Where did my backup file go?

[George314]

I haven't used this great software in a while, and maybe I am a bit rusty. Anyway, I completed a backup on a DVD, and I was told by the program it would appear in mac>users>movies. But there is nothing there; just some old files. Where could it be?

[dcoke22]

Do you have the log from MakeMKV from during the backup?

Also, since you seem to be using a Mac, in a Finder window, there's a Favorites item on the left named 'Recents'. That might show you where your files went.

[George314]

Thanks for the reply. I am indeed using a Mac.

I ran MakeMKV for the third time and the log, as before, reads Output folder: /Users/mac/Movies/Sheena (mac is my default user name and Sheena the movie in question). The end of the running log says Operation successfully completed. But the Movies folder has nothing that it did not have before.

Recents has a lot of seemingly random garbage and nothing about this movie.

Apparently I am accumulating identical backups of this movie somewhere in the computer, but any search reveals none of them.

[dcoke22]

Near the 'Operation Successfully Completed' line, does it say something about 1 Title saved? Or perhaps 0 titles saved?

You can just copy & paste the whole text of the log into a post if that's easier.

[George314]

Thanks for your patience. I took a screenshot of the logs, so I can't copy and paste. But there is no mention anywhere of titles saved.

I wonder if the disappearance of the backup file is due to some of the many updates to the Mac OS that have been pushed on Mac users lately. Each one has some unintended consequences.

[Woodstock]

There should be a line in the log like this:

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005015:0000 Saving 1 titles into directory file://Z:/RentAGirlfriend using profile 'New' from file 'C:\MakeMKVSVQ/New.mmcp.xml'

On a backup (rather than open-save-to-mkv), the log window will have something like this:

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Backing up disc into folder "Z:/backup/UzakiChan_D2"
Loaded content hash table, will verify integrity of M2TS files.

[dcoke22]

To go along with Woodstock's examples… here's an example of making a backup of a blu-ray:

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MakeMKV v1.16.4 darwin(x64-release) started
Debug logging enabled, log will be saved as /Users/uname/MakeMKV_log.txt
Optical drive "BD-RE HL-DT-ST BD-RE WH16NS60 1.02d" opened in OS access mode.
Using LibreDrive mode (v06.2 id=7FA2657C7667)
Backing up disc into folder "/Volumes/Media/Movies/backups/BOLT_USA"
Loaded content hash table, will verify integrity of M2TS files.
Backup done

Backing up disc into folder "/Volumes/Media/Movies/backups/BOLT_USA" is the line that tells where the backup was saved.

Here's a simplified example of creating a .mkv from the backup above:

Code: Select all

MakeMKV v1.16.4 darwin(x64-release) started
Debug logging enabled, log will be saved as /Users/uname/MakeMKV_log.txt
Optical drive "BD-RE HL-DT-ST BD-RE WH16NS60 1.02d" opened in OS access mode.
Optical drive "BD-RE ASUS BW-16D1HT 3.10d" opened in OS access mode.
Opening files on harddrive at /Volumes/Media/Movies/backups/BOLT_USA
File 00350.mpls was added as title #2
Operation successfully completed
Saving 1 titles into directory /Volumes/scratch
AV synchronization issues were found in file '/Volumes/scratch/Bolt_t02.mkv' (title #3)
AV sync issue in stream 5 at 0:00:00 : Forced subtitles track #5 turned out to be empty and was removed from output file
1 titles saved

Saving 1 titles into directory /Volumes/scratch is where the .mkv file is going to be saved.
1 titles saved means the .mkv file creation was successful.

[George314]

Thanks dcoke22 and Woodstock for your replies.

This is the entirety of my log:

MakeMKV v1.16.5 darwin(x64-release) started
Optical drive "BD-RE PIONEER BD-RW BDR-XD05 3.01 QFDL059885UCd" opened in OS access mode.
Using direct disc access mode
Title #1 has length of 6 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 10 seconds and was therefore skipped
Title #2 has length of 7 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 10 seconds and was therefore skipped
Title #3 has length of 9 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 10 seconds and was therefore skipped
Cells 11-end were skipped due to cell commands (structure protection?)
Complex multiplex encountered - 10 cells and 13951 VOBUs have to be scanned. This may take some time, please be patient - it can't be avoided.
Title #4 was added (10 cell(s), 1:56:13)
Operation successfully completed

Other information on the screen:

Output folder

/Users/mac/Movies/Sheena

Info

Source information
Type: DVD disc
Name: Sheena


Drive Information
OS device name: /dev/rdisk3
Current profile: DVD-ROM
Manufacturer: PIONEER
Product: BD-RW BDR-XD05
Revision: 3.01
Serial number: QFDL059885UC
Firmware date: 2014-12-26
Bus encryption flags: 1B
Highest AACS version: 70

LibreDrive Information
Status: Might be supported in future, keep fingers crossed
Drive platform: Pioneer RS8231
Firmware version: ID34

[Woodstock]

DVD doesn't have the same Backup function as Bluray. You can only save as an MKV file. To do that, you click the "Save as MKV" button in the upper right of the window. (Backup was added because the tools to create a BD ISO didn't exist, so you couldn't do a "full disk experience with BD like you could do with DVD ISOs)

Based on what is in your log, if you did click Save as MKV, you would see a file named something like title_t01.mkv in the directory /Users/mac/Movies/Sheena.

[George314]

Thanks, Woodstock. It turns out that I forgot that backing up a DVD is a two-step process in MakeMKV. The first part of the process does not make a backup of anything. It is the second part that actually makes a backup and stores it in Movies.