Info to a strange problem
Info to a strange problem
This is rather an info than a request or problem. Since very long I'm using an external LG BD-RE BE14NU40 drive with Firmware 1.01d. Until recently I was using this drive with great success on a MacPro 2008 using all OS versions up to High Sierra (yes it's not officially supported). In the meantime I have switched to a Mac Mini 2018 running Mojave and ever since I have problems to RIP BDs and even DVDs. Today I took my time to analyse the error messages and asked Dr. Google what he thinks about. In many places the error messages I have seen were related to insufficient power for a USB powered drive. Now this was clearly not the problem as my drive has an external power supply. The only common point was USB. So I first tried to switch USB ports. I was actually using the built-in USB 3.0 ports of the Mac Mini thinking that giving the drive an exclusive USB port would avoid problem. But in fact this is exactly the problem. On the second port I got different errors. MakeMkv now started to rip bot soon reported IPC error messages which on the MakeMKV page (link inlcuded in the error message points to http://www.makemkv.com/errors/ipc/) are also mentioned as poor power for USB powered drives. So I tried the next step I deliberately used a USB Hub between the Mac Mini and the drive. And this solved my issues. I was able to successfully RIP two BDs and one DVD (very recent Movies) that continuously failed with the internal USB 3.0 ports. The USB Hub is a ICY BOX IB-HUB1700-C3 (7Ports) with external power-supply. So for now I'm fine. However if someone has an explanation I would be very interested.