CD rip to BIN stalls Analysing Tracks, Initializing SPTI...

[Muse]

I don't remember anything like this happening in the past.  It's saying "Analysing Tracks (Session 1, Track 3)"

It's the 1987 mono release of Frank Sinatra sings For Only the Lonely, original release 1958. Pre-owned copy, but it looks never used/played. It's hung there over a 1/2 hour. What can I try?

Edited March 13, 2021 by Muse

[Muse]

Quote

 

Well, I moved the CD to a different optical drive, connected to a different Windows 10 machine and Imgburn had no problem ripping it. Somehow I have to think the external burner connected to this laptop isn't up to the task:  LG GE24NU40BK 24x DL USB 2.0 External Drive.

An odd thing, though. I listened to the first 3 tracks (Imgburn appeared to be having a problem reading Track 3), using a CD player (not the drive that was having trouble) and they sounded stereo to me. The CD sleeves indicate "Monaural." The disc and sleeve have the same ID:  72434-94756-2-5. I'm not sure which I would prefer. I'm relatively unfamiliar with Frank's work, this is the first of his recordings I've bought. Back in 1958 when the recording sessions for this album occurred they were just beginning to record in stereo and they did both for this. What's preferable, I can't say. Anyway, I certainly expected mono. Frank's voice is in the center (I'm listening with earbuds) but the instruments are arrayed widely left to right.

Edited March 13, 2021 by Muse

[Muse]

So, I plug the drive into a different laptop, same result. I have two different CDs which failed to rip to .BIN file because the analysis got stuck on some particular track.

I went on Amazon and searched for an optical drive cleaning system and bought the Maxell 340. I used it yesterday on the drive and it still doesn't get past track 3 on the Frank Sinatra disc cited in the OP above. Well, my workaround is using my mini-tower system with its internal burner. I wonder what's up with this. Anyone have any ideas? I figure having a workaround is nice but this gives me pause: If the burner has trouble reading tracks how do I know that CDs I burn with it aren't defective or more likely to become defective than those burned using a drive with which I have no such problems?

Edited March 16, 2021 by Muse

[dbminter]

It's most likely the LG drive in question.  LG drives are known for being less than quality readers in some cases.  I know my experience with them has been they fail to read some discs that other drives read just fine.  Not just by ImgBurn but by File Explorer for data discs.

 

LG BD burners have been much better readers in my experience than my use of DVD burners in the past.

 

I'd try getting another USB drive that isn't an LG and see if you have better results.

[Ken852]

Would it be possible to skip the analysis part? Also, is the CD in a good condition?

It seems like a reasonable conclusion that the LG burner/reader is to blame if the same disc can be both analysed and ripped by a second burner/reader. But it could also mean that the CD is in a bad condition and that the second burner/reader is only able to read it because it has a better laser/head.

How does the ripped track 3 sound like? Have you listened to it? If the second burner/reader also had trouble reading it, I would have a listen to it to make sure it is not corrupted and will play. If the entire CD is in a BIN/CUE format, you can use a virtual CD-ROM like Daemon Tools or Virtual CloneDrive to mount it and play it back in a media player on the computer.

 

[dbminter]

Near as I know, the Analysis step cannot be skipped when attempting to read Audio CD's in ImgBurn because they aren't technically data discs.  They're Audio CD discs, beasts unto themselves.  They were created before PC's became common, so PC's had to retro fit in order to read them.

[Ken852]

Perhaps not, I don't know. I have seen ImgBurn a few times now doing the analysis of Audio CD discs, and each time I used discs that contain CD-TEXT. So I assumed that the analysis is only done on discs containing CD-TEXT, and so I thought if we can skip the text and just get the audio... well, you get the idea. Wishful thinking I guess.

Maybe it would help to give the CD a little bit of cleaning? I don't know what condition it's in, but I have seen perfectly fine looking CD discs throw read errors at certain locations as if it is damaged. I'm sure they get degraded over time, no doubt. But nowhere near the time frame that's often promoted when you look at purchasing a CD/DVD drive that supports the so called "M-Disc" that's supposed to last "1000 years". In fact, I am looking at one such drive at the moment on Amazon. It's the Asus BD-RW BW-16D1H-U Pro.

Here's a picture from the product marketing:

As you can see, they put hard drives on a 5 year life expectancy, the DVD on 7 years, flash memory on 8 years and the mighty M-Disc on 1000 years.

Here is another picture from the M-Disc website:

This is a more faithful representation in my opinion. Here they put the flash memory and hard drives at about 10 years, CD and "Archival Gold" (I don't know what that is) at 100 years, and then the M-Disc at 1000 years.

The M-Disc does not have a record to show for, it was only created in recent years. But from personal experience, I know that CD discs for example can last way beyond both 7 and 10 years. One of the oldest discs I found as I was going over my collection was a CD disc from 2001. It's a data disc, containing some of my old music projects. I used it purely for archival purpose, to preserve some of my earliest attempts at making music on a computer. Guess what? It is still readable! In fact I made an image of it using ImgBurn.

I think it's worth mentioning that I usually used Verbatim discs. Those were my first choice, always, whenever available. I had a very good experience with them. I also used TDK, Sony, Philips and some Fujifilm. I only used Sony discs in early 2000s. That was before I discovered Verbatim and before TDK was made available to me. Philips and Fujifilm was only used when nothing else was available. But this disc was a rare "Swiss Made" brand called "Vivastar Recordable". At least I don't recall anyone speaking volumes of this brand when CD/DVD burning was booming. Yet here it is, 20 years later and it is still readable. At the same time, I have already encountered multiple discs of other brands I used that are no longer readable or have issues. Pure chance? Perhaps, but it was a nice surprise to see this unknown brand deliver in terms of longivity.

I should add that all my discs were taken good care of. Most of them were put in a jewel case and in those big metal CD/DVD boxes, some were kept in the vinyl folder type of bags.

Now, imagine having a CD from 1987 still being readable... in 2021.

I found this article rather informative:

https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub121/sec4/

It says for example that write-once (R) discs should have a life expectancy of 100 to 200 years, while re-writable (RW and RAM) discs should last at least 25 years. Mass produced discs (ROM) are replicated (data is physically pressed into the disc) and there is little information available on their life expectancy (it varies between 20 to 100 years).

(No information available on M-Discs.)

 

Edited March 17, 2021 by Ken852

[Muse]

The CD I had the initial problem with has only one scratch, very short and very minor, tiny. I mean, the disc looks new and it's clean. However, using the same burner I had a similar problem, this time with a brand new disc and Track 5.

Now, I ripped the problem discs (i.e. the discs that the LG burner was failing to read) with the internal burner on my mini-tower system as a workaround. I then modified CD Text (or added it entirely) as is my wont (I have some code that lets me do this with great ease, I wrote it myself in Visual Foxpro), then burned some copies with the problem burner. That burner didn't IIRC have problems before, or if it did, it was very rare. Now, I see that 3 of the burns I did over the weekend won't play in my 301 disk Pioneer player. So, something's up. If I read/write with this burner using Imgburn I will have to utilize Verify for both actions. I figure I should buy a new drive, stop using this one.

Track 3 on the Frank Sinatra disc that the problem burner couldn't properly analyze sounds fine on a disc read by my alternate burner. I'm virtually certain that it's the LG burner that's not working properly, not a disc problem.

Now, I saw reference to CD Text in above comments. I have noticed that in reading (when creating a BIN image) discs that have NO CD Text, Imgburn indicates when beginning the analysis process it says it's reading CD Text... this although there is none on the disc.

Anyway, as I said, utilizing the Maxell 340 optical drive cleaning system didn't stop Imgburn from stalling on Track 3 of the Frank Sinatra CD (OP). I can think of no alternative to stop using the problem drive, other than utilizing Verify every time. Even so, the problem, whatever it is, I would think is apt to get worse, not better.

For some reason I couldn't post this using my default browser (I tried last night) ... today I'm using Brave Browser to post this. Using Chrome, I would start a reply and it would bounce out of it immediately. I have no idea what's up with that.

Edited March 17, 2021 by Muse

[dbminter]

The very first recordable DVD's I ever made were from a company called PrimeDisc in 2002.  Last I checked a few years ago, they were still readable.  Yet, I had a disc from what I later learned was a known bad company, Vanguard, that died before a year had passed.

 

[Muse]

I've had pretty good luck with CDs, DVD-Rs in terms of longevity. I have been using Verbatim CD-Rs recently. I can't recall playing a disc that used to work and doesn't anymore.

[dbminter]

If you get the right Verbatim, e.g. not the Life Series,  they make the best media out there now.

 

[dbminter]

As for the reading of CD Text when the disc doesn't contain any, that line in the log is a bit misleading.  It's reading FOR CD Text.  IF it finds it, it copies it.  It's really a check to see if CD Text exists.

 

As for certain browsers not working with forum software, I've noticed similar behavior on the Macrium Reflect forum.  My default browser is Waterfox Classic, which is based on the original formula of Firefox.  However, the Reflect forum won't navigate properly in Waterfox.  It does in the modern version of Firefox, though.

[Ken852]

On 3/17/2021 at 3:35 PM, dbminter said:

My default browser is Waterfox Classic, which is based on the original formula of Firefox.

This is the first time I find someone use Waterfox in the wild. Interesting! I only ever found and installed that browser about two years ago as I was testing a number of browsers with a web forum. I wanted to use something that's a close relative to Firefox but is not Firefox, so I found "Waterfox". It's a good browser in fact, and I believe it's still supported and under active development.

 

[dbminter]

I was forced into using Waterfox, not that it's a bad browser.    I have an Extension/Add-On I absolutely cannot live without in Firefox, but Mozilla annoyingly dropped support for the old Extensions/Add-Ons.  Waterfox expressly decided to keep updating the old version by importing new fixes and keeping the old Extensions/Add-Ons working.  Waterfox now comes in two flavors, the Classic which I am using as my default browser.  I also have the new generation Firefox installed as a secondary browser.  I have Chrome installed for another use.  And there's the Edge preinstalled in Windows 10.

[Ken852]

I use Firefox as my daily browser since version 1.6 or something like that. So yeah, I'm aware of the breaking change they made when they changed the add-on architecture. It was refreshing to see how simple Waterfox is and how little resources it uses. I think I installed the "Classic" edition of it.

Do you happen to use Windows 7 by any chance? I am considering switching from Windows 10 to Windows 7 just for the sake of archiving my optical discs. The File Explorer was much better and more bug free. For some reason it takes anywhere from 10 seconds to 60 seconds for File Explorer in Windows 10 to display the icons and contents of This PC (I have a strong and recently custom built PC). It's very annoying when working with optical media, and there is a delay also when you open to browse the optical media. This seems to be a general problem in Windows 10, not specific to optical media alone. I have it happen on two different Windows 10 computers and sometimes even when not inserting any media at all but simply pressing Win+E to display File Explorer (I have "This PC" set as default view). The second computer is also a custom built desktop PC, but without any optical drive whatsoever and the same problem is present.

As the motto of Oldversion.com says, "Because Newer Is Not Always Better".

 

Edited March 21, 2021 by Ken852

[dbminter]

No, I haven't used Windows 7 is like 10 years.

[Muse]

Well, I could swear I was doing fine using Chrome in this thread early on but right now can read posts fine, just can't post... so I copy/pasted the URL into one of my alternate browsers, which is Brave Browser. Works here. Besides running Brave sometimes, I run Chrome (recommended by the New York Times, which I'm subscribed to, online version). Stopped using Firefox because it slowed to a crawl and I didn't want to bother troubleshooting why.

Update on the burner issue: I concluded the burner's not working OK (anymore), so bought a Pioneer BDR-XS07S, just received and haven't unboxed it yet. Not cheap but should suit me a lot better. For one thing it's USB powered, which really helps and makes it FAR more portable than that LG, which doesn't even support BR. It's also slot loading, which is IMO a really good feature. I'm going to plug it into a Thunderbolt 3 port on this laptop, but I don't know if the drive can even support SS speeds, i.e. 4GBPS much less 48GBPS.

I've got to re-rip at least 2 CDs that I ripped a week or two ago. The burns I made with those .BIN rips won't play!

Edited March 22, 2021 by Muse

[Muse]

OK, I can post now using Chrome. Suddenly today I had the same problem I had before, when I put my cursor in the Reply box, it would disappear after 1/2 second. Before, my workaround was to use Brave Browser, but it too now would bork out in 1/2 second. Same with Edge and IE! I then posted in Forum issues, came back to this thread immediately and suddenly I can post. Strange stuff...

OK, so I'm pretty confused right now. I have my new burner, an external BR burner that supports M-Disc, whatever that is... a Pioneer BDR-XS07S.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B081R74KVW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I had been having problems burning discs with my old LG DVD-R burner from 2016:  LG GE24NU40BK 24x DL USB 2.0 External Drive

A few Verbatim CDR's burned with it from brand new originals would not play in my CD players. So that in tandem with the issue in my OP here (stalling when analysing perfectly find discs, 2 of them) had me thinking the LG drive had problems, using a disc cleaning solution didn't fix it, so I bought the Pioneer.

Now I'm having problems using the Pioneer burner!    I'll be burning a CD using Imgburn and get an error. This has happened several times last night. To complicate issues, I was running low on CD blanks and ordered and received a 100 pack of Verbatim blanks, receipt date Mar. 15, 2021. I had some Verbatim left over but mixed the new ones with the old ones on spindles and don't know how to figure out what's "new" and what's from the stock I still had. 

So, all kinds of things could play into the burn errors: Bad discs, problem drive(s), cables, cable adapters (I'm using the Thunderbolt 3 port on this laptop for the external drives, requiring a USB-C connection). Yes, I'm kind of flummoxed here. I have around 8 bad discs now. Last night I resorted to turning on Verify when reading or writing with Imgburn. It takes twice as long (something like that) but I figure I can at least get assurance that my reads/writes are going to work. I figure I should isolate the problem. Is it the new verbatim discs? Is it the new Pioneer BR burner? Is it a cable? A connection (port issue on the computer)? An adapter? I'm thinking I should maybe buy some new discs elsewhere in order to test the theory that the new Verbatim discs I ordered are problematical. They are: Verbatim CD-R Blank Disc 700MB 80 Minute 52x for Data and Music - 100 PK Spindle FFP

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003ZDNZSI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Edited March 26, 2021 by Muse

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Please post the log so we can see what's actually happening.

[Muse]

How do I post the log? Ah, I found it. Here's the log that should include info about the travails I experienced last night when several Verbatim CDR burns failed (I heard the woman go, "Oh Nooo!").

Attached is the log file dated 3/25/21 (i.e. current one on that machine).

ImgBurn.log

Note this, for instance: 

W 17:53:28 Failed to Write Sectors 12636 - 12662 - Reason: Write Error

E 17:54:29 Failed to Write Sectors 12636 - 12662 - Reason: Write Error

E 17:54:52 Operation Failed! - Duration: 00:02:13

I'm unfamiliar with the log, I just cherry picked those lines. Perhaps inspecting the log will reveal or help to reveal to some degree the nature of the problems I've been having using Imgburn, my burners, media, etc.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Muse

[dbminter]

Just as I thought.  I was going to ask for a log, too, to see if it was what I thought it was.  This is your most likely culprit:

I 17:52:39 Destination Media Type: CD-R (Disc ID: 97m26s66f, CMC Magnetics Corp.)

 

CMC Magnetics makes the worst media out there.  You have to buy the right kind of Verbatim when you buy Verbatim.  The good Verbatim  CD-R are DataLife Plus (NOT the Life Series you find in brick and mortar stores.  They will be CMC, too.) or AZO which you generally only find in online stores.

 

CMC media causes over 50% of the problems seen on this board.  When people generally switch away from CMC media, their problems disappear.  However, in your case, given you had previously problems, there's no guarantee, which there never is.  In this case, though, the first thing I'd do is switch away from CMC Verbatim and go for DataLife Plus/AZO, which is the best media out there.  Yes, Verbatim releases both the best AND the worst.  You have to selectively shop.  And, sadly, CMC OWNS Verbatim.

 

These were the last good CD-R I bought, but I bough them last in 2017.  So, I can't say if they're still good or not, but, since you linked Amazon.com, it seems you're buying from them, which is where I got my Verbatim DataLife/AZO CD-R:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00008L3HV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[LIGHTNING UK!]

You could try a different write speed if 'max' keeps failing.

Check the list of 'supported write speeds' in the log you provided or refer to the info box on the right of the main screen when you're in Write mode with one of those discs in the drive.

[Muse]

Ah, I can post again here, in Chrome, after logging out and back into the Imgburn Forum. 

Is it possible I got a bad spindle of Verbatims a couple weeks ago?