www.makemkv.com

I've got a Memorex MRX-800LU V2 USB3 BD drive and a MacMini Server (running El Capitan). MakeMKV works fine with it for the first disc inserted (although I think I have to wait until the disc is recognized first before starting MakeMKV). But when I eject the disc and load another one, the icon to rip the BD ghosts out once the Mac recognizes the disc and shows the icon on the desktop. Once in a great while, it won't do that and will do a second disc without having to exit and restart MakeMKV first, but it usually can't read another disc until I restart MakeMKV at which point is sees it normally again and will extract it. I have noticed a connection between it and copy protected discs. If I rip a non-protected disc, it won't ever ghost over so I was suspecting it might have something to do with that "direct mode" it uses. But why would it need to restart MakeMKV to use that mode again or whatever is happening?

Is this likely a problem with my specific drive or is it an OS X issue or something else?

Best guess is that the Mac is keeping MakeMKV from seeing the disk change.

Does Finder change the label on the disk when you make the change?

What happens if you do not insert the first disk until after MakeMKV is running (i.e., give MakeMKV a change to control the drive) ?

Woodstock wrote:Best guess is that the Mac is keeping MakeMKV from seeing the disk change.

I would have thought it would be more consistent. And like I said, non-copy protected Blu-Rays don't appear to have the issue at all.

Does Finder change the label on the disk when you make the change?

Yes, the disc appears normally with the correct label.

Quitting MakeMKV doesn't affect the finder representation at all as far as I can see. After I quit/exit MakeMKV, restarting MakeMKV allows it to see the disc and rip it normally. I don't have to power off anything or unplug anything, etc. I just have to exit/restart MakeMKV for each (protected) disc I want to rip. It's a small hassle so I never bothered mentioning it until now. I thought maybe it was a brand/model issue or even USB related. I don't know how many Mac users are on here if any of them have the same issue or not. No update of MakeMKV has ever improved the situation, however. I'm more curious if any other Mac users have the issue or not. I saw a thread with a Windows laptop user having to reboot, but he actually got errors (not it just not seeing the disc) and I don't have to reboot or anything, just restart MakeMKV.

What happens if you do not insert the first disk until after MakeMKV is running (i.e., give MakeMKV a change to control the drive) ?

I just tried this with Ted (the movie). It says, "Opened disc in DASPI V1.5 mode" and waits for the disc to be detected (showing the disc spinning animation, etc.) but once the disc is detected by OS X, the disc icon ghosts over (same as if it were a second disc). In other words, I have to let the disc detect FIRST in the macOS or MakeMKV won't see it correctly.

Actually, now that I look, it says Type: Data below the drive type, but no label or protection is listed (just blank). It does show the disc capacity on the right side of the window and it says it's a BD-ROM disc. When I clicked QUIT this time, it says "Fatal Error occurred. Program will now exit." It's never said that before when it couldn't read a second disc.

Restarting MakeMKV produces (in addition to a working icon to start the rip):

Type: Blu-Ray
Label: TED_DOM
Protection: AACS V31

The right side is the same still as far as I can tell (still says type BD-ROM and the sizes/layers are the same), except the "Label" field is now filled in with TED_DOM there too. It still said the opened disc in Daspi V1.5 again. I think when I click to rip is when it says something like "Using Direct Drive mode" or something to that effect (I thought maybe that DASPI mode thing was the wrong method for a protected disc or it saw it as a data disc instead of a movie disc or something, but as for the former, it said the same thing while scanning, but the result when it wouldn't rip it was (as I indicated above) "Type: DATA" instead of "Type: Blu-Ray" so that might be key to how it's seeing it wrong. WHY it sees it wrong if it's running when the disc is being scanned by the operating system is unknown.

Like I said, once in a great while, it will see a second disc without restarting (and every time AFAIK when it's not protected), but it definitely didn't see a third disc correctly. I can only guess it's missing something during the scan or trying to read it before the OS determines what it's looking at or something. The disc will still play in a software blu-ray player regardless of how MakeMKV sees it (i.e. OS and other programs seem unaffected; I just tried that with Ted after ejecting and closing the drive again with MakeMKV running). Hovering the pointer over the disc rip icon says, "Disc Can't Be Opened" and again, the "label" is missing on the right and says TYPE: DATA instead of TYPE: Blu-Ray. Exit MakeMKV and restart and it correctly shows TYPE: Blu-Ray and is able to rip.

I have to defer to people who own Macs to go beyond this point.

When you installed MakeMKV, though, did it say it needed to install DASPI? Generally speaking, that should not be needed UNLESS MakeMKV says it is needed. It might be, but I thought El Capitan didn't need it.

Woodstock wrote:I have to defer to people who own Macs to go beyond this point.

When you installed MakeMKV, though, did it say it needed to install DASPI? Generally speaking, that should not be needed UNLESS MakeMKV says it is needed. It might be, but I thought El Capitan didn't need it.

I really don't recall as it's been quite some time since I originally installed MakeMKV. I might have just assumed it needed the first time. I guess I could try removing it and see if it works any better. It says to remove just delete the kernel.kext extension. I see it also don't install just for the hell of it, although the reasons for installing it on a site that described OS X's clumsy Blu-Ray support API (that is bugged and workarounds don't work for every model) sounded pretty compelling as it apparently avoids all the issues and slow behavior that could happen from other methods. It could be conflicting by trying to access the drive at the same time as the OS or something, though I suppose (that would explain why it works after waiting for the OS to identify the disc, but not before or during). I would think that would have been accounted for, but it sounds like Apple's source code for some things hasn't been available since Tiger or Leopard (a LONG time ago).

I unloaded the daspi.kext and MakeMKV definitely came up in "OS Access Mode" instead. Unfortunately, it didn't make one bit of difference. It ghosted the icon (can't access disc) if I started MakeMKV first, same as before. Whatever it is, it's not DASPI that's causing the issue as far as I can tell. Loading the disc first and then starting MakeMKV worked either way.

Sorry to say that I'm not experiencing any of what you're describing on my Mac (Sierra 10.12.6, Pioneer BDR-208D-Internal, DASPI never installed).

Have retraced your steps this morning with protected/non protected discs, allowing the discs to load prior to starting MakeMKV and vise versa and no instance of the "ghosted" drive icon.

If I've missed anything reading through your posts, let me know and I'll be glad to try to recreate.

Lovely Rita wrote:Sorry to say that I'm not experiencing any of what you're describing on my Mac (Sierra 10.12.6, Pioneer BDR-208D-Internal, DASPI never installed).

Have retraced your steps this morning with protected/non protected discs, allowing the discs to load prior to starting MakeMKV and vise versa and no instance of the "ghosted" drive icon.

If I've missed anything reading through your posts, let me know and I'll be glad to try to recreate.

An internal drive? Is that on an older Mac Pro tower or something? Maybe the problem only exists with USB drives or maybe even just my Memorex brand drive. Removing DASPI did not fix anything either here.

Just a note here. Whatever the problem is with having to restart MakeMKV because of the ghosted icon (which thinks it's a data disc) to get it to work for another disc again, it's only with the Memorex drive. My newer Asus 4K friendly drive does not have that issue on the same computer.