CSS Warning - Unable to Crack all Keys (An Ongoing Issue)

[Electron003]

Greetings,

Long time user of AnyDVDHD. Recently, I have been getting this warning (maybe the last 6-12 months). This now happens more often than not.

Yes...my optical drives are both set to R4. This matches the region of the disc.

Here is the kicker - if this warning pops-up, I swap the discs between the 2 optical drives and it usually DOESN'T re-appear. I believe this is a small bug. It always seems to happen when one of the DVD's has 2 or more region codes on the disc. In this case, one of the DVD's had both R2,and R4 on the disc.

I have included log of the last two discs this happened on. Thanks.

 

[OceanVoyager]

Greetings,

Long time user of AnyDVDHD. Recently, I have been getting this warning (maybe the last 6-12 months). This now happens more often than not.
Yes...my optical drives are both set to R4. This matches the region of the disc.
.............

I have been having the same issue with the last 3 dvd's. Two at least were locked to multiple regions. I have never experienced this issue before. I have two drives locked to region 1. One is a BD drive and the other is a standard DVD-DL writer. It makes no difference which drive is used. I get the same error. However, the discs seem to copy OK. Attached is one of the log files.

Cheers

 

[just curious]

OceanVoyager

Your region is not set according to your logfile

"Drive (Hardware) Region: 0 (not set!"

1. Exit Anydvd by right clicking the red fox icon in your system tray and click on "Exit"

2. Set your region

You should no longer see that warning message.

 

[Electron003]

I examined the log after reading the above post. Both my optical drives are set - yet, I took a pic of both my drives settings when I went to post this issue. In the Asus drive (see pic) it states it is set to Region 4. Now when I look at the AnyDVDHD log, it states that drive is set to region 1...and further, now when I look a under the "Properties" of that drive, it now says it's set to Region 1. I have NOT changed it.

Even stranger, I was surprised to find both set to region 4 (even though my memory had one at R4 and the other at R1 - I have a lot of R1 discs). It would seem that something has impacted this setting perhaps.

Regardless, I am still getting the above problem - even though both drives are set. This never used to happen.

 

[Adbear]

I think his message was aimed at OceanVoyager

 

[Electron003]

@Adbear...yeah I realise that, but it made me check mine again.

 

[James]

Greetings,

Long time user of AnyDVDHD. Recently, I have been getting this warning (maybe the last 6-12 months). This now happens more often than not.

Yes...my optical drives are both set to R4. This matches the region of the disc.

For "The Shack" (which issues the warning) no, it doesn't. Brute force attack fails here on one small title set.

 

[James]

I examined the log after reading the above post. Both my optical drives are set - yet, I took a pic of both my drives settings when I went to post this issue. In the Asus drive (see pic) it states it is set to Region 4. Now when I look at the AnyDVDHD log, it states that drive is set to region 1...and further, now when I look a under the "Properties" of that drive, it now says it's set to Region 1. I have NOT changed it.

Even stranger, I was surprised to find both set to region 4 (even though my memory had one at R4 and the other at R1 - I have a lot of R1 discs). It would seem that something has impacted this setting perhaps.

Regardless, I am still getting the above problem - even though both drives are set. This never used to happen.

This is normal on region code mismatch. Small title sets can cause this. You can either ignore the warning, or set one drive to region 1. Make sure CSS archive is enabled, so the other drive will benefit from the correct keys.

 

[James]

I have been having the same issue with the last 3 dvd's. Two at least were locked to multiple regions. I have never experienced this issue before. I have two drives locked to region 1. One is a BD drive and the other is a standard DVD-DL writer. It makes no difference which drive is used. I get the same error. However, the discs seem to copy OK. Attached is one of the log files.

Cheers

Set your drive region code.

 

[mmdavis]

I examined the log after reading the above post. Both my optical drives are set - yet, I took a pic of both my drives settings when I went to post this issue. In the Asus drive (see pic) it states it is set to Region 4. Now when I look at the AnyDVDHD log, it states that drive is set to region 1...and further, now when I look a under the "Properties" of that drive, it now says it's set to Region 1. I have NOT changed it.

Even stranger, I was surprised to find both set to region 4 (even though my memory had one at R4 and the other at R1 - I have a lot of R1 discs). It would seem that something has impacted this setting perhaps.

Regardless, I am still getting the above problem - even though both drives are set. This never used to happen.

One is set to 1, the other to 4. EXIT AnyDVD before checking or setting a drive region.

ASUS DRW-1814BLT 1.13 F1070522
Drive (Hardware) Region: 1

HL-DT-ST BD-REBH16NS55 1.02 N001901SIK97H3S8221
Drive (Hardware) Region: 4

 

[Electron003]

Thanks James for the input. What is rather odd is that this has been happening only recently, Prior to that I never received such warnings. Not sure what to make of that? Even stranger, why would my drive show R4 one moment, then R1 the next? Gremlins

Edit: @ mmdavis - You posted while I was typing. Not exiting AnyDVD could have been the reason I saw something different. I'll try and remember that for next time. Thanks

 

[Ch3vr0n]

Not could have been'. It IS the reason. AnyDVD sits at a level between the hardware and the OS's connection to the hardware, with AnyDVD active it fools the system into thinking the region is set when it's not. With AnyDVD active you set the region on a sort of virtual drive's firmware I guess, not the actual hardware.

Sent from my Nexus 6P with Tapatalk

 

[OceanVoyager]

Thank you everyone and sorry to have possibly wasted your time. I am fairly hardware competent (one time ran/managed a fairly large computer lab). I do set region codes. Before I originally posted, the first thing I did was to check codes on the drives and they both returned a 1. That is what confused me as to what the issue was. When I checked the region codes AnyDVD was running. I did not look at the AnyDVD log file I attached, however.

The computer is a bit over a year old and the problem only surfaced recently (last several weeks). It occurred on both drives. It never occurred before.

That said, I now just checked and the drives both show a 0. Why, I have no idea. Win10 recently updated itself automatically to the "Creators" version on this computer. This occurred a few weeks back. My understanding is that region codes are set in drive firmware but, if one knows how to do it, the counter can be reset which sets the drive back to 0.

I have now set the drives to 1. Next time I will check the log files before submitting to double check the issue.

 

[Ch3vr0n]

The counter can NOT be reset, if it was 0, you've never set it in the first place.

When I checked the region codes AnyDVD was running

That was the problem right there, you had anydvd active. AnyDVD fools the system (due to how it works) that the region is set when it's not. Hence why the instructions say to EXIT ANYDVD COMPLETELY before you set the drive region. So you can actually set it in the firmware.

 

[merwinsson]

I'm a little confused here so maybe someone can set me straight.
I thought it was a good practice to keep your drive hardware region-less and allow AnyDVD to deal with whatever region trickery is needed to be done, whether it be imaging or playing back.
Is this not the recommendation?
I will say this...my drives are currently region-less and they worked with nary a complaint using SlySoft's version of AnyDVD for many years; then I purchased and installed the RedFox version and I receive the "unable to crack keys" message quite frequently.
The copies still seem to work despite seeing this warning, but I would appreciate some exposition about why this message pops up so often under RedFox AnyDVD...what changed?
Details please.

 

[DrinkLyeAndDie]

The best practice is to set the DVD drive region once and then let AnyDVD do the rest. It has been a misconception by some for many years that a drive with an unset region is the same as a region-free drive. It is not. More and more over the years specific DVD releases have resulted in failed brute force CSS removal when the drive region is unset. In the vast majority of cases merely setting the DVD drive region resolves the CSS removal failure. I'd say around 99%.

I'll repeat again that the best practice is to set the drive region once and then leave it alone.

 

[Ch3vr0n]

Region 0 is not the same as region free. CSS cracking wise, region 0 is the same as wrong region (eg region 1 disc in a region 2 drive, it will force AnyDVD to brute force things which may fail. If a drive was actually region free it would say so

drive region: 0 ≠ drive region: free

SlySoft AnyDVD or RedFox AnyDVD is irrelevant. Neither the CSS cracking mechanism nor drive region methodology has changed since DVDs existed.

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[merwinsson]

The best practice is to set the DVD drive region once and then let AnyDVD do the rest. It has been a misconception by some for many years that a drive with an unset region is the same as a region-free drive. It is not. More and more over the years specific DVD releases have resulted in failed brute force CSS removal when the drive region is unset. In the vast majority of cases merely setting the DVD drive region resolves the CSS removal failure. I'd say around 99%.

I'll repeat again that the best practice is to set the drive region once and then leave it alone.

OK. Thank you for the advice. Still would appreciate an explanation (or a link to one) describing why having a region vs having no region (unset) allows AnyDVD to more easily do its job when making an image. Also, what IS the difference between region-less and region-free. I guess region-free is a very special thing? How?

EDIT 1 {OK, Chevron, thanks, no need to answer this above, our posts crossed}
EDIT 2 {Is there any way to flash my drive's firmware to make it region-free}

Now, for a twist.

I'm pretty sure I found a bug in AnyDVD (8.1.8.3).

I just went through some testing to see what Windows thought of the drive region code when a disc was in the drive vs being empty.
I have 3 drives (E, F, G) in my system and I think this bug happens when you have more than 1 drive.

Here is what happens...

AnyDVD settings-
Default region: 1
Hardware Region Code: Simulate RPC2 drive with matching region: [checked]

With no discs inserted, all 3 drives show the region as unset when viewed via Windows Explorer Properties/Hardware/Properties/DVD_Region. This is expected.
When I insert a disk into E, Windows still shows E as having an unset region, BUT--and here's the kicker-- the G drive now shows that it is region 1 with 4 changes left, despite not having a disc inserted.
Now, remove disk from E and place in F. Can you guess who is now region 1? Yup, it's E.
Put the disc in G, and now F is region 1.
There's a one-off error here.
So it seems that whatever drive you insert a DVD into, AnyDVD's region masquerading logic mistakently sets the region for (drive - 1) (with wraparound) instead.

I can post screenshots but I think I did a pretty good job of explaining.

Comments?

 

[merwinsson]

Region 0 is not the same as region free
drive region: 0 ≠ drive region: free

You may want to edit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code then, because it disagrees with you.

 

[Ch3vr0n]

It doesn't, and what I said was previously stated by lead AnyDVD developer @James

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