides to see how to disable prompts/warning.

Edited November 12, 2009 by Paladin77

[Conqueror]

Hi Paladin77, thanks for the reply.

 

In my second post, I had already stated I think the problem was because ImgBurn wasn't given time to write the log before shutting the PC down. So there's no debate here. That issue was closed.

 

I came back after some testing, where I used 3rd party program to shut down the computer to give ImgBurn the time it needs to write the log. However, my tests show that ImgBurn still doesn't write the log properly. This is open to debate since the author had challenge this fact and said that it's impossible for ImgBurn to write a log like that.

 

Since ImgBurn writes the log AFTER it shuts down, then I would agree that if there is an error message waiting to be acknowledged or canceled, then no amount of waiting (or lengthening the process kill time) after ImgBurn completes the burn will fix the bug under discussion.

 

I know for a fact that I opened ImgBurn, opened the autoshutdown program set it up to shutdown 1hr and 15min after the burn completes, since from my experience no burn + verify takes longer than an hour at the speed I write. I enabled the timer and immediately started the burn process. I select "verify", "close program" and "shutdown" for options after completion.

 

I went to sleep when I had made sure that all bars were green and writing had begun. Trust me, no one came to my room. I live alone! lol! And yes I do sleep very late (or early in the morning if you look at it that way! ) - you can see the time of this post in GMT UK time.

 

Thanks for pointing me to the guide though for disabling the warning messages. That should do the trick.

 

However, I feel that it's the author's job to fix this bug and make it bullet proof so that a log is written in any case. How about writing a log as soon as an event occurs. For example, open the program, write a line of log for this session. Start burn, write the log for it. Complete the burn, write the log. Get an error message, write the log. Shut down the program, write the log and THEN close program/shutdown! This would work flawlessly.

 

Of course, the author can choose to ignore this and make the users of ImgBurn's lives miserable!

[spinningwheel]

I've fixed the initial problem but I don't believe one exists for the 2nd issue, sorry.

 

I believe this pretty well answers what he is willing to do...

 

 

Of course, the author can choose to ignore this and make the users of ImgBurn's lives miserable

 

Very good observation. I'm sure that if the Boss decided that the problem was shared by enough users that he would have a look at it when time permits, however I don't believe that one thread about a problem that is not shared by many users and has generated so little commentary on here qualifies as a major problem. It's more likened to the fact that you want his program to do what you want it to...and I've never seen that tactic work here before.

[Conqueror]

It's more likened to the fact that you want his program to do what you want it to...and I've never seen that tactic work here before.

I've studied software engineering and one the processes in the software process model is the "Maintenance" phase. This where the developers of the software listen to the customers and correct any bugs or fulfil their requests for extra features.

 

If one leaves this phase out of the software process, then the software that was developed will simply fail and will not attract new customers, or even keep the current ones.

 

Anyway, I'm not here demanding or requesting a change. I simply reported a bug since that's what the developer wants us to do. And the inability to save a log just because a popup had popped up during the execution of the software is definitely a bug and needs to be fixed if the developer is serious in maintaining and attracting "customers" (even though no one is paying for this freeware software.)

 

I have got a copy of Nero that came with my burner. I still chose to use ImgBurn from the success I've heard about it. However, I think that's about to change if everyone keep attacking the person who simply reports a bug that needs to be fixed.

Edited November 13, 2009 by Conqueror

[spinningwheel]

In your software engineering class didn't they also instruct you that :

 

1. You can't please everyone, so make changes that affect the largest user group and let the inconsequential ones go, since changing code in one line may tend to affect code a couple thousand or hundred thousand lines later which will create a problem that may affect the whole user group.

 

2. If someone threatens to leave your donationware product and use a retail bloated inferior product in order to get what they want...let them.

 

spinner

[Conqueror]

In your software engineering class didn't they also instruct you that :

 

1. You can't please everyone, so make changes that affect the largest user group and let the inconsequential ones go, since changing code in one line may tend to affect code a couple thousand or hundred thousand lines later which will create a problem that may affect the whole user group.

 

I can see why you would make a bad programmer. A good program design is one in which every method is loosely coupled and highly cohesive. if you don't know what that means, then you got some reading and learning to do.

[spinningwheel]