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[spencsm]

I've been using MC for quite awhile, think it's great etc...but since I downloaded version 10, none of the (audio/wav) CDs that I've burned will play in any CD player other than the drive that burned them. This never used to be a problem with the older versions. Can anyone tell me what's changed and how to fix it? (I haven't changed anything else: same CD-RW, same brand of blanks, same files, etc...)

[JimH]

If you're burning in "test mode" that could be the problem.

[Omni]

I've never used it, so I could be (and probably am) wrong, but I always thought "test mode" just utilized the drive's test mode functionality meaning that the system will go through all the motions of burning a disc, but the drive will not actually turn on the laser, i.e., no data is physically written to the disc.

*shrug*

[DocLotus]

So why will they play in the drive that burned them ?

[Robert Taylor]

Sounds like a bizarre laser head alignment problem or something...

BTW, What sort of media are you using?

I tend to steer clear of ultra-cheapo $15 for a spindle of 100 type CDRs. I've had too many wierd problems with em compared to decent "brand-name" CDRs...

[Omni]

Well, one thing, they (gratefully) added the ability to adjust the drive's read offset.  Unfortunately, and to my slight disappointment, they neglected to add the ability to adjust the write offset.  (Am I just not finding it?)  Anyway, maybe with this new functionality, a bug was introduced that causes your drive to use a huge write offset which is making the resulting CD unreadable on the other drives you have tried.

Caveat:  This is wild speculation.

[spencsm]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm definitely not burning in test mode. I am using relatively cheap media, but it's the same media (from the same spindle, even) that I've been using sucessfully with MC 9.

Your offset idea, Omni, may be "wild speculation" but it makes sense.  I'm convinced it's something that has changed in MC 10 rather than anything "local".

So how can I find out? Don't MC programmers answer questions here??  ?

[LonWar]

So how can I find out? Don't MC programmers answer questions here??  ?

Please keep in mid the time you are posting... THere are many different time zones around, While these guy's do work extra long hours, they do need some sleep time...  

[JimH]

I just re-read your message and noticed that the CD's are good if played in the same drive.  That means the burn is good.  But the disk may not be closed.  I believe most consumer electronics drives need the disk to be closed.

[spencsm]

True, but MC used to do so automatically...or I presume it did becuase the CDs always worked fine. (I never had to specifically set anything in MC, always burned using the default settings...)

One thing I haven't tried yet is to burn using something other than MC...that will probably work, but I'd prefer to do everything thru MC.



Thanks again!

Scott

[DocLotus]

Just a wild thought... are you using the same exact drive that you used with MC9?

Are you using new disc from the same batch that previously worked with MC9 ?  I have seen el cheapo disc that works fine for one box of disc then the same brand of disc bought later on completely fail because the vendor made some minor change that affects your drive.  Often, cheap disc with the same name label will actually come from different manufactures because the vendor got a better deal from another manufacturer; this more often then not leads to write or read problems.

Has any drivers for the burner been changed, updated or re-installed ?

Has any hardware or related software been changed or updated since using MC9 ?

How old is the burner ?  If it is a very old model there may very well be some compatability issues with newer current software that abides to newer standards.

Have you tried the burn / read process using the software that came with the drive to see if it then works ?

I have sometimes had very weird problems only to later discover that I had made a small hardware or software change that I had forgotten about only to later discover that it caused the problem. Sometimes a problem will seem to correspond with a certain event such as going to a new version of MC only to later discover that the problem was caused by me.

Lastly, if all else falls, re-install MC9 & see if the process still works on other drives; if not, then something has changed that effects the burning process of the disc.  If after that, they still work correctly with MC9 then something in MC10 has changed.

These weird problems can sometimes be very difficult to track down so you have to be on you toes & look everywhere for the culprit.

[JohnT]

There's no offset being applied in the burn process, so that isn't the problem. This is a strange problem since the v10 burn engine for audio CD's hasn't changed much from the v9 engine except for bug fixes. Try turning off the cd-text option, reduce the burn speed to half the max speed, turn off the "direct decoding" option, then try burning a few tracks.
If that still doesn't work, I'd suggest trying the v9 version again and/or trying the software that came with the drive to rule out a hardware or media issue. Try a different media if you have any. You're using cd-r right? If you're using cd-rw, try cd-r instead.

[DocLotus]

I agree... CD-R is generally more stable and compatible then CD-RW.  CD-RW has had a much higher incidence of drive compatibility issues then CD-R; this is a well known issue.  CD-R also has a longer life expectancy then CD-RW.  One should always use CD-R for any really important information storage such as photographs or documents that you want to be able to access years from now.

Seems to me that CD-RW is only good for temporary storage such as making re-writable backups that will be read on the same drive; the medium does not have a very good track record.  For long term backups CD-R, or better yet separate hard drives are a much better idea as they can always be read.

[red90]

I haven't really played with it much, but this happened to me also.  I tried burning a CD last week and the MP3-CD player would not read it.  the computer would, but not the player.  I could not figure out why, as it worked in the past when burning with version 9.  I ran out of CDs before I could do any more testing.

[spencsm]

Thanks for all the replies. So far I've only had time to test a couple of the ideas, neither has worked but I'm feeling more optimistic....I'm pretty sure it's not the media, as I'm using blanks from the very same spindle that always worked fine before. Anyway, I'll try all the other possibilities tonight & report back in case anyone else runs into this.