www.makemkv.com

Somehow my previous post didn't work, so here it is again.

I'm running on Windows 11 with 1.17.5. The GUI works just fine, but I need to use makemkvcon64. When I try to get the info for a disc (it doesn't seem to matter which one) it randomly works or does not, with the only difference being that the successes all say it's using LibreDrive and all the failures do not. The command I'm using is this:
Is there a way to for it to use LibreDrive? If not, why is the GUI always working, but the CLI version doesn't seem to detect it?

Your original post was canceled because you gave more information in this post.

If your drive needs "conversion" to run LibreDrive (not all drives have firmware changes), that is loaded when you start the GUI. Subsequent operations until the drive resets are done with the updated LibreDrive BIOS.

That's been my understanding of how it works for drives that are dynamically reconfigured. I don't have any of those, so I don't see it myself.

No problem, I appreciate the update on the post

The thing is, I can reboot and run this without ever starting the GUI and still get the same results, so there is no way the GUI is updating anything. I'm just sort of confused by it. I'm currently setting up a VM to try this under Ubuntu, which is where the eventual project will reside.

Rebooting via a software reset, or hardware? Hardware reset (like power-off) clears the devices' memory. Software reset often doesn't. The BIOS update is in the RAM of the drive, per what was posted by the author back when he introduced it.

I'm using a hardware power off, although in this case I'm also powering down the drive since it's in an external USB enclosure.

Also, the drive is a "BD-RE HL-DT-ST BD-RE WH16NS40 1.03 M6AJ2C81238" as reported by MakeMKV

Post the output of the errors and successes, all of it, all lines. Help us help you.

The GUI is slaved to makemkvcon, so if it doesn't work in makemkvcon, it's not going to work in the GUI. The GUI supplies some convenience/helper features but all the core features are in makemkvcon. Sadly, the source code for makemkvcon isn't available.

Since you're using Linux, you may be able to use "sg_reset" to reset the device. For USB you can use "usbdevfs". However, if you need these you more than likely have a physical problem like bad cabling or low power.

https://linux.die.net/man/8/sg_reset
https://marc.info/?l=linux-usb&m=121459435621262

I'll do that once I get Ubuntu up and running in the VM. Right now I'm mainly using Windows with AnyDVD, but I'm really, really getting fed up with Windows so trying to migrate back to Linux. We'll see if the hardware passthrough from Hyper-V is enough to let the software work.

It turns out that MakeMKV, as expected, cannot access the captured optical drive when running in a VM through Hyper-V under Windows. Going to have to deal with Windoze version tomorrow.

I might have found the problem. The was a Window$ update earlier this week that screwed the pooch on my PC. It turns out it, yet again, installed some XBox nonsense that happened to overwrite the USB drivers on my machine. I noticed the new software by accident today, uninstalled it, and got suspicious so I reinstalled mobo drivers. Lo and behold now it's working consistently every time. Sorry to waste your time everyone, but thanks for the help!!