K3b crashes my bloody computer

[monkeybells]

I'm dual booting Kubuntu 10.04 x64 and Windows 7 x64, but really only using Win 7 because 10.04 is being such a pain in the arse (also I just discovered the Portal Flash map-packs: AWESOME!).
Anyway, I went and rebuilt my system with a bunch of fancy new hardware earlier this year.
The NEW:
- New psu
- Intel i7 cpu
- ASROCK X58 motherboard
- 6Gigs of triple channel RAM
- ATI Radeon HD5870 gpu.
Yeah I know!
The OLD:
- A couple of CD/DVD burners (leftovers from previous 32bit system)
- 1Tb SATA HDD

Problems started when I just couldn't install 9.10 after the build. It just used to go a bit bonkers between choosing the install option and setup interface asking me my timezone and formating questions.
Eventually found out about installing from a USB device. By that time 10.04 has been released.
So I installed 10.04 through a USB device (the CD version had also not worked for this release).

Now whenever I try and burn a disk K3B crashes the system. Even when run from Konsole, it crashes the system!

What should I do? I have very little use for a Bluray burner, and they are kind of expensive I just want to keep hold of my 'vintage' optical drives.
If there is a solution out there or some advice for diagnosing what is actually occurring I'd love to know, so don't hold back people.

Monkeybells

After all, what would a monkey be without its bells?

[oshunluvr]

Re: K3b crashes my bloody computer

how about posting some error output? Can you access your CD's for other purposes?

[monkeybells]

Re: K3b crashes my bloody computer

I can't report anything from Konsole as when I run K3b from there my screen freezes and it requires a hard restart.

[miKeyBabid]

Re: K3b crashes my bloody computer

I can confirm this behaviour.

However, I can burn iso images to a cd or dvd without a problem. The issue only seems to arise when I attempt to burn mp3 or ogg-vorbis files to a disc.

I've never gotten to the bottom of it for several reasons : the computer completely freezes -- even REISUBing doesn't do anything -- so it's hard to get any error outputs and the logs don't provide much insight ; I tend to use usb keys almost exclusively so it's not a big enough problem to spend time addressing ; and I just wrote it off as a memory issue, since I have an old computer and not a lot of ram.

I've tried using different cds, but that hasn't seemed to help much (I just ended up with more expensive coasters...).

I've also tried Brasero (I think that's the name) and it seemed to have the same behaviour, which also makes me think the issue is related to my hardware.

I have an LG lightscribe dvdrw / cdrw drive.

As I say, it's not a major issue for me but perhaps my info will help you shed some light on what's going on (and at least you'll know you're not the only one with this behaviour).

[oshunluvr]

Re: K3b crashes my bloody computer

I have a LG lightscribe also and it works fine - Curious. I'm out for the weekend - see you all on tuesday

[rfakhrai]

Re: K3b crashes my bloody computer

I can confirm this problem as well. Luckily, it doesn't require a hard restart for me. I can ctl+alt+esc and kill the window.

I've had some luck in the past switching permissions willy-nilly. These can be found in system settings>advanced tab>k3b settings. Try changing all of them. It's worked for me in the past.

Unfortunately, I cannot get any error output and the k3b freeze occurs irregularly so I'm at a loss for how to fix it.

[miKeyBabid]

Re: K3b crashes my bloody computer

After some time spent searching through the Arch forums and a general Google search I also came across a number of threads which noted K3b permission errors causing systems to crash and freeze.

I took rfakhrai's advice and went into K3b setup in system settings and added my home group as the group of users authorised to burn / rip data. I've since tried ripping some cds to ogg (which had previously caused the system to freeze as well) and had no problems whatsoever. I also noticed that K3b no longer has a constantly spinning cursor when ripping a disc.

I should have thought of permissions earlier but given that it burned isos without a problem it just never occurred to me. However, I can't confirm 100% that burning works because I don't have any blank cds to test it with.

[rfakhrai]

Re: K3b crashes my bloody computer

Yeah, it's difficult to decide if the permissions change fixes it for good. The crash and freeze has been really erratic from the beginning.

That said, I don't see a reason why there's not an error for this type of failure; it shouldn't just freeze up. Where can I report this?

[rfakhrai]

Re: K3b crashes my bloody computer

actually, I just looked on k3b's website and the newest version, 2.0.1, appears to have fixed the audio cd burning freeze. I'll attempt the upgrade and report back.

[GilGib]

Re: K3b crashes my bloody computer

It was a known bug in K3B ripping to mp3 and flac and it is fixed in K3b 2.0.1

[rfakhrai]

Re: K3b crashes my bloody computer

how long until I can find 2.0.1 in the repos? is there a general rule?

[Snowhog]

Re: K3b crashes my bloody computer

Do you have Unsupported updates checked in Software Sources > Updates tab?

UbuntuBackports

[rfakhrai]

Re: K3b crashes my bloody computer

Yes, it is enabled. Maybe I'm going about it the wrong way?

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install k3b=2.0.1

I have a feeling the version number has a lot more than 2.0.1 attached to it. How can I find out what it is? I've been meaning to learn this method

[Snowhog]

Re: K3b crashes my bloody computer

[man apt-get]
-t, --target-release, --default-release
This option controls the default input to the policy engine, it creates a default pin at priority 990 using the specified release string. This overrides the general settings in /etc/apt/preferences. Specifically pinned packages are not affected by the value of this option. In short, this option lets you have simple control over which distribution packages will be retrieved from. Some common examples might be -t '2.1*', -t unstable or -t sid. Configuration Item: APT:efault-Release; see also the apt_preferences(5) manual page.

But you can still only pull versions of a targeted package that is available in the repositories you have active on your system.

[linuxforall]

Re: K3b crashes my bloody computer

Add Kubuntu backports ppa to update to latest KDE 4.5.1 which brings latest K3b which works flawlessly.