Another Failure (kinda) at 99% Finished - requires rebooting system but disc still readable

[AlbertEinstein]

Since you cannot get log files when the software doesn't complete a burn successfully I've resorted to screen captures. Here they are:

 

 

 

Of course, the software is not able to successfully close the disc and the infinite grinding loop continues until I reboot the PC.

As far as I can tell there are no errors on the disc itself. I've taken the liberty of writing .sha-1 hash files for all of the biggest files burned so I will check those. While this looks pretty bad and it's no fun having to jump through all the hoops by "attempting" to close the session and actually having to reboot the PC, the burn still seems to be okay.

 

I left about 1 megabyte of free space on the BD-R in the project editor window. So, I am filling these discs to capacity. I think there may be an issue somewhere in that regard. Maybe the discs I'm using are about 200 sectors shy of meeting the official BD-R requirements?

 

To fill my discs full, I am burning some small files in the name of redundancy. How can I control what folders/files would literally be burned near the end of the discs where this type of failure is most likely to occur? I want to engage in this practice. 

 

Okay, I just tested a small video file near the end of the disc. It does appear to be messed up near the end of the video. So, it looks like the files are written to disc in the order of the actual folder/file structure used to master the disc. No worries. 99% good, I'll burn the bad file to another disc. Still, what's causing this?

 

DVDInfoPro thinks the disc is only half full:

Edited March 21, 2018 by AlbertEinstein

[dbminter]

Probably the drive doesn't like the Ritek BD-R you're using.  Ritek is a 2nd tier optical disc manufacturer.  Have you used these discs with any frequency before and they worked out okay?

 

 

I'd recommend trying Verbatim BD-R and see if that can be written to to the edge.  I know the Pioneer 209 and 2209 will write Verbatim BD-R at almost to the edge, just a shade under 25 GB.

[AlbertEinstein]

I've burned a lot of BD-R discs successfully. Now, I'm not monitoring the situation that closely to know how much space I'm leaving free on each disc. But this is really only my second bad burn at 99% in the burn process that I can recall in my most recent disc burns.

 

I've burned 2 discs prior to this one at 100% success rate. I'll check the free space on those to see what I left open.

 

If I have to I'll just start leaving a little more free space in my burn projects.

[dbminter]

So, you have successfully burned these Ritek BD-R before?  Just that you burned less than 99% of the total available disc space?

 

 

It seems you're using an LG BD burner.  I'd still say that LG drive probably doesn't like Ritek BD media very well.  LG's, I know, are absolutely useless for writing BD DL media, so it wouldn't surprise me if it can't write 100% of the available space on a disc.  Particularly a Ritek one.

 

 

As I said, before I laid the entire blame on the Ritek's, I'd try some Verbatim's and see if you can write to the edge of those.  It may just be that Ritek discs are pretty bad and that quality Verbatim media might solve the issue.  Or the LG drive may just be pretty rotten and can't write to the very edge of any BD-R media.

[AlbertEinstein]

LG drives are rotten? I'm sorry but I don't think so. This is certainly an issue I'd like to resolve but I think your jumping to the wrong conclusions. Like I said, I've burned...oh wow...I don't know...50-75 BD-R and most are without issues. But out of those 50-75 burns only about 25 were customized by me. Being filled to capacity as much as possible. I'm not that worried about getting an extra 1% of disc space if I have to pay a hefty premium on a better brand BD-R disc.

 

Now, if I see some Verbatim on a good sale price, after I burn out all my current stock, I might give it a shot. This isn't the biggest issue in the world because I can simply dial back my neurotic tendencies a bit and stop filling the disc so full.

 

But from a technical standpoint I would like to know what's wrong. I tend to agree with you, it's probably my current media being a bit cheap. I wouldn't be so quick to blame the burner itself. I think LG is a good brand!

 

On another side note, what's up with the DVDInfoPro software? Not so pro thinking there's only 11.25GB of data on the disc. I sha-1 verified 5 files having over 20GB+ of combined data on the disc with "Hash Check Shell Extension" in Windows 10. So, I'm pretty sure the DVDInfoPro is wrong.

 

Theres 1 movie clip at the end of the disc that won't play around 10 minutes near the end which matches up pretty closely with the 99% burn completion on the screenshot I took.

 

Edit: Come to think of it though. Those first 50 BD-R discs I burned may have been Optical Quantum brand discs. So many possible factors, so little time.

Edited March 21, 2018 by AlbertEinstein

[LIGHTNING UK!]

This is a support issue, so I've moved it to the appropriate forum.

 

If you go into Read mode and put that disc in the drive, maybe something from the Disc Info box on the right will explain why DVDInfoPro is listing the size as it is.

[dbminter]

I spoke from over 10 years of experience with LG.  The old joke is LG stands for Lucky Good in that it's Lucky Good if it works right.  I've had multiple copies of the WH16NS40 and they all had the same problems.  They will fail 9 times out of 10 to Verify writes to BD-R and RE DL.  They only write BD-RE at 1x for 2x media.  It will always write corrupt data to the 2nd layer of BD-RE DL when formatted as a giant floppy.  When writing to BD-R and you experience a write rate drop, the maximum it will resume writing is 6x.  When writing to Ritek 8x DVD+RW, it will complete Verify even if the data is corrupt when you try to access it.  The first LG drive I had was a rebranded DVD burner from IOMega.  I quickly got rid of it because it would 50/50 write DVD Video discs that played back with skips and pops in the video.

 

 

I only used an LG drive at all because it was the only internal BD drive that was writing to 8x DVD+RW after Pioneer borked the 1.34 firmware.  I wouldn't have used it otherwise, and when Pioneer fixed the problem with their 1.50 firmware, I quickly removed the LG (It had stopped writing to DVD-R, anyway.) and replaced it with a Pioneer 209.

 

 

There was also someone else who reported problems with that LG drive writing to BD DL media.  After they replaced the LG with a Pioneer 2209, the problem went away.

 

 

So, my experience with LG has left me with a bad taste in my mouth about their WH16NS40 BD drive.  Much prefer Pioneer's 209 and 2209 BD drives.

 

 

As for DVDInfo Pro, something is causing the drive to return the disc is smaller than it should be.  That would be either the drive, the disc, or DVDInfo Pro, or a combination of those things.

[AlbertEinstein]

@LIGHTNING UK!

 

It took me awhile to figure out that you meant to go into "Read Mode" in ImgBurn. I never could find it in DVDInfoPro. I captured the topmost portion of the Window in ImgBurn but it wouldn't all fit.

 

 

Here's a little bit more just in text form that got cut off from the image:

 

File System Information:

Sectors: 12,218,810

Size: 25,024,122,880 bytes

Time: 2715:19:35 (MM:SS:FF)

 

TOC Information:

Session 1... (LBA: 0)

-> Track 01  (Mode 1, LBA: 0 - 5898559)

-> LeadOut  (LBA: 5898560)

 

It "looks like" the ImgBurn software misread the size of the disc when it attempted to write the lead-out and so the lead-out was written at the wrong LBA making the disc look like half it's actual size. It does show that the size is only half of what it actually is in the top portion of the image.

 

 But on bottom it shows double. So, the metadata about the disc is a little off but I did successfully read 20+ GB of data. So, DVDInfoPro cannot be held completely responsible for the erroneous information on the total amount of data on the disc.

 

@dbminter,

 

I've been very happy with my LG drive. The bad burns have been at a very low percentage and when they occurred I almost feel like the blame lies on me. For trying to fill discs to capacity or letting screen savers kick in while AFK making coffee. Or just weird stuff. So, my experience with this LG burner has been nothing but positive. Even the bad burn today isn't a total waste. It's just not up to specs but that doesn't affect (most of) the data at all. I have yet to purchase any DL media. I've been waiting and waiting for the prices to get as low as they can. I'll probably buy some soon when I catch a good sale.

I will let you in on a little secret though. After checking my purchase date on this drive it's going on 7+ years of age. I bought it at the end of 2010. I think the spindle motor may fail soon but who knows for sure. It makes some really weird sounds sometimes. Weird sounds but, in reality, "normal" for an optical disc drive.

Edited March 22, 2018 by AlbertEinstein

[LIGHTNING UK!]

It "looks like" the ImgBurn software misread the size of the disc when it attempted to write the lead-out and so the lead-out was written at the wrong LBA making the disc look like half it's actual size. It does show that the size is only half of what it actually is in the top portion of the image.

That's not how it works. ImgBurn doesn't have to deal with the size of things when closing the disc, the drive does.

 

So your drive hasn't burnt/finalised the disc correctly.... which is to be expected I guess as we already know it failed to burn it and forced you to reboot when it was meant to be finialising the disc, rather than completing nicely and returning control to the program.

 

I'd be amazed if you could actually read 20+ GB off that disc.

 

I'd expect your drive to error our the second you try to read beyond the last LBA - which is 5898559 according to it (and therefore ~11 - 12GiB of data).

[AlbertEinstein]

Then be surprised my friend. I state again that I successfully sha-1 verified over 20+GB of data across 5 .ISO files...on this disc. I will say this. The drive makes a lot of noise when it's being read by your software. It's obviously messed up and I'll probably just end up recycling this one with all my other older DVDs and bad BD-R burns.

 

In fact, I took the disc out and visually examined it under a desk lamp. You can see what appears to be scratches on the disc. But they must be laser scratches of some sort because I never scratched the disc. The whole experience is bizarre. 

 

I guess I should take more notice when people recommend a certain brand of media. I don't know though. Some burns are perfect, some aren't. It's just the nature of the beast I guess.

Edited March 23, 2018 by AlbertEinstein

[dbminter]

It's possible the disc may have been scratched out of the factory.  The drive may not have done it.  I encountered one back in January that failed to Verify.  When I examined the BD-R in the light, I noticed it was cracked all the way down the radius.  Must have come out of the factory that way.  Why it didn't fail during burning, I can't explain.

[AlbertEinstein]

@dbminter,

 

The disc burned successfully up to 99% completion. If a scratch caused the burn failure at 99% completion it would be visible at the extreme outer edges of the disc. From what I can see on the disc, the physical location of this scratch looks like it would be encountered at about 75-80% through the burn process if it were already on there. The picture shows the largest portion of the circular scratches. There is a second smaller one also.

 

 

 

As you can see, the scratch lines up perfectly with the natural spiral track of the disc as well.

 

I honestly wonder if the disc is getting scratched up, post burn, from all the bumping and grinding that the drive engages in because of the disc not being in a perfect state of completion with an accepted optical disc file system standard. The drive tries really, really hard to read the disc when I go into ImgBurn's "Read Mode" and it does it successfully after a lot of bumping and grinding. This seems the more likely cause of the scratches I see on the disc. Maybe the spindle motor is getting so old that it's wobbling and rubbing the disc the wrong way.

 

Or, what looks like a scratch is where the laser was positioned when the software attempted to close the disc session and that's where the laser has written twice over itself? I'm just guessing. Nah, the scratch would be more uniform through 360 degrees of the disc. 

Edited March 23, 2018 by AlbertEinstein

[dbminter]

If the drive is making those kinds of noises, then the drive could be scratching up media.  You may want to, if you can remember, do a thorough check on the bottom on a BD-R before burning it.  That way if you get scratches on it after the burn, you know it's the drive doing it.

 

 

The only thing I could see making a scratch like that is if there's some kind of imperfection or raised area in the tray.  When the drive spins the disc, it would be scratching against the drive tray.  The laser can't be making them and the internals of the drive only ever touch the hole in the center.  So, it must be something in the tray indentation itself.

 

 

Supposedly, BD media is "scratch proof."  I mean, if you took a pair of scissors, yes, you could scratch the bottom surface.  However, relative to DVD bottoms, they are "scratch proof."

 

 

Which is why you should be checking the media before you burn it.  You want to make sure the discs didn't come out of the factory with scratches throughout the entire spindle.

[AlbertEinstein]

I'll definitely be watching my P's and Q's when I execute my next burn. I still have about 10 blank RiData discs left on the spindle. I'm taking everything in I can to make sure the next burn doesn't fail, if that's possible.

Another issue for me that has been completely unpredictable is the max burn speed of these discs. Looking back over some recent graphs in DVDInfoPro and just generally watching the ImgBurn software as it actually burns, I've noticed some burns reach a max speed of 8x which is twice the rated speed of these BD-R discs. But I also noticed, a recent burn which was successful, prior to this last (failed) burn, burned all the way through at only 2x. I didn't have any say in the burn speed as I always just leave "max" selected.

 

 

 

Maybe I'll try restricting the rest of these BD-R's to 2x burn speeds. And examining the bottom surface for any visible issues prior to the burns.

 

***EDIT***: I'm noticing in these 2 graphs that the "Capacity" differs in sectors between discs by about 32 sectors. That's very interesting. The bottom image shows no sector was left unburned while the top one had 3000+ unused sectors. Or is that difference in "Capacity" sectors the difference representing the sectors used for the TOC? Nope, scratch that theory. The Capacity/Data numbers in the bottom graph are the same which would mean, by my theory, no space was used for TOC and that's not logical.

 

Shouldn't that "Capacity" value in sectors be the "exact same value" on every disc in a spindle? God, not even the same in a spindle but consistently the same across discs and even spindles as a media standard?

 

If it's true that each disc varies in it's quality near the edge, even in a given spindle, then my filling these discs to capacity is exactly what's causing these bad burns.

 

These 2 images represent successful burns but they still seem to provide some valuable insight about the inconsistencies between discs If I'm reading the graphs right.

 

*****EDIT*****: So the first image shows the burn failed @ sector 12,190,752 out of a total of 12,219,392 sectors which means there was about 59 MB's of available physical disc space left it could have burned. Is the TOC written at the end of the disc and is it written at the end of the burn process or at the beginning of the burn process? What about the lead-out which is nothing but empty space/sectors, how much space does that require?

 

I'd like to eliminate the possibility that ImgBurn is not fully accounting for all the space that may be required to fully process a disc being burnt to full capacity.

Edited March 24, 2018 by AlbertEinstein

[dbminter]

The write speed you get out of a burn is down to a few factors.  So, even if you have Max set, you may not get the highest rated speed you expect every time.  Every burn, it's really down to simply what the drive does.

 

 

The slower you write any burn, the better likelihood it won't encounter issues.  So, if you want to set each burn to just 2x, it is something to try.  In fact, sometimes, troubleshooting advice is given to write at a slower rate to see if that helps solve the problem.

 

 

Near as I can remember to what I was told about the TOC, the TOC is not written to the same place each time.  That there is no set "logic" to where the TOC goes.

 

 

About writing to the edge of the disc, I still believe it's down to a combination of the burner and the media.  For instance, I've written several 24.9 GB images to Verbatim BD-R in my Pioneer BDR-209 and BDR-2209 without issue.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

What the drive reports for free capacity on the disc is what you can fill up with *your* stuff (user data area). It should not be changing with every disc you use - assuming they're the same type etc.

 

You don't need to consider things like TOC, leadin, leadout etc. They're all handled internally by the drive and do not interfere with what's available for user data.

[AlbertEinstein]

What the drive reports for free capacity on the disc is what you can fill up with *your* stuff (user data area). It should not be changing with every disc you use - assuming they're the same type etc.

 

You don't need to consider things like TOC, leadin, leadout etc. They're all handled internally by the drive and do not interfere with what's available for user data.

 

So your saying there is a pre-allocated finite amount of physical disc space set aside for the TOC, i.e., the file system information? The number of files/folders in each individual project doesn't have a direct impact on the final physical disc space required to store this information relative to the number of folders/files?

 

That may be true when 1 file system is burned to a BD-R disc. I don't know for sure. But what I do know by experience is that even when the "free space bar" has been in "the green", your project will warn about not having enough disc space when multiple file systems are included for backwards compatibility. I've had to remove these 1 at a time, starting with the most horrendous "Joliet" file system and then "ISO-9660".

 

This may be a special case because it's burning multiple file systems to the disc. None the less, it raises my eyebrows, each time this happens. Although, I'm getting to the point where I care less and less about backwards compatibility.

 

This quest is all about understanding though.

Edited March 25, 2018 by AlbertEinstein

[LIGHTNING UK!]

No, I never mentioned the file systems.

 

They’re something that’s part of the iso (user data) and are generated and written by the program.

 

The TOC is something completely different.

 

The disc layout editor window’s usage bar is there for a rough guide. It’s the ’calculate’ button back on the main form that tells you exactly how much your files (inc all file systems) will take up on the disc.

[AlbertEinstein]

The write speed you get out of a burn is down to a few factors.  So, even if you have Max set, you may not get the highest rated speed you expect every time.  Every burn, it's really down to simply what the drive does.

 

 

The slower you write any burn, the better likelihood it won't encounter issues.  So, if you want to set each burn to just 2x, it is something to try.  In fact, sometimes, troubleshooting advice is given to write at a slower rate to see if that helps solve the problem.

 

 

Near as I can remember to what I was told about the TOC, the TOC is not written to the same place each time.  That there is no set "logic" to where the TOC goes.

 

 

About writing to the edge of the disc, I still believe it's down to a combination of the burner and the media.  For instance, I've written several 24.9 GB images to Verbatim BD-R in my Pioneer BDR-209 and BDR-2209 without issue.

 

What do you mean by "it's really down to simply what the drive does"? Aren't there many factors that determine the burn speed? Isn't the rated burn speed hardcoded into the media itself? Of course, since there are varying reports on this, as revealed in the BurnPlot images below, it seems  it is somewhat dynamic which is good for the consumer in the event that 8x doesn't seem appropriate. 

 

I have a stellar burn history using my LG burner and RiTek data discs as shown in the custom image I created using multiple windows from BurnPlot:

 

 

The last plot showing the "Speed End" @ 2x was, I believe, due to high CPU usage activity on my system. You know the nature of Windows 10 these days is to constantly be updating itself. I tried, yet another burn, last evening and it failed at 98%. These failures near the end are just weird, abnormal, and not in line with past burn performances. I honestly think there's something else that has changed. I've added an old USB Lexmark printer and I've updated Windows 10 twice under the Insiders program. My burn success rate has only gone down most recently, over the last 3 or 4 burns. I honestly don't think there's anything wrong with my burner or the quality of my media. I will keep searching for answers. I will solve this riddle, I hope.

 

The first error was a "Loss of streaming error" and then they're all this one:

 

The disc is mostly still good as in the past. I successfully sha-1 verified the biggest 5 files over 20+ GB...again.

Edited March 26, 2018 by AlbertEinstein

[AlbertEinstein]

No, I never mentioned the file systems.

 

They’re something that’s part of the iso (user data) and are generated and written by the program.

 

The TOC is something completely different.

 

The disc layout editor window’s usage bar is there for a rough guide. It’s the ’calculate’ button back on the main form that tells you exactly how much your files (inc all file systems) will take up on the disc.

 

I thought the File Systems and the TOC were the same thing. Thank you for the clarification on that. 

[dbminter]

By it's down to what the drive does means what it says on the tin.  A disc can have a write descriptor of 16x but only write to 8x depending on the drive.  The drive also has to have in its firmware the write strategy to support that maximum speed.  If it doesn't, it will only write at the maximum speed the firmware dictates.  Plus, many BD-R are rated at 6x but a lot of drives will write at 12x or even 16x for them.  The drive basically does what it's told and does its best to interpret the instructions it's given.  The drive sometimes doesn't always do what it's told.  And you'll get random misbehavior, too.  A disc may be rated 16x, ImgBurn says it will write at 16x, but the drive only writes at 8x for whatever reason.  Some drives even have in their instruction set to do this.  LG's, for instance, will write 6x BD-R Verbatim media at 12x, but if there's drive read threshold encountered, many times when the LG resumes writing, it's capped at 6x.  The LG I got rid of was doing this.  16x DVD-R were said by ImgBurn to write at 16x, but were only writing at 8x.

[AlbertEinstein]

@dbminter,

 

It's all pretty complicated. I guess experience is the best teacher. 

 

I just burned another disc moments ago on the same burner and media I've been using. But this time I explicitly capped the burn rate at 4x in ImgBurns "Write Speed" settings. And I got a 100% successful burn. Knock on wood. The "Write Speed" might be what was causing the problem but it may have also been that some other 3rd party software on my PC was putting "Read Locks" on files that I had selected for burning in my project. I was using "MediaInfo" to pull up metadata on .MKV files that I was throwing into the project just because I could. I don't know for sure. I'll keep burning at 4x I guess unless I start having more failures. That's what the media were rated for anyway. I guess I just got lucky with the earlier burns.