Only 1 out of 3 optical drives reads audio discs

[ron_jeremy]

My system has 3 optical drives:

Pioneer DVDRW (IDE) (no issues)
2 x Plextor PX-40TSi CDROM (SCSI)

The 2 Plextors can read data discs (retail or burned) without any problems. However, if I insert an audio disc (retail or burned) into either drive this is what I see:



Any ideas how I can fix this? I still have hundreds of audio discs to rip & need to get this resolved. Any help would be greatly appreciated

[lagagnon]

You cannot "mount" an audio disc. They do not have valid filesystems. The only thing you can do with an audio disc is play it or rip it. That is true with any operating system, not just Linux. So just use the Music Player or burner program with them.

[ron_jeremy]

How is it the Pioneer drive 'mounts' it just fine? None of the software players are even aware there's even a disc in either Plextor -- how could they play anything?

[lagagnon]

OK. Do the Plextor drives show up in the Nautilus file manager when you click " Computer"? If not, scan "dmesg" to see if the kernel is noticing those drives.

[ron_jeremy]

Hi Iagagnon, thanks for your continued help. Yes, the two Plextors are the first drives in 'Computer'. It's really strange that they work perfectly fine when I insert data discs but refuse to do anything with audio, yet the DVDRW works fine with both data & audio discs...

[lagagnon]

I did some googleing for you. There is a bust between those old Plextor CDROM drives playing audio and the Linux kernel later than 2.2.10. You need a kernel patch or a firmware upgrade. I'll leave you to search out where to find either one.

[ron_jeremy]

Thanks for the info -- much appreciated. It seems the problem is not related to the Plextors since many other people are having exactly the same problem with drives from other manufacturers. Since I have hundreds of discs to rip I have no choice but to revert back to Windows, which is kinda sad because I spent so much time battling to get my scanner to work, & my vga to work, & staying up all night searching forums to get my network & printer problems fixed -- after finally resolving all that crap I'm gonna say adios to Linux because of this?

Pisses me off...

[lagagnon]

It seems the problem is not related to the Plextors since many other people are having exactly the same problem with drives from other manufacturers.

I disagree there. I have been installing Linux on hundreds of older computers (for a charity) - many with old CDROM drives and have only ever had a handful of optical drive problems - always with a few distinct older LG and Plexor drives. I solved the LG drives problem with a firmware upgrade from the LG website.

Don't give up on Linux yet due to one hardware compatibility problem that is probably solvable. Just remember the compatibility problems experienced by MS Vista users. It is impossible with so many manufacturers, drivers, makes and models of hardware to not have some issues under ANY operating system. You're just unlucky with those specific drives.

[ron_jeremy]

There are a half dozen people having the same 'dbus' problem in this small 2-page thread alone:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php? ... audio+disc

and more:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php? ... audio+disc

there are lots more but you get the point.

Hey, I just tried something: I put an audio disc into each Plextor then turned off my computer. When I restarted it I could see the mounted music discs in 'computer' & the desktop icons too, but everything was so sluggish I could not do anything until I ejected both discs. Sadly, when I put the discs back in I get the 'dbus' error (first image in my original post).

This is sooo frustrating!!!

[lagagnon]

Ron, I do apologize, I was definetely on the wrong track - you are correct, there is a serious Ubuntu bug. I typed the entire DBus error message into Google in quotes and found the Ubuntu bug report listings. If I were you I would just watch those (although there seem to be three bug reports about the same problem), because they are usually fairly quickly marked solved, with a solution (or patch). Come back here if you need to know how to apply a patch. The problem affects only those with a DVD drive and another CDROM drive. Weird.