MakeMKV fails without additional info in log

[RAHRL]

I have a problem with a (legitimate) DVD disc of the tv-series Banacek. The disc contains 3 titles (= 3 episodes) and the first 2 titles are ripped without any problems.

The 3rd title, however, fails after about 3/4 of the rip, always at the same location.

I have tried several times in 2 different dvd readers and a bluray reader, I have tried cleaning the disc with soft cloth soaked in alcohol (which usually solves the problem), but nothing works.

There are no scratches visible on the disc surface.

The ripping of the disc runs smoothly at about 8x speed up to the point where it fails.

The log (i.e. the white window in MakeMKV) reports no errors, which I find curious. Normally, I get a bunch of READ ERROR's if there is a problem reading a dvd and I usually can hear the stuttering of the dvd player trying to reread a particular piece of information. But nothing like that happens.

The ripping process just comes to a halt and the MakeMKV window pops up with the message "2 succeeded, 1 failed".

Just don't know what to do anymore.

[RAHRL]

VLC Player has no problem playing and recording the title from the disc.

[RAHRL]

I have checked debugging on and now get the following information:

DEBUG: Code 4294747016 at C2qeZ(}9UaJ/_9ed[EW}:213143669
DEBUG: Code 0 at C2qeZ(}9UaJ/_9ed[EW}:213140702
DEBUG: Code 0 at |03L4Qet`E.eCrMo,`Zs':213137068
DEBUG: Code 0 at |03L4Qet`E.eCrMo,`Zs':213137068
DEBUG: Code 1 at `^:7$I?OVJwUpRGk:121263567
DEBUG: Code 0 at `^:7$I?OVJwUpRGk:213133020
DEBUG: Code 0 at .{9B4[Fe jYP ZH8Jl]t:121261773
DEBUG: Code 0 at |03L4Qet`E.eCrMo,`Zs':213137068
LIBMKV_TRACE: Exception: Error while reading input

[dcoke22]

Hopefully MakeMKV's author, Mike, will see your post.

Out of curiosity, can you make a backup for the DVD disc in question?

[RAHRL]

I managed to make a, what I think, lossless (H.264 0RF) .mkv rip of the pertained episode (S02E06 - Rocket to Oblivion) with Handbrake.

But I am still not completely satisfied with the result because the file is huge (about 13,5 GB compared to max 1,5 GB for the other episodes that are ripped with MakeMKV) and the subtitles are awkward (unsually large, with a lot of brackets >>).

There is one thing I did notice, though. There is something strange going on with the duration of the episode. Both VLC Player and Handbrake estimate the duration to be about 2:43:10, but after the rip with Handbrake the duration is only 1:31:13.

The length of all the other episodes is around 1:12:00 (only the pilot is 1:31:00) and according to IMDB the pertained episode (ripped by Handbrake) should be about the same (i.e. 1:12:00.

Could that cause some kind of malfunction in MakeMKV?

[RAHRL]

Result of the scan by Handbrake: see attachment
7 titles, 3 episodes, wrong duration of 3rd episode

Result of the scan by MakeMKV: see other attachment
same thing, but MakeMKV recognizes the double episodes, duration of 3rd episode also wrong

(Don't know where those attachments went)

[RAHRL]

Out of curiosity, can you make a backup for the DVD disc in question?

I made a backup of the disc with MakeMKV and I opened the resulting .iso image with MakeMKV.

Exactly the same structure becomes visible as when opening the disc directly, including the wrong duration of the last episode.

Ripping the pertained episode results in the same error at the same location. Exactly the same behaviour.

May I now conclude that nor the disc nor the dvd reader are the cause of the problem? Could the wrong metadata (duration) on the disc cause this?.

Is there anyway I can modify the duration in the .iso image?

[RAHRL]

I managed to make a, what I think, lossless (H.264 0RF) .mkv rip of the pertained episode (S02E06 - Rocket to Oblivion) with Handbrake.

But I am still not completely satisfied with the result because the file is huge (about 13,5 GB compared to max 1,5 GB for the other episodes that are ripped with MakeMKV) and the subtitles are awkward (unsually large, with a lot of brackets >>).

Still problems with the subtitles in the Handbrake rip. They look weird (unsusally large and with brackets).
MakeMKV handles that well for the other episodes, but I just can't get MakeMKV to rip this this episode, possibly to wrong metadata (duration).
Handbrake tells me the subtitles are Closed Captions (CC608). SubtitleEdit can't import them, nor from the disc nor from the .mkv file.
I also tried Mkvmerge, but that doesn't change the weird appearance. Kind of lost here, cannot imagine to be the first person with these issues.

[dcoke22]

I made a backup of the disc with MakeMKV and I opened the resulting .iso image with MakeMKV.

Exactly the same structure becomes visible as when opening the disc directly, including the wrong duration of the last episode.

Ripping the pertained episode results in the same error at the same location. Exactly the same behaviour.

May I now conclude that nor the disc nor the dvd reader are the cause of the problem? Could the wrong metadata (duration) on the disc cause this?.

Is there anyway I can modify the duration in the .iso image?

Since you were able to successfully make a backup of the disc with MakeMKV suggests that there's nothing physically wrong with your disc or your optical drive. There's most likely something wrong with how that problematic episode is authored that is causing MakeMKV to fail.

According to the MakeMKV release notes, the DVD engine was rewritten for version 1.17. Generally, this has been an improvement. However, assuming you have a paid license to MakeMKV, you can use older versions. There's a very slim chance you might get a different result from version 1.16.7 of MakeMKV with the old DVD engine.

I've never tried it, buy you might also be able to open the backup .iso with the MKVToolNix GUI and extract to episode that way.

[RAHRL]

According to the MakeMKV release notes, the DVD engine was rewritten for version 1.17. Generally, this has been an improvement. However, assuming you have a paid license to MakeMKV, you can use older versions. There's a very slim chance you might get a different result from version 1.16.7 of MakeMKV with the old DVD engine.

I've never tried it, buy you might also be able to open the backup .iso with the MKVToolNix GUI and extract to episode that way.

I do welcome all suggestions, but I am a bit reluctant to downgrade my MakeMKV program as I currently do have very few other problems. Also, I am afraid of conflicts that might arise if I would install 2 versions of MakeMKV on my laptop at the same time, possibly sharing dll's etc.

As I understand, MKVToolNix GUI is just a graphical shell for the commandline commands. I looked into each of them, in particular MKVmerge and MKVPropEdit but neither seems to be able to handle .iso images of DVD's.

[RAHRL]

But I had another idea. I switched on Expert Mode en that gives me the option in the File menu to open a title manually by typing in the number of the title.

When I do that for the pertaining episode, the duration of the episode that was 2:43:16 at the start, changed to 2:24:19. No idea why it does that, no idea whether it is metadata on the disc or a calculation made by MakeMKV, but the ripping is succesful now!

I first tried on the .iso image backup and then directly on the disc itself by browsing to the VIDEO_TS map on the disc. Both work. The resulting episode has a duration of 1:12:14 and both are exactly the same file size.

I have no idea what is going on with the duration and will not even attempt to explain why this suddenly is working, but it's the result that counts for me.

Thx for thinking with me, I hope that some day a developer will look at this topic and provide an explanation why MakeMKV behaves like this.

[Woodstock]

Just a note to say I have (currently) 6 versions of MakeMKV installed on this machine, and 8 on another, from version 1.14.1 through 1.17.5 (haven't installed .6 yet). You do NOT have to install a new/different version in the same directory as the original install.

Just saying.

[RAHRL]

Just a note to say I have (currently) 6 versions of MakeMKV installed on this machine, and 8 on another, from version 1.14.1 through 1.17.5 (haven't installed .6 yet). You do NOT have to install a new/different version in the same directory as the original install.

Just saying.

Good to know that it will do no harm. But, just out of curiosity, why 6 versions of MakeMKV?

If a particular version fails ripping a disc, do you try with the other 5?

[RAHRL]

Regarding the subtitles (Closed Caption CC608), I have provided some mis-information earlier.

All episodes have these weird (very large, badly positioned, lots of >>) subtitles, including the ones MakeMKV ripped succesfully right away. So it has nothing to do with Handbrake.

The problem is rather off-topic and I will make a new topic for it in due time,

[Woodstock]

But, just out of curiosity, why 6 versions of MakeMKV?

Two reasons: Defensiveness, and laziness. Can't say which is the main reason, though.

When a new version is posted, I'll install it, but not as my primary immediately. There have been versions that were screwed up in some way, so that's a defensive reason.

After that, I don't usually bother removing them for a while, because some versions do things a bit differently than later ones, such as handling DVDs. That isn't a big reason, but it is a factor. Yeah, that's why. And no one can prove otherwise!