The Force Awakens - SCSI/Medium/Uncorrectable Errors

[nick5256]

I've been trying to rip The Force Awakens last night and today, and I'm currently trying a second disc. I attempted the first disc about 6 or 7 times, and each time it seemed to encounter an error in roughly the same spot in one of two different parts. I did try wiping the disc off and cleaning it a little (wiped center-out), though it generally looked in good shape. I eventually tried a second disc, and I've tried it twice now (running it a third time now), also wiped it as well, but it's still having problems and they're in the same area as one of the problems of the previous disc.

I'll post what the log showed for them (only have the last few attmepts of the first disc):

Disc 1: Attempt 1:
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/BDMV/STREAM/00153.m2ts' at offset '19133104128'

Attempt 2 (just listing the numbers for lines that are the same as the rest of the "Uncorrectable Error" lines):
8430680064
8430876672
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:NO SEEK COMPLETE' occurred while reading '/BDMV/STREAM/00153.m2ts' at offset '8430876672'
8430876672
8430876672
8430876672
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:NO SEEK COMPLETE' occurred while reading '/BDMV/STREAM/00153.m2ts' at offset '8430901248

Attempt 3:
19133534208
19133534208


Disc 2: Attempt 1:
19148568576
19148568576

Attempt 2:
19139039232
19139039232
19139039232
19139039232


And for what it's worth, I currently have the preferences set to 20 times (for trying to get past an error I think?). I've also unchecked everything but the version I need (the first one which is the 800 one, not the 801 or 802 which are foreign versions) and I've left in the English forced subs (I think I read they're burned into the film anyways). Most of the "fixes" seem to be cleaning the disc and then people say they got it to work, but so far it hasn't helped on either disc.

It seems weird that both discs would be encountering issues at the same spot, but does that necessarily mean it's a hardware issue? I'm don't know much about the technical things, but it would seem strange for a hardware issue to coincidentally encounter the same errors - wouldn't it just have trouble at various parts and not necessarily the same parts? I've ripped other Blu Rays fine, usually getting around these types of errors after a few tries, though that was around a year ago.

Hopefully there's enough information here for someone to try to offer some answer as to what might be wrong. Thanks!

[Woodstock]

Is this an internal drive, or external? What you describe can be because of power issues, and is somewhat common with USB drives. As the speed increases, the drive runs out of power, and ... goes off-line. Where it will happen can change from rip to rip, but the sequence of error messages will repeat.

If that is the case, making sure the drive has proper power will fix it.

If it isn't the case... you've already covered the other usual causes.

[nick5256]

Is this an internal drive, or external? What you describe can be because of power issues, and is somewhat common with USB drives. As the speed increases, the drive runs out of power, and ... goes off-line. Where it will happen can change from rip to rip, but the sequence of error messages will repeat.

If that is the case, making sure the drive has proper power will fix it.

If it isn't the case... you've already covered the other usual causes.

It's an internal drive.

And when I got home from work, I found the third attempt had failed yet again in the same spot (19133952000)

So is it just a lost cause for me to attempt this movie altogether regardless of whether or not I can get a third disc? It seemed to work for other people (looking at past threads) but I just can't guess why two different discs are failing for me in the same spot.

Edit: Tried wiping the disc off again and giving it another go. Stuck at the same place (19142995968).

[Woodstock]

It is entirely possible to have a manufacturing defect that affects all disks in a given lot. I ran into it with one disk of season 5 of Hercules... Two separate purchases AND the Netflix copy of the disk failed on the same file, same location, until I found a particular DVD player that could read it. None of my BD players could; the error didn't seem to like blue light lasers.

But that's really "I heard a cousin of Bobby Joe's sister's best friend's boyfriend had it happen" rare.

Dirty disks (that processing "haze" I'm seeing more and more often) usually do NOT fail in the same place on multiple copies. And a hardware error would usually show up on other disks, too. One common drive failure is the laser not being able to shift focus between layers on a multi-layer disk. Any BD bigger than 25GB has a second layer, and the switch between layers would be at the same place on all copies. You would have issues with any disk that had more than 25GB on it, though.

[nick5256]

It is entirely possible to have a manufacturing defect that affects all disks in a given lot. I ran into it with one disk of season 5 of Hercules... Two separate purchases AND the Netflix copy of the disk failed on the same file, same location, until I found a particular DVD player that could read it. None of my BD players could; the error didn't seem to like blue light lasers.

But that's really "I heard a cousin of Bobby Joe's sister's best friend's boyfriend had it happen" rare.

Dirty disks (that processing "haze" I'm seeing more and more often) usually do NOT fail in the same place on multiple copies. And a hardware error would usually show up on other disks, too. One common drive failure is the laser not being able to shift focus between layers on a multi-layer disk. Any BD bigger than 25GB has a second layer, and the switch between layers would be at the same place on all copies. You would have issues with any disk that had more than 25GB on it, though.

Alright, thanks a lot for the info! Maybe I'll see if I can try another disc some other time.

Edit - Also tried to just do a backup as suggested by Woodstock in a different thread, and it also failed at offset 19133165568. Which I guess could mean it's a physical defect in the disk...?

[Woodstock]

It increases the possibility, certainly. When doing a backup, MakeMKV seems to be less vigilant about certain structural tests.

I say "seems", based on how sometimes you can get a backup when creating MKVs doesn't work. I had this earlier this year - "Kamigami no Asobi" had no physical defects, but three episodes had "errors in the metadata" which triggered a bug in MakeMKV. A backup worked, but that caused issues further down the line with handbrake, which didn't like the chapter track.

But it you are still getting a read error with the backup, we're almost 100% into the "disk or drive" category.

Do you have access to another computer, with a different BD drive, to try it in?

[nick5256]

It increases the possibility, certainly. When doing a backup, MakeMKV seems to be less vigilant about certain structural tests.

I say "seems", based on how sometimes you can get a backup when creating MKVs doesn't work. I had this earlier this year - "Kamigami no Asobi" had no physical defects, but three episodes had "errors in the metadata" which triggered a bug in MakeMKV. A backup worked, but that caused issues further down the line with handbrake, which didn't like the chapter track.

But it you are still getting a read error with the backup, we're almost 100% into the "disk or drive" category.

Do you have access to another computer, with a different BD drive, to try it in?

Unfortunately, my other laptop doesn't have a BD drive, so I'm out of luck there. I may just see if I can get any other discs to try and maybe one will be lucky.

[nick5256]

I have some more information about these issues if it helps lead to any answers.

I tried watching the movie for the first time (first time from the Blu Ray, that is), and it works fine until about half-way through (which is where MakeMKV starts encountering errors). After that, it runs into a variety of issues: the film freezing while the timer continues forward, the film having extreme visual glitches, and parts of the film are played sped up. These errors can be reproduced as well - replaying different scenes will also replay the same visual errors in the same manner every time.

It was mentioned that sometimes drives can't shift the focus between different layers, and I suppose this points to that. I think it's worth noting that last year, I was able to rip the other Star Wars Blu Rays (which are also over 25 GB) without many issues. I tried to rip one of the other films a couple days ago and it also failed about half-way through (the same film as I ripped last year, but with a different, newer Blu Ray disc that I hadn't used before).

It seems like too much of a coincidence for all these errors on multiple discs to be occuring in the same general area both when ripping and watching, especially if that area represents an area of the discs that could be changing layers and some drives having difficulty at that point. If all this points to my BD drive being the issue and it's no longer able to read the second layer of these discs, does that mean my drive is essentially useless when it comes to Blu Rays now?

One other thing I might be able to try is retrieving the discs I used originally to rip these films last year (got them from a public library prior to actually owning the Blu Rays myself) and see if I'm now encountering errors with those. If I try that and do encounter errors, would that confirm that it's my BD drive that's malfunctioning? And is there any way to repair a drive or would I need a new one? I've already tried to wipe off the drive a bit and blow it out a little, so I'm not sure if there's anything else for me to attempt as far as cleaning the drive.

One of the things that seems off with this idea though is that the film says it has ~38GB to rip, and frequently fails at around 15.2GB, which clearly isn't 25 GB. Is there any reason for that which would still be caused by the drive trying to read a second layer?

[Woodstock]

It depends upon what else is on the first layer. If a feature is going to cross the layer boundary in any case, it really doesn't matter what comes first. And we mere mortals are not privy to tools that let us know where things like that occur.

[nick5256]

Thanks a lot for your help on this thread, Woodstock. I've learned a lot from both what you've said here and from what I've read on other threads prior to posting here. Much to my surprise, my dad's laptop actually did have a BD drive, so while I was over there tonight, I brought MakeMKV with me and the blu ray ripped without an error. Bit of a shame because he never uses blu rays . Looks like I'll be buying a new BD Drive though. I'm reluctant to buy just an external one since I've read on other threads that it can cause problems for ripping, but I guess that's what I have to go with.

Anyways, thanks again! (And sorry for wasting a thread on what ultimately was just a malfunctioning BD drive!)

[Woodstock]

The main issue with externals is power, if they're USB powered. A USB3 unit, plugged into a powered USB3 port, should "never" have an issue, but a USB2 unit plugged into an unpowered hub is often an issue.

If you have a hub with its own power supply, or the external drive has its own power supply, don't sweat it.

[darqman]

I have this exact same error with the same disk. It's even the same offset. It's the only disc in the collection that did this. I've tried multiple times after cleaning it and it always fails at the same place. I guess the only fix that's been discovered is to use a different drive?

[Lololark]

My Empire Strikes Back and A New Hope discs both stop at the same spot every time too. I've tried about 6 or 7 times. Same spot at about 40% of the way through.

So I'd need a different driver?

[dcoke22]

My Empire Strikes Back and A New Hope discs both stop at the same spot every time too. I've tried about 6 or 7 times. Same spot at about 40% of the way through.

So I'd need a different driver?

Have you tried gently cleaning the discs?

[Lololark]

Yes, but I'll try again.

I just think it's odd that both discs stop at same identical spot every time. At the 17601.1 M spot, both discs. From reading around, it sounds like the driver could be having difficulty moving to another layer, but that difficulty could be because of blemishes on the discs too.

Also, these discs were in storage for 4 years. I read that can contribute to these problems. But with that said, the other 4 Star Wars discs worked.

Ah, the adventures of learning something new!