AnyDVD-HD freezes Pioneer BD-RWBDR-211M Drive

[Kishiro]

Hello I have a problem with AnyDVD-HD lately. Sometimes (more recently) when I put a Blu-Ray or UHD in my Pioneer BD-drive, AnyDVD-HD starts scanning the disc as normal and then just hangs (for hours, or rather indefinetly). The status windows says 'The disc you have inserted will be available shortly. Please wait!" the status never changes. Ejecting the disc does nothing. Everytime this happens I can see that AnyDVD has called 'makemkvcon.exe' to run and never terminates. Exiting AnyDVD does not help. The 'makemkvcon.exe' process can not be killed, not even if I run taskkill as NT Authority\SYSTEM user. The *only* way is to restart the computer completely.

When AnyDVD-HD works properly, I can see 'makemkvcon.exe' start and exit after a few seconds and AnyDVD decrypts the drive as normal. But sometimes it goes sideways and it hangs. After a restart the same disc may work fine again. I don't know what causes it. But it's usually when i try a new disc for the *first* time (Second time after restart may work fine). Lately it was the UK Blu-Ray 'One Deadly Summer'.

The restart is really annoying. Could you improve the error-handlig when calling/loading 'makemkvcon.exe' ? Maybe make AnyDVD able to terminate/kill the process if it dosen't repsond after x amount of time and throw up an error message. Then at least I could exit and restart AnyDVD-HD to try again, instead of having to restart the whole computer...



I'm using the latest 8.6.2.0 release of AnyDVD-HD.

 

[DeepSpace]

Is MakeMKV up to date? If you don't need it, uninstall it.
Not sure if a logfile would help or if it would even be possible to create one when AnyDVD is still scanning the disc, but please try it if it should happen again and you don't want to uninstall MakeMKV.

 

[Kishiro]

Thanks for the quick reply DeepSpace
Yes makemkv is up to date. I was not able to make a log-file when AnyDVD-hd froze, but I did make one after I rebooted the computer (I had to take the power because the OS could not restart thanks to the hanging makemkvcon process). After the reboot the 'problem' disc and AnyDVD-HD worked just fine, so I'm not sure the log-file will be of any use... But I'll add it just in case.

 

[DeepSpace]

I'm not sure the log-file will be of any use

Maybe the devs can find something.

 

[DQ]

Could this be a drive issue? I have had drives about to go bad that would sometimes scan forever and you could hear them physically trying to scan but would never complete. This had nothing to do with AnyDVD at the time.

Of course I have also have had dirty discs that would do the same and I would clean them and then they would scan fine.

Just a thought.

 

[James]

Everytime this happens I can see that AnyDVD has called 'makemkvcon.exe' to run and never terminates. Exiting AnyDVD does not help. The 'makemkvcon.exe' process can not be killed, not even if I run taskkill as NT Authority\SYSTEM user. The *only* way is to restart the computer completely.

So it certainly is a problem with MakeMKV. If you uninstall it, AnyDVD will not use it and it won't "hang".

 

[Kishiro]

So it certainly is a problem with MakeMKV. If you uninstall it, AnyDVD will not use it and it won't "hang".

Hi James Sure. I agree that It's definetely an issue between 'makemkvcon.exe' and AnyDVD-HD yes. Uninstalling Makemkv would indeed be a workaround, but does not fix the heart of the problem. The Pioneer drive is an official so-called 'unfriendly' UHD drive. I need MakeMKV for AnyDVD-HD to be able to read UHD discs. As I mentioned it works fine most of the time, except for when it dosen't. Maybe AnyDVD-HD does not get the expected response from makemkvcon, or it times out, I don't know. But the error-handlig should be improved. I thought the problem might have been fixed with version 8.6.10 which had the following improvement (See below). Some things might certainly have been fixed, but not all. I still have the 'freeze' problems with the subsequent versions (including 8.6.2.0). ; "

• 8.6.10: Fix (Blu-ray): Using MakeMKV “Libre Drive” bus decryption could fail for some discs with Pioneer drives

 

[James]

Hi James Sure. I agree that It's definetely an issue between 'makemkvcon.exe' and AnyDVD-HD yes. Uninstalling Makemkv would indeed be a workaround, but does not fix the heart of the problem. The Pioneer drive is an official so-called 'unfriendly' UHD drive. I need MakeMKV for AnyDVD-HD to be able to read UHD discs. As I mentioned it works fine most of the time, except for when it dosen't. Maybe AnyDVD-HD does not get the expected response from makemkvcon, or it times out, I don't know. But the error-handlig should be improved. I thought the problem might have been fixed with version 8.6.10 which had the following improvement (See below). Some things might certainly have been fixed, but not all. I still have the 'freeze' problems with the subsequent versions (including 8.6.2.0). ; "

• 8.6.10: Fix (Blu-ray): Using MakeMKV “Libre Drive” bus decryption could fail for some discs with Pioneer drives

If 'makemkvcon.exe' hangs, AnyDVD will terminate it after a timeout (a minute or so). As you have experienced, 'makemkvcon.exe' hung so badly, it took down your machine. A hanging I/O can happen for various reasons. Bad hardware, bad drivers, cables...
As you were using a "non UHD" disc with the log, you wouldn't need MakeMKV. I hope I/O with the Pioneer doesn't hang often in the future.

 

[DeepSpace]

A hanging I/O can happen for various reasons.

Is your drive internal or external? I only have external ones, so when AnyDVD loops itself into infinity or if there are any other bugs, I just turn it off or plug them out. Then I can terminate AnyDVD and start again.

 

[Kishiro]

Is your drive internal or external? I only have external ones, so when AnyDVD loops itself into infinity or if there are any other bugs, I just turn it off or plug them out. Then I can terminate AnyDVD and start again.

That sounds nice Unfortunately mine is internal. I'm contemplating moving away from Pioneer and maybe get another more uhd-friendly BD-writer if I can find one. It would however be nice to have an option in AnyDVD to enable/disable Makemkv/LibreDrive if the program is detected. Then users don't have to completely uninstall MakeMKV if they don't want to use it with ANyDVD-HD. I initially thought it only would only be used/called when inserting UHDs, but it seems to also be used with some newer Blu-Rays as well (or maybe it's always used and I don't see it in Task Manager because it's too quick to see.)

 

[DeepSpace]

get another more uhd-friendly BD-writer if I can find one

I use the Asus BW-16D1HT, you can flash it and make it friendly. Even though I never did it, it worked well.

And later I bought this enclosure, the OWC Mercury Pro. It is made of metal, has a switch to turn it on or of and even if it is a higher price, I don't mind that I purchased it. The only downside was the shipping time, but that depends on where you live.

It would however be nice to have an option in AnyDVD to enable/disable Makemkv/LibreDrive if the program is detected.

That is true, I don't even need it since my drive is friendly.

 

[SamuriHL]

That's not going to be an option. The reason this was done is because anydvd and makemkv don't play well together if anydvd isn't controlling the process of enabling libredrive. So you can wish for it, but it's not going to happen. If you don't want anydvd to use libredrive, uninstall makemkv.

Sent from my SM-G998U1 using Tapatalk

 

[James]

That's not going to be an option. The reason this was done is because anydvd and makemkv don't play well together if anydvd isn't controlling the process of enabling libredrive. So you can wish for it, but it's not going to happen. If you don't want anydvd to use libredrive, uninstall makemkv.

After more experience with LibreDrive it should be possible to use it only with UHD with Pioneer drives. It looks like authentication with the drive turns off Libre Drive bus decryption. This explains your test results a while back. However, I hate making these "exceptions", as I rely on third party software which might change without notice.
Further, I don't think using makemkv libredrive is the source for problems. Otherwise I wouldn't use it.

 

[James]

That is true, I don't even need it since my drive is friendly.

You really need it *BECAUSE* your drive is friendly *and* you have MakeMKV installed.

 

[SamuriHL]

After more experience with LibreDrive it should be possible to use it only with UHD with Pioneer drives. It looks like authentication with the drive turns off Libre Drive bus decryption. This explains your test results a while back. However, I hate making these "exceptions", as I rely on third party software which might change without notice.
Further, I don't think using makemkv libredrive is the source for problems. Otherwise I wouldn't use it.

Yea, I remember testing it and that's exactly what we thought back then. Which makes sense for blu-ray I suppose. But that's not going to be fun to write the exception code depending on how you implement it. That'll need some testing.