The device failed to calibrate the laser power level for this media - Page 7

Shroombaker · 10-08-2008, 08:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shroombaker


	I have the exact same media, harddrive, and computer. The language trick did not work for me over many attempts. I will try different media next...

Well, there's probably a reason why the Memorex DVD+R DL didn't work -- they were discounted off 50% at Office Max, whereas the Verbatim DVDs were a steep $39.99 for a 20 pack. I wasn't about to test the media comparison theory over that cost. Grr...

Shroombaker · 10-13-2008, 10:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shroombaker


	Well, there's probably a reason why the Memorex DVD+R DL didn't work -- they were discounted off 50% at Office Max, whereas the Verbatim DVDs were a steep $39.99 for a 20 pack. I wasn't about to test the media comparison theory over that cost. Grr...

Note: Burning DVD-Rs work just dandy. It's a problem with the dual layer media.

FYFUR · 10-15-2008, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by landrick


	I cannot believe it, but this crazy fix (on a 24" Core 2 Duo iMac) worked for me: Open System Preferences. Click on "International" Under "Languages": Drag any of the other languages to the top, then drag English back to the top. Set "Order for sorted lists" to English Set "Word Break" to English (United States, computer) Close System Preferences Restart computer Incredible! It works! This is now at the top of my list for unbelievably arcane fixes...

Thanks for the advice... it worked for me as well

FYFUR · 10-15-2008, 12:05 PM

The "System Prefs" worked for me as well. (17in MacBook Pro)
Thanks for the advice landrick

vincidahk · 10-16-2008, 09:56 AM

Would like to say that the weird method allow me to burn the disc 1/2 way more, then the same problem happened again.

So any fixes on this? Might just call apple to see what they can give me~

macbookNH · 10-17-2008, 11:48 AM

Hi,

Many times of trying all sorts of fixes for my CD-R. I even bought a new external CDR. Still got the calibrating laser issue.
I know this is a bit of an elitist forum in that the "experts" hate us newbies when things "just work" but this language change fix got me burning and rolling again with no issue. I specifically did nothing else except the language fix and I took the time to register here to help others out like me.

A word of advice to the experts, sometimes things just work guys. Whether you want to believe it or not Macs are far from an exact science.

Take care everyone!

big2cat · 10-27-2008, 02:59 PM

Okay, I tried that fix with great hopes...stranger things have happened. But I will be honest, my Mac stopped burning DVDs after I made a "backup" of a video I owned. The video even had the warning that attempting to copy the DVD might harm by DVD writer. I didn't believe it because I had made a "backup" on my iMac and it worked just fine.

I really am making a backup--I just want one copy in case something happens to mine. But anyhow, after making the .cdr file and attempting to burn the copy, I got that message. Could copying a disk really have ruined my writer?

Is there a fix? Has anyone found the solution that isn't some crazy fix?

ponyboy · 10-27-2008, 11:15 PM

I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to add that I went through seven DVD+R DL coasters from two different vendors before I stumbled upon this via Google. I could burn CDs and DVDs fine, just not DVD+R DL anymore. It's been a few months since I'd tried using DL discs, but up until now they always worked for me. This was really bugging me. It was failing immediately as soon as it would start the actual writing track process.

I agree with the others that this might be somehow related to the region code.

My setup:
Mac OS X 10.5.5
Dual 2 GHz G5
Pioneer DVR-111D
Toast 8.03
Toast 9.02

hayne · 10-30-2008, 07:36 AM

In case anybody who is experiencing this problem wants to help find out more about what might be causing it, you could try running the filebyproc.d DTrace script (in a Terminal window) to find out which files are being written when you attempt to do the DVD burn that emits that error message, and when you do the strange procedure with the language preferences.

You'd do this by running a command like the following in a Terminal window before you start either of the above operations:

sudo filebyproc.d > ~/output_from_operation1.txt

Then try doing the DVD burn and after getting the error message, go back into that Terminal window and hold down the Control key and press the C key - this will stop the filebyproc.d script. Then you can use a text editor like TextWrangler (http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/) to look at the output file (it will likely be quite large) and see what files were accessed.

Then do it again (with a different output file name - e.g. use ~/output_from_operation2.txt) and do the language preferences trick. Again stop the script with Control-C and look at the output file to see what files were written by doing the trick.

Then do it a third time while attempting the DVD burn again. Look at the files that were accessed. Were any of the files that were written while doing the preferences trick also accessed when trying to do the DVD burn?

seamusberkeley · 11-03-2008, 11:12 AM

Just wanted to update about the strange fix reported by landrick - worked for me!

One other note about the oddity of the problem. I had burned one disc fine. After it was burned it did not show up in iTunes. In the Finder the CD did not appear as a disc, rather a disc image which could not be removed or ejected. A restart removed the phantom device; however, burning additional discs kept returning the reported problem.

Followed landrick's steps - discs are now burning!

I think this is not a hardware issue, software glitch somewhere. I'm wondering is the phantom CD was somehow retained and the software was addressing that instead of the actual disc.

themente · 11-03-2008, 11:38 AM

People,

I'm having the same issues you're saying here. My settings:

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-875:

Firmware Revision: DB09
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Media:
Type: DVD+R DL
ID: RICOHJPN D01
Blank: No
Erasable: No
Overwritable: No
Appendable: Yes
Write Speeds: 2.4x, 4x

I had OS X installed as it came from factory. I had no problem so far, and I've wrote like 5 ricoh medias in a row without any trouble.

BUT, some behaviour I've observed:

1) When I insert a blank media, you can feel the driving spinning and the lens focusing the disc. After I start burning (a ,dmg image), it starts to verify the image, but, the power management (I suppose) spins off the disk. After it completes the checksums, it starts to spin up again, but fails with len calibration. I feel this drive and these lens from matsushita is the poorest avaiable in the market. Anyway, it ejects the media, I insert it again, then, no verification is done in the image, and it started to burn without any issue. Even the verification progress 100%.

2) After burning these 5 discs, I've reinstalled Mac OS X with the discs that came with my iMac, and applied all patches. Then, I continued to burn the backups I left in a second disk prior to reinstall. I had 6 fails in a row. 6 FAILS!!

3) I found this thread, and started to wonder what went wrong with that. I did two things: a) moved my primary images from my external USB drive (just wondering if the recorder and the external drive weren't eating all bandwidth altogether), and b) the non-sense language tweak.

4) With those 2 mods, I achieved:
a) The len calibration errors still persist. But skipping checksum makes it work. If you get this error, eject the disk, then burn it again, skipping image verification.
b) There weren't any errors in the middle of a burning
c) Errors persist in data verification (I guess the len calibration for burning in the secondary layer is not turned off, so it can't focus for reading purposes).
d) Ejecting it after burning, and reading a disk image in Disk Utility proved it is burning correctly (I've done that two more burns so far, then, more burns need to be performed before taking assumptions).

In my opinion, that's a terrible flaw within drive's firmware, so to speak, dealing with write/reading of dual layer medias. That would explain why recalibration of its lens fail after resuming from power save state.

redux · 11-07-2008, 08:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by landrick


	I cannot believe it, but this crazy fix (on a 24" Core 2 Duo iMac) worked for me: Open System Preferences. Click on "International" Under "Languages": Drag any of the other languages to the top, then drag English back to the top. Set "Order for sorted lists" to English Set "Word Break" to English (United States, computer) Close System Preferences Restart computer Incredible! It works! This is now at the top of my list for unbelievably arcane fixes...

I haven't been able to burn for 6 months, and I've literally tried just about everything. I just registered to say thanks for this lifesaver, it worked great & volunteer that around the time my burner stopped working I had changed the region in order to play some foreign DVDs, and I recall having to change some setting somewhere to handle foreign character file & folder names.

If this works for anyone else, please briefly mention if you've played foreign DVDs or had foreign file name issues prior to the problem, I'm curious if there's some way this is related.

I'm using a MacBook Pro running 10.4.11

marywait · 11-08-2008, 01:34 PM

Doesn't work for my MacBook Pro. I did change my region some time ago to watch some UK DVDs. I don't remember "changing it back," but US DVDs play fine. I can burn CDs but not DVDs. Is there someway to check which region the DVD is set to?

ThreeBKK · 11-10-2008, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by marywait


	Is there someway to check which region the DVD is set to?

While DVD Player is open and playing a movie, use Get Disc Info or Command + I.

tcurj · 11-11-2008, 12:18 PM

Just wanted to add more info to everything...I'm a video editor for a production company. We deal with large HD Quicktime files, which we back up on Sony DL DVD+R Discs.

I've never had a problem until now, and I'm getting the error of laser power. We ran out of Sony Discs, so I started using cheaper Memorex ones when the problem occurred. I would get the error, then I would wait a few minutes, try it again with a new blank DL DVD, and it would work. I did this all day yesterday, with discs sometimes burning, sometimes failing with that error. I did just try the voodoo fix (minus the restart), and the disc burned, however, I don't think that's what temporarily fixed it.

I think it's random. I'll include my specs below for comparison. But I think the problem has to do with either temperature, condensation (it's getting cold here), or some other change in barometric pressure that effects the laser in the drive. I've been measuring the barometric pressure in my editing suite and I've noticed this error occurs more when the pressure is dropping. Very odd I know.

I also know I run my computer straight for weeks sometimes (to render animation), and it still burns discs fine after (or it did until yesterday I guess). So I don't know if it's an internal temp problem. Anyways, just thought I'd comment. We're definitely switching back to Sony DL DVD+R's though. Hope someone finds out why this is happening, I'm curious!

OPTIARC DVD RW AD-7170A
Version 10.5.4
Mac Pro
Dual-Core Intel Xeon
2 x 2.66 GHz Dual-Core
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT
Running 16Gigs of RAM

mcdalton · 11-14-2008, 09:27 PM

My CD burning issues with the laser power level began after there was an update that had something to do with using your burner to share with an Air book.

KaiserSanchez · 11-15-2008, 04:45 PM

I think you're on to something there, mcdalton. I think my issues started since that MacBook Air CD/DVD Burner sharing support update. I've got a MacBook Pro 2.0 GHz Tiger 10.4.11 and had NO PROBLEM until I got that update. This voodoo fix does not work for me AT ALL btw. Help??

johngpt · 11-16-2008, 10:58 AM

First post was late Aug 2007. The original poster mentioned a problem with his server.

Was the macbook air out at that time? Had the updates included something for it?

magi182 · 11-21-2008, 07:57 PM

I have been dealing with this problem for quite a while -- at least a month and a half. The DVD burning problem appeared shortly after installing a software update.

After reinstalling the OS twice at the direction of Mac tech support, I took the machine into the Apple Store to have the drive replaced. After the drive replacement, I was able to successfully burn DVD and CD-R media -- we tested it in the store on both media.

Several days later, I popped in a commercially-produced DVD to watch, and was prompted to set the region code for the new drive. I set the region code for 1 - US.

A few hours later, I got the "The device failed to calibrate the laser power level for this media" error again while trying to archive some old client work. Despairing, I tried the voodoo fix. It fixed it, and I have been burning OK since.

OK Apple, it is extremely obvious that this is a software problem dealing with the region encoding, and likely the DRM software. I have spent too many hours of my personal time dealing with this. Toting up your bill Apple, you owe me $3700. And that's the discount rate for clients I like.

sufrin · 11-23-2008, 05:22 PM

I have much the same setup as <<tcurj>> and had no problems burning CDs or (single layer) DVDs from time to time over the last couple of years. Then the other day I tried to burn a (Verbatim) DVD-R and got the failed-to-calibrate report on 3 successive new blanks. The same discs burned apparently without problem on a MacMini two days later.

There are warnings out there about using dvd-player lens-cleaning materials on DVD writers in computers, so I'm reluctant to use one of those before seeing if I can clean the lens with compressed air. Is there an easy way of getting access to the lens on the drive in a Mac Pro?

10-17-2008, 11:48 AM	#126
macbookNH Registered User Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 1	The crazy changing language post, It works! Hi, Many times of trying all sorts of fixes for my CD-R. I even bought a new external CDR. Still got the calibrating laser issue. I know this is a bit of an elitist forum in that the "experts" hate us newbies when things "just work" but this language change fix got me burning and rolling again with no issue. I specifically did nothing else except the language fix and I took the time to register here to help others out like me. A word of advice to the experts, sometimes things just work guys. Whether you want to believe it or not Macs are far from an exact science. Take care everyone!

10-27-2008, 02:59 PM	#127
big2cat Registered User Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 1	Didn't Work For Me Okay, I tried that fix with great hopes...stranger things have happened. But I will be honest, my Mac stopped burning DVDs after I made a "backup" of a video I owned. The video even had the warning that attempting to copy the DVD might harm by DVD writer. I didn't believe it because I had made a "backup" on my iMac and it worked just fine. I really am making a backup--I just want one copy in case something happens to mine. But anyhow, after making the .cdr file and attempting to burn the copy, I got that message. Could copying a disk really have ruined my writer? Is there a fix? Has anyone found the solution that isn't some crazy fix?

10-27-2008, 11:15 PM	#128
ponyboy Registered User Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 1	worked for me, too. I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to add that I went through seven DVD+R DL coasters from two different vendors before I stumbled upon this via Google. I could burn CDs and DVDs fine, just not DVD+R DL anymore. It's been a few months since I'd tried using DL discs, but up until now they always worked for me. This was really bugging me. It was failing immediately as soon as it would start the actual writing track process. I agree with the others that this might be somehow related to the region code. My setup: Mac OS X 10.5.5 Dual 2 GHz G5 Pioneer DVR-111D Toast 8.03 Toast 9.02

10-30-2008, 07:36 AM	#129
hayne Site Admin Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Montreal Posts: 32,473	In case anybody who is experiencing this problem wants to help find out more about what might be causing it, you could try running the filebyproc.d DTrace script (in a Terminal window) to find out which files are being written when you attempt to do the DVD burn that emits that error message, and when you do the strange procedure with the language preferences. You'd do this by running a command like the following in a Terminal window before you start either of the above operations: sudo filebyproc.d > ~/output_from_operation1.txt Then try doing the DVD burn and after getting the error message, go back into that Terminal window and hold down the Control key and press the C key - this will stop the filebyproc.d script. Then you can use a text editor like TextWrangler (http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/) to look at the output file (it will likely be quite large) and see what files were accessed. Then do it again (with a different output file name - e.g. use ~/output_from_operation2.txt) and do the language preferences trick. Again stop the script with Control-C and look at the output file to see what files were written by doing the trick. Then do it a third time while attempting the DVD burn again. Look at the files that were accessed. Were any of the files that were written while doing the preferences trick also accessed when trying to do the DVD burn? __________________ hayne.net/macosx.html

11-03-2008, 11:12 AM	#130
seamusberkeley Registered User Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 1	Weird landrick fix worked for me Just wanted to update about the strange fix reported by landrick - worked for me! One other note about the oddity of the problem. I had burned one disc fine. After it was burned it did not show up in iTunes. In the Finder the CD did not appear as a disc, rather a disc image which could not be removed or ejected. A restart removed the phantom device; however, burning additional discs kept returning the reported problem. Followed landrick's steps - discs are now burning! I think this is not a hardware issue, software glitch somewhere. I'm wondering is the phantom CD was somehow retained and the software was addressing that instead of the actual disc.

10-15-2008, 12:05 PM	#124
FYFUR Registered User Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 2	The "System Prefs" worked for me as well. (17in MacBook Pro) Thanks for the advice landrick

10-16-2008, 09:56 AM	#125
vincidahk Registered User Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 2	Would like to say that the weird method allow me to burn the disc 1/2 way more, then the same problem happened again. So any fixes on this? Might just call apple to see what they can give me~

11-03-2008, 11:38 AM	#131
themente Registered User Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 1	My 2 cent for this thread. People, I'm having the same issues you're saying here. My settings: MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-875: Firmware Revision: DB09 Interconnect: ATAPI Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive) Cache: 2048 KB Reads DVD: Yes CD-Write: -R, -RW DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO Media: Type: DVD+R DL ID: RICOHJPN D01 Blank: No Erasable: No Overwritable: No Appendable: Yes Write Speeds: 2.4x, 4x I had OS X installed as it came from factory. I had no problem so far, and I've wrote like 5 ricoh medias in a row without any trouble. BUT, some behaviour I've observed: 1) When I insert a blank media, you can feel the driving spinning and the lens focusing the disc. After I start burning (a ,dmg image), it starts to verify the image, but, the power management (I suppose) spins off the disk. After it completes the checksums, it starts to spin up again, but fails with len calibration. I feel this drive and these lens from matsushita is the poorest avaiable in the market. Anyway, it ejects the media, I insert it again, then, no verification is done in the image, and it started to burn without any issue. Even the verification progress 100%. 2) After burning these 5 discs, I've reinstalled Mac OS X with the discs that came with my iMac, and applied all patches. Then, I continued to burn the backups I left in a second disk prior to reinstall. I had 6 fails in a row. 6 FAILS!! 3) I found this thread, and started to wonder what went wrong with that. I did two things: a) moved my primary images from my external USB drive (just wondering if the recorder and the external drive weren't eating all bandwidth altogether), and b) the non-sense language tweak. 4) With those 2 mods, I achieved: a) The len calibration errors still persist. But skipping checksum makes it work. If you get this error, eject the disk, then burn it again, skipping image verification. b) There weren't any errors in the middle of a burning c) Errors persist in data verification (I guess the len calibration for burning in the secondary layer is not turned off, so it can't focus for reading purposes). d) Ejecting it after burning, and reading a disk image in Disk Utility proved it is burning correctly (I've done that two more burns so far, then, more burns need to be performed before taking assumptions). In my opinion, that's a terrible flaw within drive's firmware, so to speak, dealing with write/reading of dual layer medias. That would explain why recalibration of its lens fail after resuming from power save state.

11-08-2008, 01:34 PM	#133
marywait Registered User Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 1	Fix doesn't work Doesn't work for my MacBook Pro. I did change my region some time ago to watch some UK DVDs. I don't remember "changing it back," but US DVDs play fine. I can burn CDs but not DVDs. Is there someway to check which region the DVD is set to?

11-11-2008, 12:18 PM	#135
tcurj Registered User Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 1	Just wanted to add more info to everything...I'm a video editor for a production company. We deal with large HD Quicktime files, which we back up on Sony DL DVD+R Discs. I've never had a problem until now, and I'm getting the error of laser power. We ran out of Sony Discs, so I started using cheaper Memorex ones when the problem occurred. I would get the error, then I would wait a few minutes, try it again with a new blank DL DVD, and it would work. I did this all day yesterday, with discs sometimes burning, sometimes failing with that error. I did just try the voodoo fix (minus the restart), and the disc burned, however, I don't think that's what temporarily fixed it. I think it's random. I'll include my specs below for comparison. But I think the problem has to do with either temperature, condensation (it's getting cold here), or some other change in barometric pressure that effects the laser in the drive. I've been measuring the barometric pressure in my editing suite and I've noticed this error occurs more when the pressure is dropping. Very odd I know. I also know I run my computer straight for weeks sometimes (to render animation), and it still burns discs fine after (or it did until yesterday I guess). So I don't know if it's an internal temp problem. Anyways, just thought I'd comment. We're definitely switching back to Sony DL DVD+R's though. Hope someone finds out why this is happening, I'm curious! OPTIARC DVD RW AD-7170A Version 10.5.4 Mac Pro Dual-Core Intel Xeon 2 x 2.66 GHz Dual-Core NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT Running 16Gigs of RAM

11-14-2008, 09:27 PM	#136
mcdalton Registered User Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 1	Started after udpate My CD burning issues with the laser power level began after there was an update that had something to do with using your burner to share with an Air book.

11-15-2008, 04:45 PM	#137
KaiserSanchez Registered User Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 1	I think you're on to something there, mcdalton. I think my issues started since that MacBook Air CD/DVD Burner sharing support update. I've got a MacBook Pro 2.0 GHz Tiger 10.4.11 and had NO PROBLEM until I got that update. This voodoo fix does not work for me AT ALL btw. Help??

11-16-2008, 10:58 AM	#138
johngpt MVP Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Albuquerque, NM Posts: 1,093	First post was late Aug 2007. The original poster mentioned a problem with his server. Was the macbook air out at that time? Had the updates included something for it? __________________ John My Flickr

11-21-2008, 07:57 PM	#139
magi182 Registered User Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 1	voodoo fix narrative I have been dealing with this problem for quite a while -- at least a month and a half. The DVD burning problem appeared shortly after installing a software update. After reinstalling the OS twice at the direction of Mac tech support, I took the machine into the Apple Store to have the drive replaced. After the drive replacement, I was able to successfully burn DVD and CD-R media -- we tested it in the store on both media. Several days later, I popped in a commercially-produced DVD to watch, and was prompted to set the region code for the new drive. I set the region code for 1 - US. A few hours later, I got the "The device failed to calibrate the laser power level for this media" error again while trying to archive some old client work. Despairing, I tried the voodoo fix. It fixed it, and I have been burning OK since. OK Apple, it is extremely obvious that this is a software problem dealing with the region encoding, and likely the DRM software. I have spent too many hours of my personal time dealing with this. Toting up your bill Apple, you owe me $3700. And that's the discount rate for clients I like.

11-23-2008, 05:22 PM	#140
sufrin Prospect Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 3	I have much the same setup as <<tcurj>> and had no problems burning CDs or (single layer) DVDs from time to time over the last couple of years. Then the other day I tried to burn a (Verbatim) DVD-R and got the failed-to-calibrate report on 3 successive new blanks. The same discs burned apparently without problem on a MacMini two days later. There are warnings out there about using dvd-player lens-cleaning materials on DVD writers in computers, so I'm reluctant to use one of those before seeing if I can clean the lens with compressed air. Is there an easy way of getting access to the lens on the drive in a Mac Pro?