brasero burn operation fails with "Power calibration area error"

[Eliah Kagan]

Binary package hint: brasero

On a Maverick amd64 system with brasero 2.32.0-0ubuntu2.2, I have recently experienced the following error while burning single-layer DVD+R's:

Error while burning.
SCSI error on write(256,16): [3 73 03] Power calibration area error

This has happened twice in a row while attempting to burn the Natty Beta 1 i386 live DVD (ubuntu-11.04-beta1-dvd-i386.iso, md5sum 8057e46487448c7bf5a1c39ec4408c5a). But before that, Brasero *did* succeed at burning this. All three times (the successful burn and the two failed burns) were on this same system. No packages were upgraded between the burns. Brasero was exited between each run and the subsequent run. All three times, writeable DVD media from the same spool were used. All three times, I had selected a burn speed of 2.4x (even though that is lower than the maximum that Brasero indicates is supported by my drive), though the first time (when the burn succeeded), it seemed to be indicating that this speed was being exceeded some of the time. I have attached the log file produced by the third attempt (i.e. the second unsuccessful attempt). That is the attempt whose running instance of Brasero's PID I invoked ubuntu-bug with, to report this bug. I will also attach the similar log file from the previous failed attempt.

In case it's relevant, the .iso file I was burning (and then attempting unsuccessfully to burn again) was located on an NTFS partition (of the same physical disk on which the Ubuntu system is installed). It was accessed through a symbolic link. Specifically, the full path of the file being burned was /home/ek/Torrents/Complete/ubuntu-11.04-beta1-dvd-i386.iso; /home/ek is located on /dev/sda7, but /home/ek/Torrents is a symbolic link to /media/Wingardium/Users/ek/Torrents, which is a directory on /dev/sda3.

This is on a Sony Vaio VGN-NW310F laptop. I don't have a particularly good source of technical details on my optical drive, but the technical information at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834117986 may be somewhat useful.

The output of "uname -a" is:

Linux Apok 2.6.35-28-generic #50-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 18 18:42:20 UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I'll attach the output of "lspci", "sudo lshw", and "lsmod".

This is probably the same bug as bug 700975. The error message is the same. But that bug doesn't provide a lot of information, so perhaps this is not the same bug...and even if it is, I figured it might be useful for me to file a separate report, with more information. Furthermore, that bug report suggests (though not conclusively) that bug 700975 occurred specifically when burning an image across a Samba share, which does not pertain here.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: brasero 2.32.0-0ubuntu2.2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-28.50-generic 2.6.35.11
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-28-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Mar 31 23:49:44 2011
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/brasero
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta amd64 (20100406)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US.utf8
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 LC_MESSAGES=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: brasero

[Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure)]

This is the log file from the first failed attempt (as detailed in the description above, the log file attached there is the log file from the second failed attempt). These files are very similar...perhaps it is redundant to attach this too.

[Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure)]

This is the output of "lspci".

[Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure)]

This is the output of "sudo lshw".

[Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure)]

This is the output of "lsmod".

[Christian Weiske (cweiske)]

Same problem here trying to burn a CD with a dozen MP3s. Hardware is a Macbook from 2007.

[Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure)]

This still occurs on the same machine running brasero 2.32.1-0ubuntu2 on Natty amd64. The error message is exactly the same. This is with the same hardware (including the same internal burner) and media type as before (the DVD+R is from the same spindle). The log of the new burn attempt is attached.

[Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure)]

ek@Apok:~$ uname -a
Linux Apok 2.6.38-10-generic #44-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jun 2 21:32:22 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue that you reported is one that should be reproducible with the live environment of the Desktop CD of the development release - Oneiric Ocelot. It would help us greatly if you could test with it so we can work on getting it fixed in the next release of Ubuntu. You can find out more about the development release at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/ . Thanks again and we appreciate your help.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

the error is coming from wodim, reassigning.

[Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure)]

Should I still attempt to reproduce this bug in Oneiric? If that would still be helpful, then I should be able to do this sometime in the next week.

[Carlos Alberto Maziero (carlos-maziero)]

I'm having this same error in Precise (12.04), using kernel Linux citronelle 3.2.0-24-generic #39 (64 bits) in a Sony Vaio VPCSB35FB. DVD drive is a "MATSHITA DVD-RAM UJ8A2AS" (according to dmesg).

[sorgin (sorgin17)]

I'm having the same error, also in Precise, in a Sony Vaio VGN-NW310F, I'm attaching the log

[Amr Ibrahim (amribrahim1987)]

Same thing happened here in Ubuntu 12.04.

[sorgin (sorgin17)]

I'm having the same problem, with a Sony Vaio, but only with dvd's, I can burn cd's. The message I got is:

ubuntu SCSI error on write(256,16): [3 73 03] Medium error. Power calibration area error.

[Neil (mailgbook6)]

I had the same issue but i fixed it my changing mount options in /etc/fstab

Open up fstab and change your Disk Drive mount options to this

auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,noauto,x-gvfs-show 0 0

if that don’t work then remove this line ,x-gvfs-show 0 0

You can't burn your ISO because your DVD or CD disk drive is not mounting correctly

[sorgin (sorgin17)]

I tried changing mount options, but I did wrong so now I get a message when ubuntu is loading, could yo help me? This is my fstab:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=fbe5a4cd-dcd4-40d7-ab4b-ebd626d4657e / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=a700d599-161b-46c7-ab27-091540e04143 auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,noauto,x-gvfs-show 0 0