MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR

[oldeone]

Hello. I am trying to put my old copy of Star Trek 6, the Undiscovered Country on my mp3 player. This begins with a rip to my hard drive. Unfortunately, I am given the following errors.

Using direct disc access mode
Title #1 was added (30 cell(s), 1:48:41)
Title #2 has length of 22 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 120 seconds and was therefore skipped
Operation successfully completed
Saving 1 titles into directory C:/Users/HonkHonk/Desktop/urglblurgl
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_1.VOB' at offset '78866432'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_1.VOB' at offset '78866432'
Failed to save title 0 to file C:/Users/HonkHonk/Desktop/urglblurgl/title00.mkv
0 titles saved, 1 failed

I tried again. I got the same thing, almost. The offset numbers are different.

Using direct disc access mode
Title #1 was added (30 cell(s), 1:48:41)
Title #2 has length of 22 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 120 seconds and was therefore skipped
Operation successfully completed
Saving 1 titles into directory C:/Users/HonkHonk/Desktop/urglblurgl
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_1.VOB' at offset '85520384'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_1.VOB' at offset '85520384'
Failed to save title 0 to file C:/Users/HonkHonk/Desktop/urglblurgl/title00.mkv
0 titles saved, 1 failed

This has never happened with any other DVD I have put onto my portable devices. In fact, I have been able to do this with other movies of the Star Trek series. I am not sure why this one would be any different. I am going to try, one more time.

Meh. It got almost halfway through, again, and it has stalled out.

MakeMKV v1.8.10 win(x64-release) started
Using direct disc access mode
Title #1 was added (31 cell(s), 1:52:59)
Title #2 has length of 22 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 120 seconds and was therefore skipped
Operation successfully completed
Saving 1 titles into directory C:/Users/HonkHonk/Desktop/urglblurgl
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_1.VOB' at offset '78991360'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_1.VOB' at offset '78991360'
Failed to save title 0 to file C:/Users/HonkHonk/Desktop/urglblurgl/title00.mkv
0 titles saved, 1 failed

Yep. So yeah.

[ndjamena]

Clean the disc.

[oldeone]

The disc was clean.

[ndjamena]

It's a SCSI error, so it's not copy protection, it happens as it's trying to read and it happens at different places so it's not bad data on the disc.

The drive is having trouble reading the disc. You could try upping the retry count in preferences but other than that, there's something wrong with the disc surface.

[oldeone]

There are some small scratches on the surface of the disc, but my drive has read far worse than this. Thanks for your input. I am going to caveman this.

Caveman. (v) To take a rock or other blunt object and throw it indiscriminately about the room whilst unintelligibly howling and/or screaming until the desired result is achieved. -O.O.

:3

[oldeone]

As for the previous problem, I was suddenly able to read the file, and I have no idea why.

That was then. This is now.

TWO out of the four titles will not read. Again, I appear to have the same sort of strange problem. *shrugs* The disc is readable by other programs. Come to think of it, The last time I had a problem was when I installed the update and used the new beta key.

Saving 1 titles into directory C:/Users/dorkdork/Desktop/MUSIC IN TRANSITION
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_1.VOB' at offset '389029888'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_1.VOB' at offset '389029888'
Failed to save title 0 to file C:/Users/dorkdork/Desktop/MUSIC IN TRANSITION/title00.mkv
0 titles saved, 1 failed

Saving 1 titles into directory C:/Users/dorkdork/Desktop/MUSIC IN TRANSITION
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_1.VOB' at offset '389259264'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_1.VOB' at offset '389259264'
Failed to save title 0 to file C:/Users/dorkdork/Desktop/MUSIC IN TRANSITION/title00.mkv
0 titles saved, 1 failed


After performing several animal sacrifices, I tried again.

Saving 1 titles into directory C:/Users/dorkdork/Desktop/MUSIC IN TRANSITION
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_1.VOB' at offset '388517888'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_1.VOB' at offset '388669440'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_1.VOB' at offset '388739072'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_1.VOB' at offset '388808704'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_1.VOB' at offset '388808704'
Failed to save title 0 to file C:/Users/dorkdork/Desktop/MUSIC IN TRANSITION/title00.mkv
0 titles saved, 1 failed

That was all from the same attempt.

[Woodstock]

"clean disk" with "tiny scratches" can often be made to work by waxing the disk. This is why my cleaning procedure is to use Pledge furniture polish, which "cleans and waxes".

You might also look at cleaning your drive. Sometimes, a combination of dirt on the lens and imperfections in the media will conspire to cause the failure to read.

[mjg0915]

Have you tried beaming it directly to your hard drive?
Yep, I signed up just to post that smirky comment.

All kidding aside, like others said it's probably a media / disc problem.
Do you have any other drives you can put the disc in to try the rip?
I know when I run across it, all 3 of my available PC's will error out with the SCSI error, though not always at the exact same spot.
You could try backup method, but mine seem to fail that too.
Does the portable DVD or Blu-Ray player play it?

I've seen scratched up, dingy discs rip with no problem and brand new unblemished ones error out.
It's hard to predict when it's going to happen.

Did you try the pledge thing? Curious if that works, as I have a few DVD's that look perfect but SCSI error out.

[patemery67]

I am experiencing this problem as well. Help me understand how the software works. It sounds like we have all found instances where a disc looks flaw free to the human eye (no smudges or scratches) and the disc will error out in MakeMKV but will play completely in a blu-ray component device. When I watch the disc on my blu-ray component device it stutters and stalls briefly once or twice in the movie but the player manages to continue on dropping out a few seconds of the film. Why can't the software be made to do a similar thing and present a warning to the user or give a configuration option that allows the user to control whether or not to generate damaged copies with warning or error out and generate nothing?

[Woodstock]

MakeMKV asks the operating system to fetch the data off the disk, and the drive tries. Sometimes, there are errors. MakeMKV reports them and fails the rip.

When you use a stand-alone player, they are programmed to IGNORE errors. You'll see or hear a glitch in the playback, and then it is gone... but the point of ripping software is to get a bit-for-bit copy of the contents, not a "rough approximation" of it.

When you go to encode the video with other software, those missing bits are significant. Within the last couple of weeks there was someone who complained here that MakeMKV should have a setting to skip errors, because another package was able to successfully rip his problematic disk, then showed up on the Handbrake forum to complain that the results of that rip couldn't be encoded....

I have 4 different BD and 2 DVD drives here, because sometimes a disk can be read in one but not other drives. If the cleaning doesn't work, I go around to the other drives to see what happens. Different drives have different alignments of their lasers, and sometimes a micron offset is all it takes to get past a particular scratch.

Optical media's only advantage is that it is cheap. Reliability isn't a real selling point. It is important to get your video onto better storage as quickly as possible, and minimize exposure of the optical disks to kids, spouses, neighbors, friends, pets, and cosmic rays.

[schrockstar]

The forums over at AnyDVD have identified this as a new copy-protection scheme. It would be nice of the make MKV folks also took a look with an eye towards uncovering the new scheme instead of attributing to a dirty disc surface.

Here are results from attempting to rip Disc 3 from 'The Roosevelts - An Intimate History' box set:



MakeMKV v1.9.1 win(x64-release) started
Using direct disc access mode
Title #1 was added (13 cell(s), 1:36:08)
Title #3 has length of 82 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 240 seconds and was therefore skipped
Title #4 has length of 5 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 240 seconds and was therefore skipped
Title #5 was added (1 cell(s), 0:25:30)
Title #6 was added (1 cell(s), 0:22:40)
Title #11 has length of 82 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 240 seconds and was therefore skipped
Title #12 was added (11 cell(s), 1:22:15)
Title #14 has length of 82 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 240 seconds and was therefore skipped
Title #15 was added (14 cell(s), 1:44:44)
Title #17 has length of 82 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 240 seconds and was therefore skipped
Title #18 was added (11 cell(s), 1:22:15)
Title #20 has length of 82 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 240 seconds and was therefore skipped
CellWalk algorithm failed (structure protection is too tough?), trying CellTrim algorithm
Cells 1-1 were removed from title start
Cells 18-18 were removed from title end
Title #23 has length of 82 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 240 seconds and was therefore skipped
Title #26 has length of 82 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 240 seconds and was therefore skipped
CellWalk algorithm failed (structure protection is too tough?), trying CellTrim algorithm
Cells 1-1 were removed from title start
Cells 18-18 were removed from title end
Title #29 has length of 82 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 240 seconds and was therefore skipped
CellWalk algorithm failed (structure protection is too tough?), trying CellTrim algorithm
Cells 1-1 were removed from title start
Cells 18-18 were removed from title end
Title #32 has length of 82 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 240 seconds and was therefore skipped
CellWalk algorithm failed (structure protection is too tough?), trying CellTrim algorithm
Cells 1-1 were removed from title start
Cells 18-18 were removed from title end
Title #35 has length of 82 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 240 seconds and was therefore skipped
CellWalk algorithm failed (structure protection is too tough?), trying CellTrim algorithm
Cells 1-1 were removed from title start
Cells 18-18 were removed from title end
Title #38 has length of 82 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 240 seconds and was therefore skipped
Title #41 has length of 82 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 240 seconds and was therefore skipped
Title #42 was added (12 cell(s), 1:30:06)
Title #44 has length of 82 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 240 seconds and was therefore skipped
Title #47 has length of 82 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 240 seconds and was therefore skipped
CellWalk algorithm failed (structure protection is too tough?), trying CellTrim algorithm
Cells 1-1 were removed from title start
Cells 18-18 were removed from title end
Title #50 has length of 82 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 240 seconds and was therefore skipped
Title #53 has length of 82 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 240 seconds and was therefore skipped
Title 1 in VTS 8 is equal to title 1 and was skipped
Operation successfully completed
Saving 6 titles into directory //SCHROCKDATA/video/mkv/The Roosevelts - An Intimate History/Episode 3
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_1.VOB' at offset '16748544'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_1.VOB' at offset '16748544'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_1.VOB' at offset '16748544'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_1.VOB' at offset '16748544'
Failed to save title 1 to file //SCHROCKDATA/video/mkv/The Roosevelts - An Intimate History/Episode 3/title01.mkv
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_04_1.VOB' at offset '16769024'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_04_1.VOB' at offset '16769024'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_04_1.VOB' at offset '16769024'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_04_1.VOB' at offset '16769024'
Failed to save title 2 to file //SCHROCKDATA/video/mkv/The Roosevelts - An Intimate History/Episode 3/title02.mkv
4 titles saved, 2 failed

[Woodstock]

The "folks at MakeMKV" is Mike. I do not work for them.

However, when you get this report:

Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_1.VOB' at offset '16748544'

That is your DRIVE saying, "I CANNOT READ THIS DISK AT THIS LOCATION". When that happens, any program dependent upon the drive reading the disk at that location will FAIL. The best it can do is replace the missing information with garbage data. Rather than do that, MakeMKV fails the file.

There are common causes for unreadable disks. Anyone who has worked with disks for any length of time will give you a list of them, but that list starts with "dirty or damaged disk".

As for "the forums at AnyDVD", are you saying that every disk in this topic (several have been noted) has the EXACT SAME UNREADABLE SECTOR ERROR at the EXACT SAME LOCATION, which would be necessary for this to be a "new copy protection scheme"? Your example isn't even one that was involved in the discussion to this point!

[skyy99]

@Woodstock

I too am seeing these errors on several new blurays. I cannot say it is copy protection or not. But I am confused as to why MakeMKV cannot do something more intelligent when it encounters this situation. Perhaps you could enlighten us?

For example. If block cannot be read after n retries, in place of real data, use:
A) Garbage (random bits).
B) All zeros/all ones.
C) Previous block's contents.
D) Something even more intelligent...

While getting bit perfect extraction is the goal. It's frustrating (and to be honest, unreasonable) to fail the entire process because 1 bit (out of ~50GB) could not be read correctly.

Your previous posts suggest that perhaps the missing data will cause problems during encoding. Well, MakeMKV does encoding, so it knows what the data should look like right? If a block is flagged as bad/garbage, then it can just be skipped. Use the previous key frame (or whatever) and act as if that data were trimmed out.

Maybe this is too much of a simplification. But I'd appreciate a more informed answer.

Thanks,
Matt

[Woodstock]

MakeMKV does no encoding of video, and only limited recoding of audio.

I will leave it to people expert in re-encoding to explain why it is a bad idea to substitute random data (including long strings of zeros) in a file that contains multiple data streams. But, in my limited experience of dealing with bit-level data streams, ANY such discontinuity can make the results invalid.

In the case of a player, it will simply notice that the stream is corrupt, and just read until it get something it recognizes. The viewer (you) thinks, "Oh, a glitch in the disk".

In the case of an encoder (let's say Handbrake), the result is a failed encode, OR (should it attempt a player-like skip-until-good-data-found work-around) a support request for the encoder being broken.

The model of "stop when the original error occurs" stops situations like this.

[skyy99]

I see. Thanks for the explanation. However I'm not sure why you'd defend this behavior over one that provides the option to do something like one of the suggestions above.

The standard behavior in layered hardware device interfaces is to do what MakeMKV is doing. If the data cannot be read, return error (fast fail). This makes sense for low level devices that have no idea what is calling them or how the data is to be used. But that's really not the situation for MakeMKV (and I think this is where the real difference of opinion lies).

MakeMKV is ostensibly copying and decrypting data from the disc. But it's real task is more akin to a batch job that processes each independent second of video data. In a batch job it is completely unacceptable to terminate the entire process if one independent piece fails. A batch job must complete and provide a log of what succeeded and what did not succeed. Each second of video is rather independent from the previous in terms of how it's being used (and even from an encoding perspective to some extent).

Because MakeMKV knows exactly what is going to use this data, it shouldn't always fast fail. Let the video encoder or player deal with bad reads.

Sticking with this fast fail behavior has few positives and several negatives.

PROs:
1) Fast fail is simple to code.

CONs:
1) Irritated users who would rather lose a second or two of video over no movie at all (I'd wager this is a very large percentage of users and is guaranteed to grow as discs decay).
2) Users aren't given the chance to let the video encoder/player try. Handbrake might do fine with a bad block. The video encoder I write might handle it better than Handbrake, etc. The Bluray player will likely do just fine if I burn it back to a BD. But user's don't get this opportunity because 1 bit was bad an the rip is fast fail.
3) This behavior does not protect users from bad rips. Why? Because the rips can go bad on the HDD or elsewhere before getting played. So the stated problem this is trying to avoid, is basically unavoidable.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say this behavior was not given much thought. But luckily the author(s) have this forum that can help them make a better product by leveraging the feedback of users.

Thanks,
Matt