Hang reserving track for BD-R complilation

[rsgibson]

Yet it will burn BD-RE, CDR, DVD, anything else fine. Even more puzzling is I have two identical machine, same software on both, both running Windows 7 Ultimate x64. ImgBurn just starting hanging on one while "reserving track" in the initial phase. It does seem to be "reserving a track and then the burner light stop flickering but the HD activity stays on constantly no matter how long I wait. I cancel the burn and it never terminates unless I stop it with task manager or a few times had to resort to a hard reset. I thought it was the drive at first and swapped drives with the other machine, same identical drive and same result in the problem machine. Yet on the other machine with that very drive I swapped to it works fine. I disassembled the drive and cleaned the lens. I checked the cable connectors and swapped one (SATA) just in case. I even resorted to re-installing the software

 

I do this every week after I record a football game and it worked fine last week and not now. There has been no additional software added to the problem machine. Overall the machine hardware is in good shape, no overclocking or similar silliness, hardware runs cool well below the thermal limit, no viruses and I use SuperAntiSpyware regularly. I get no hangs like this with any other task.

 

I have two other burning applications which both successfully burned the Bluray with no problem, but I'd prefer to use ImgBurn.

 

I first used computers in 1968, am an engineer and build all personal machines from parts. I am a very experienced user, have used many different operating systems and I am absolutely stumped. Usually when there is a problem with software there is some conflict or corruption, yet that could not have happened since last week. In fact I had a backup from 2 weeks ago when it was working that I loaded and got the same failure now !

 

Machine General Specs:

 

Intel I5-760, Intel DH55HC motherboard, 12 GB RAM. LG WH14NS40 BD-RE Drive, latest firmware. One 1TB WD Black, 1 500GB WD Black. 650 Watt Corsair power supply.

 

 

Log file:

 

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

; ImgBurn Version 2.5.8.0 - Log

; Monday, 23 November 2015, 02:30:00

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

;

;

I 02:21:41 ImgBurn Version 2.5.8.0 started!

I 02:21:41 Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Edition (6.1, Build 7601 : Service Pack 1)

I 02:21:41 Total Physical Memory: 12,514,696 KiB - Available: 10,852,204 KiB

W 02:21:41 Drive D:\ (FAT32) does not support single files > 4 GiB in size.

W 02:21:41 Drive E:\ (FAT32) does not support single files > 4 GiB in size.

I 02:21:41 Initialising SPTI...

I 02:21:41 Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices...

I 02:21:42 -> Drive 1 - Info: HL-DT-ST BD-RE WH14NS40 1.03-A0 (J:) (SATA)

I 02:21:42 -> Drive 2 - Info: HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH24NS72 WM01 (K:) (SATA)

I 02:21:42 Found 1 DVD±RW/RAM and 1 BD-RE XL!

I 02:30:00 Close Request Acknowledged

I 02:30:00 Closing Down...

I 02:30:00 Shutting down SPTI...

I 02:30:00 ImgBurn closed!

 

[LIGHTNING UK!]

The reserve track command only takes a single parameter and is impossible to get wrong. For whatever reason, your machine is getting stuck processing it. Boot into safe mode and see if you have the same issue. Problems like these are usually due to something in the I/o chain - a driver or whatever.

[rsgibson]

Safe mode failed in the same exact way it has been as it has for many others having this issue. I am going to make one last try, albeit I seriously have doubts it will work. The only difference between the two machines is the problem machine has a slightly new NVidia driver. So I am going to spend another 2 hours backing up and removing the newer NVidia driver and installing the same version on the other machine that is not having this problem.

After that I give up. I've already wasted about $20 in blank BD-Rs. Since there is no problem with 2 other burning software apps I have installed, the only answer is a glitch in the Imgburn binaries.
...
I tried safe mode with old NVidia drivers. I even loaded VSO  Inspector to use VSO's Patin-Couffin instead of MS's SPTI – The result is the same...

ImgBurn is not releasing the command stack upon completion of “reserving track”. You can take a BD-R that has failed and after you manage to get ImgBurn to stop (requires reboot) you can take that same blank you just ruined, verify it has been written to with another application, insert it and load the same exact ImgBurn compilation that failed before and NOW it will burn properly.

I give up.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

ImgBurn doesn't have to release anything. It calls the DeviceIoControl API function and sits there waiting for the OS / drive to process it and to return control. It may well be that other apps don't send the command at all. It could be that it isn't strictly required for BDR.

[rsgibson]

However you want to phrase it is fine. The fact remains that between the system and ImgBurn a situation arose that did not on an identical machine, that was ruled out for hardware problem, that included no software changes. I have Windows Update, the Trusted Installer (Windows Module Installer) and BITS services completely totally disabled with the help of Linux. No way MS could have intruded and applied one of it's "fixes" and if it did I had a backup to load anyway.

 

Also I never use MS drivers unless they come with the box. All drivers I use for add on cards, etc, were supplied by the vendor (and archived for later possible use) or came with the original W7 installation media. After the system is stable in the early phase of installation of any MS product I pull the plug on any future interaction with MS updates and drivers.

Over the years (since 1993) I have seen this type of problem several times with not only Windows (e.g, Nero) but Linux too (K3B) - Burning software refusing to terminate a task and often the only way out is a reset. Needless to say those issues were usually resolved by a subsequent release.

If you have any suggestion of how to correct the "DeviceIoControl API function" problem I'm all ears.

This has been a fine product for many years and I'm sure thousands of people still enjoy using it daily but nevertheless my problem exists and has no apparent solution. I wish it did.
 

Edited November 24, 2015 by rsgibson