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[gkerber]

This is a good one.  I have DSL and stay connected all the time.

Ripping with "Large Buffer" seems to work okay, but the rip time never exceeds 8x.  I get from 2x to 40x rip speed using CDDA99.

Then if I rip using "Media Secure", the rip speed slows by half as I'd expect.  But... My DSL connection gets screwed up real bad.  I lose all access to the internet and my email server.  My software says I am "trained" and am connected to my ISP.  My ISP people say I am no longer connected.  I can "drop" the connection and then I am unable to reconnect, it says my login and password are bad.  There is nothing I can do.  Stopping the rip doesn't fix the problem.  I must reboot to get reconnected.

Remember that ripping with "Large Buffer" causes no such problem.

There is a clear cut relationship between "Digital Secure" and my DSL connection problems.  The bad connection happens within a few minutes of starting a "Digital Secure" rip operation

[gateley]

Have you tried this more than once or twice? Be careful about saying "there is a clear cut relationship..." because a lot of times it comes back to bite you. (even after 5 or 10 times)

What kind of DSL? Cisco 67x? Intel internal or external?
What version of windows?
What version of MJ?
Without this info it's hard to guess at a next step.

j

[gkerber]

It's happened about 15 times, each and every time I try to rip a disk using DigitalSecure and never when using LargeBuffer.  DigitalSecure breaks my DSL connection every time like clockwork and I must reboot to restore it, it will never connect again without a reboot.

I tried DigitalSecure last night for the first time and lost my dsl connection right away.  It took me a while to find the connection to MJ though, who would have thought?

I'm running XP Pro and have an external Intel 3200 USB modem.  I've got the lastest version of MJ, 8.0336.

Really, happens EVERY time.  I've been struggling with my dsl connection all last night and today, and trying to rip my entire collection at the same time.  So tonight I figure it out, I've been ripping all night with LargeBuffer and my dsl has not dropped once.

[JimH]

I think the only difference when you do "digital secure" is that the computer is busier and might be less responsive to other tasks.  My wild guess is that your ISP is checking to see if the connection is alive, and then dropping it when it doesn't get a response.

Another possibility is that your Ethernet card might be locking up.

[gateley]

It is bizarre.

With an external DSL modem, MJ would have to send data out the USB port in order to screw it up, or would have to kill the USB driver (similar to Jim's suggestion). Do you have another USB device laying around (palm pilot or digital camera) to test this?

Is your CDROM USB by any chance?

I can't think of anything else now (late at night), I might have more ideas in the morning or someone else might come up with more.

j

[gkerber]

I "suspect" somehow Windows memory is being corrupted at the location where the dsl connection is at when doing DigitalSecure.  I don't think the external usb modem is affected, just my computers ability to talk to it.  The memory is corrupted so when Netscape tries to use the connection drivers, they are corrupted.

I have an internal cdrom, and all my other usb devices work properly.

I've been chasing down some memory corruption in a program someone else wrote at my office for weeks, they are elusive things to find.....

[RemyJ]

Try this...

Reboot.
Make sure your Internet Options are set to "never dial a connection"
Connect to the internet and surf a little.
Close browser and/or e-mail app and then disconnect.
Start MJ and rip a few tracks in Digital Secure mode.
Close MJ.
Reconnect and try surfing.

Also try using EAC or another ripper with similar capabilities and see if the corruption still happens.

Remy

[Cotton-Eyed Loo]

I'm with JimH on this one. Who's your ISP?

As for the inability to reconnect even after stopping other programs, if you're using an external DSL box a good thing to try is to power cycle the DSL box, wait at least 20 seconds before powering it up.

If the ISP says you're not connected - you're probably not.

[gkerber]

The ips is a local Denver company 4DVISION.  And I agree that when my software says I am connected (but can't do anything) and the ISP says I am not connected, that I am not connected.

MediaJukebox core dumped today during playback and ripping (Large Buffer, not Digital Secure) and I lost my dsl connection again, same symptoms.  It rarely core dumps, so it's no big deal.

There is a definate connection between MJ and my dsl connection dropping badly.  But I can't say whether it's MJ or the DSL drivers.  But the connection is clear.

[Cotton-Eyed Loo]

are there other proggies that cause the same behavior?

If you pop up the windows task manager you can flip to the last tab and view a little chart of the CPU load. My guess is that when it's high for a long time you lose your connection.

Try taking some music that you've already got on your computer and convert formats, using something other than MJ, and see if you lose your internet connection - the test was usefull if the CPU is as pegged as it is when you lose it whilst playing with MJ.

Alternatively do something else that keeps the CPU pegged for a while to see if that also drops the connection.

[gateley]

Things are changing - first it was secure ripping only that caused the problem, now it's usually secure ripping and occasionally large buffer ripping.

Have you checked for spyware? Ad-aware is a good program, and it's sounding to me like someone else is interfering. I run MJ on XP both at work and at home, and a multitude of others do as well, so for the moment you're an isolated case.

I've had many (more than I'd like) experiences with red-herrings, symptoms that were so clear you immediately knew what was going on, but when they were finally resolved, had nothing to do with what you thought. This really sounds to me like one.

Some points: Secure ripping and buffering ripping are not that much different. They use different amounts of CPU, and different amounts of memory, but that's it. With XP, the MJ process cannot trash memory anywhere else (not true with older windows). A driver can trash memory, but this is rare. So, MJ cannot trash the DSL driver/device. It's possible that the CD driver has a bug that may cause this, but very doubtful.

The network connection can break in many places, and without a lot of knowledge I don't have, it's impossible to break it down here. Your ISP says "it is down", but I don't know if your intel responds to pings by itself or not (or if a firewall filters ICMP or between you and them). Ask them how they checked to see if you are up. (It's REALLY hard to believe that ripping can kill a USB device, because it's no longer just trashing memory, it's sending a killer USB command down the wire).

CPU usage is a good spot to look. pings timing out because the CPU is too busy to echo could be a cause. To test this, start ripping, load a web page, and wait until it is done ripping plus 15 minutes or so, and see if the web page loads. Or try with a ping test, and see if after ripping is done, the pings start returning.

Check running processes and see what else is going on. Pare it down to the minimum.

Please let me know what you find out - this is a cool problem (I know it's a pain for you, but from the lofty distance of "it's not happening to me" I really want to know).

Thanks,

j

[Trelane]

Do not throw the USB issue out the window just yet. It is very possible that while ripping, his USB modem is getting low priority. I have experienced this type of problem on two occasions:

1. My sister has a USB cable modem. Whenever she would burn CDs, her connection would mysteriously die. The CD burner was an IDE device, so lack of USB bandwidth was not the problem.
2. A friend of mine and I used to play Genesis games over the Internet using an emulator. Whenever he would load up a ROM, his connection would myteriously die.

In both cases, the USB modems were replaced with an Ethernet NIC and modem. Problem solved. I would definately recommend giving it a shot. Most decent ISPs will trade you for no charge.

Good luck!

Mike

[gkerber]

I've thought about that issue, that the DigitalSecure issues was taking so much of my system resources that the dsl conneciton drivers were "deprived".  It's possible, but I doubt it.  Here's why.

I am running an AMD 2000|PLS| processor (1.7gig ?), I should have plenty of processor power.  Although I *do* notice a slowdown of the computer when ripping (digitalsecure or largebuffer), everything else is functional.

When ripping DigitalSecure, is there really that much more processor power being used?  Sure it may rip the same sector many times, and use more memory to do compares, but it's hard to believe that the processor it that much more taxed.

And when my dsl connection goes down, it doesn't just disconnect, it goes down badly.  All the dsl connection software says it's still connected, but I can't connect to anything and my isp says I am not connected.

I really do supect some memory corruption in either MJ or the dsl connection software.  Which one?  Beats me...

[RemyJ]

Did you try ripping without being connected, then connecting?  No CDDB, I know but would be good as a test.  How about ripping to uncompressed wav to eliminate the encoder overhead?

Are other USB devices connected at the same time as the modem?  It's possible one of THEM is causing the disconnects.   If the modem is connected via a hub, try directly into the PC or vice versa.  The 3200 is powered from the USB interface, correct?  Try connecting through a powered hub.  If you select the properties of your USB Hub (even the internal one) in the device manager, you can look at the power consumption.  Maybe that will tell you something.

How about using CDSpeed or another tester/ripper?  Do some of the advanced tests with CD Speed while surfing.

Remy

Oh yeah...USB 1.1 or USB 2.0???  Go to support.microsoft.com and do an advanced search for USB on Windows XP.  There are some articles that mention USB throughput problems when doing heavy disk or CD IO.

[AlonsoN]

My guess is that your DSL connection is using PPPoE, which is a complete and utter cluge, but there you go.

The most common PPPoE driver supplied by ISP's is WinPOET, which is one of those way heavier than necessary drivers & prone to getting into places where it does not belong and causing problems. Like yours.  There is a much better, more reliable, free (GPL?) alternative that I used, RASPPPOE, look on DSLReports, that cleared up most of my PPPoE problems before I got a router.  Takes a bit of futzing to get installed and working, but completely worth it.

The best way to solve all those problems completely is to get a router (Netgear, Lynksys ~$100, more for wireless) that will maintain your connection, act as pretty effective firewall (NAT), and most importantly let you unload that cruddy PPPoE stuff.

[gkerber]

These are all good things to try.  But my dsl modem is usb and really limits me as to what I can do.  Unless I can get an ethernet dsl modem (more money of course), I'm kind of stuck.

By the way I can use EAC and CDDA99 (with a second read) with no problems, just ripping with MY and DigitalSecure.

Anyone know why MJ (any ripping mode) is so slow?  I get maybe 9-10x with MJ and "Large Buffer" and it takes almost 100% of the processor while ripping.

Other ripping programs get me up to 39x (end of the disk) and don't take over my machine as badly.

[RemyJ]

>>Anyone know why MJ (any ripping mode) is so slow?

Are you ripping and encoding simultaneously?  Try ripping to uncompressed wav and noting the speed and cpu utilization.