[CentOS] CD burning issues & questions

[Kay Diederichs]

Lanny Marcus wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 3:25 AM, Anne Wilson <cannewilson at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> On Saturday 03 January 2009 22:22:52 Lanny Marcus wrote:
>>>>> I do have an issue with k3b (CentOS 5.2, 32 bit), but nothing grave. I
>>>>> cannot erase CD-RW media with k3b, most or all of the time. I ran into
> <snip>
>>>> I struggled with this, trying as many ways as I could think of, and
>>>> eventually thought it must be impossible.  Then a couple of days ago I
>>>> desperately needed a CD, and I'd run out of blanks.  I put a CD-RW into
>>>> the drive on a box where I hadn't used k3b before.  K3b opened up with a
>>>> tip-of-the-day - and miracle of miracles, it asked if I knew that I
>>>> didn't need to erase the CD-RW as k3b could do it on the fly.  I'd
>>>> nothing to lose, so I asked it to burn the iso. It asked if I wanted it
>>>> to blank the disc and use it.  I got a clean, verified burn, and used the
>>>> CD-RW to do an install!
> <snip>
>> That's what I found.  If you find it works the same way as I saw, we should
>> file a bug report.
> <snip>
>> If you have a spare disk you might do a test burn, while it's on your mind?
>> Let us know what happens.
> 
> Anne: This seems OT and probably a bug report or a support request, on
> CentOS or at Upstream would be appropriate? This morning, I took two
> (2) CD-RW media, one Imation and one Verbatim, and I tried this. Each
> of them had four (4) photos on them, a few MB of stuff. No Joy here. I
> get different results than you do. When I hoped it would automatically
> erase the CD-RW, as it did for you, before writing new data, I got
> this Error: The disk is either empty or is not appendable".
> 
> When I tried Tools > Erase CD-RW (I tried Erase Fast, Complete and
> Last Session and got the same results), I got, "The Erasing process
> failed. Do you want to see the debugging output?". Below is that file.
> Should a bug or support request be filed about K3b? If so, where? Will
> you do that?  I suspect that K3b a very widely used application. I was
> logged in as a normal user, not root.   TIA, Lanny
> 
> System
> -----------------------
> K3b Version: 0.12.17
> 
> KDE Version: 3.5.4-16.el5.centos CentOS
> QT Version:  3.3.6
> Kernel:      2.6.18-92.1.22.el5
> Devices
> -----------------------
> SONY CD-RW  CRX216E PD03 (/dev/hdd, ) at  [CD-R; CD-RW; CD-ROM]
> [CD-ROM; CD-R; CD-RW] [SAO; TAO; RAW; SAO/R96P; SAO/R96R; RAW/R16;
> RAW/R96P; RAW/R96R]
> 
> HL-DT-ST DVD-ROM GDR8163B 0D20 (/dev/hdc, ) at  [CD-ROM; DVD-ROM]
> [DVD-ROM; CD-ROM] [None]
> Used versions
> -----------------------
> cdrecord: 2.1
> 
> cdrecord command:
> -----------------------
> /usr/bin/cdrecord -v gracetime=2 dev=/dev/hdd speed=4 -tao
> driveropts=burnfree -eject -overburn blank=fast -force
> 
> cdrecord
> -----------------------
> /usr/bin/cdrecord: Cannot allocate memory. WARNING: Cannot do mlockall(2).
> 
> /usr/bin/cdrecord: WARNING: This causes a high risk for buffer underruns.
> /usr/bin/cdrecord: Operation not permitted. WARNING: Cannot set RR-scheduler
> /usr/bin/cdrecord: Permission denied. WARNING: Cannot set priority
> using setpriority().
> /usr/bin/cdrecord: WARNING: This causes a high risk for buffer underruns.
> scsidev: '/dev/hdd'
> devname: '/dev/hdd'
> scsibus: -2 target: -2 lun: -2
> Error trying to open /dev/hdd exclusively ... retrying in 1 second.
> Error trying to open /dev/hdd exclusively ... retrying in 1 second.
> Error trying to open /dev/hdd exclusively ... retrying in 1 second.
> Error trying to open /dev/hdd exclusively ... retrying in 1 second.
> Error trying to open /dev/hdd exclusively ... retrying in 1 second.
> Error trying to open /dev/hdd exclusively ... retrying in 1 second.
> Error trying to open /dev/hdd exclusively ... retrying in 1 second.
> Error trying to open /dev/hdd exclusively ... retrying in 1 second.
> Error trying to open /dev/hdd exclusively ... retrying in 1 second.
> Error trying to open /dev/hdd exclusively ... retrying in 1 second.
> /usr/bin/cdrecord: Device or resource busy. Cannot open '/dev/hdd'.
> Cannot open SCSI driver.
> /usr/bin/cdrecord: For possible targets try 'cdrecord -scanbus'. Make
> sure you are root.
> /usr/bin/cdrecord: For possible transport specifiers try 'cdrecord dev=help'.
> Cdrecord-Clone 2.01 (cpu-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2004 Jörg Schilling
> Note: This version is an unofficial (modified) version with DVD support
> Note: and therefore may have bugs that are not present in the original.
> Note: Please send bug reports or support requests to
> http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla
> Note: The author of cdrecord should not be bothered with problems in
> this version.
> TOC Type: 1 = CD-ROM

I've seen this as well. I believe it happens because KDE (I guess GNOME 
would do the same) detects the disc, mounts it and opens a konqueror 
(fileviewer) window to graphically show the top-level directory. If that 
happens, k3b cannot open the device exclusively (that's what the error 
message says) and therefore cannot erase it.

The workaround is to
a) wait until the fileviewer window comes up,
b) close theat window
c) unmount the disc (right-click on desktop icon)
d) make sure it's no longer mounted, by saying "mount" in a shell window 
and inspecting the output carefully
e) only then start k3b.

works for me.

HTH,

Kay