High Sierra doesn't read burned music CDs

[scottsan]

I installed High Sierra on my iMac, and now it doesn't read any of the music CDs I've burned. Apple told me it is a permissions issue. It won't even play a music CD I used my High Sierra iMac to burn (with 3rd party software).
Anyone know how to fix this?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Fishrrman]

I have a late-2012 Mac Mini.

I normally use El Capitan, but to answer your post above, I booted over to my "test install" of High Sierra (version 10.13.1). I'm running on it now.

I use an external USB CD/DVD/Bluray burner (Samsung).

I took a home-burned CD from my collection that I burned back in 2014.

I inserted it into the drive, it came up on the desktop.

I set System Preferences so that iTunes DOES NOT open when a CD is inserted. I normally don't use iTunes to play my music (I use either "QTAmateur" or an updated version of "Cog").

I opened the CD, the music files were there.

I right-clicked on a file, chose "Open with QTAmateur", and the file played, no problems.

So...

My guess is that there is -something else- that is causing your problems.
There is no inherent problem with High Sierra insofar as playing home-burned CDs is concerned.
It's something specific "on your end of things" -- a setting, perhaps something else -- that is preventing the CD's from being played.

Questions:
When you insert a CD into the drive, what happens next?
Does it mount on the desktop?
Do you get an error msg?
Something else?

 

[scottsan]

Fishrrman, thanks for your reply.

when I insert the CD is shows up on the desktop and in finder as Untitled, but it doesn't show up in disk utility. When I click on the image it opens but is empty, finder says 0 items, 735.6 MB available. the same CD inserted into an iMac running yosemite functions normally. Store-bought music CD also function normally on the iMac running high sierra. Only CDs I burned are problematic. This occurs with all home-burned CDs, even those burned on the iMac running high sierra.

 

[Fishrrman]

What application did you use to burn the CDs?

Suggestion:
Try burning a "test CD" using A DIFFERENT APPLICATION.
You only need to include a few audio tracks on it, for test purposes only.
Do you get the same results?

This is a strange one.

 

[Surfmavs]

Fishrrman, thanks for your reply.

when I insert the CD is shows up on the desktop and in finder as Untitled, but it doesn't show up in disk utility. When I click on the image it opens but is empty, finder says 0 items, 735.6 MB available. the same CD inserted into an iMac running yosemite functions normally. Store-bought music CD also function normally on the iMac running high sierra. Only CDs I burned are problematic. This occurs with all home-burned CDs, even those burned on the iMac running high sierra.

Probably you are using a "non-finished" cd-rw?? it happened to me once... the computer where you burn it reads the disc because it "remembers" but other devices don't know how to read it because the burning session is still open and the disc doesn't have all the necessary directory files.

 

[scottsan]

I've used Toast and Burn. Same result - playable on an iMac with yosemite, but on the one with high sierra. I burn to CD-R. Again, I am burning discs on my high sierra machine that can be read properly on a yosemite machine but not on the high sierra machine.

 

[Fishrrman]

I'll have to try booting to High Sierra and burning a CD and then see what happens.

Hmmm...
If you try to burn -data- to a CD (not music files), then eject the CD and re-insert it, do the data files "show up" in the finder when you open the CD icon?

 

[scottsan]

I used Burn to burn data to a CD-R. Burn ejected the disk with this error message: "The burn to the SuperDrive drive failed. Verifying the burned data failed". I put the disk in my yosemite iMac and it appeared and functioned as a perfectly burned data CD. Put it back into the high sierra iMac and it appeared on desktop as Untitled, and finder says 0 items, 735.6 MB available. WTF?

 

[Fishrrman]

What kind of CD-r blanks are you using?

Is it possible to try -a different brand- of CD-r blank?

 

[scottsan]

I will not bother trying different brands. the brand I'm using now worked fine until installing high sierra. Additionally, my collection of older CDs include multiple brands that all work fine on my yosemite iMac and worked fine on the iMac in question before high sierra was installed. As such, logic dictates that brand cannot be the issue. Again, the brand I am using burns sufficiently to be read on a yosemite iMac, but not on the high sierra iMac that burned it.

 

[DeltaMac]

I would think that your issue will probably be a failing burner.
Works enough to write/record to disk, but not reading the disk.
The failed verification test may support my opinion.
(Why does burning work, but not reading? They use different parts of the head assembly for that, so one part can fail, but not necessarily affecting all functions)
I do suggest trying a CD/DVD drive cleaner disk, or even something simple like a few shots from a "can-o-air".

And, you could try a reinstall of High Sierra, as it is always possible that something about your system did not install completely, or the drivers for the superdrive are corrupted somehow. A simple reinstall would answer that question, I think.

 

[scottsan]

that's an interesting theory, but why then is there no problem reading/playing pre-recorded CDs?

 

[DeltaMac]

Maybe some kind of sync issue, again a hardware issue on the burner.
And, pre-recorded (commercial) CDs use other encoding protocols, not present on your own burned disks, that your burner may simple ignore, where your own CDs won't play.

Another tip that you could try would be to boot to your previous system (whatever that was) on your problem iMac, just to see if your music CDs still play (or not) on that same hardware, under your previous system. Maybe you still have a bootable backup on an external from your previous system.

 

[ncg365]

Maybe some kind of sync issue, again a hardware issue on the burner.
And, pre-recorded (commercial) CDs use other encoding protocols, not present on your own burned disks, that your burner may simple ignore, where your own CDs won't play.

Another tip that you could try would be to boot to your previous system (whatever that was) on your problem iMac, just to see if your music CDs still play (or not) on that same hardware, under your previous system. Maybe you still have a bootable backup on an external from your previous system.

[doublepost=1529286819][/doublepost]As stupid as it sounds - going to go with the "get a cleaning disk" and clean the drive lens. If you want to go cheap, do the lens cleaning cloth wrapped over business card concept for a slot loading drive.

Granted, new on this board - joined just for the purpose of posting this response, and I was as much a skeptic as anyone reading about the same problems in various Mac forums. Here's what happened today.

I have been having the same basic symptoms with my MacMini (Early 2009)'s drive...would read real CD's DVDs, wouldn't burn for crap anymore, and would register a burnt and functioning in other devices CD-R/RW or DVD-R/RW as an empty disk. Every disk tried works on an Apple external drive attached to my MBP or Mini and in a generic DVD R/RW I have in a home built box. Tons of Mac forum posts point to drive failure, firmware, etc., and a large percentage of them attach the change trigger from working to not working to the point of an OS X upgrade.

But a number of them also describe trying to clean the drive lens, some few with a cleaning disk but mostly with a lens cleaning cloth wrapped around a business card and worked back and forth in the slot. Those posts claim magic. I remained skeptical, and I wasn't quite ready to try that (aside from the fact that the only lens cleaning cloth i had was well worn past its time). So instead I packed up and went to my local Best Buy where I confirmed they had a cleaning disk for about $12 (online inventory chess are a good thing). It was the "Insignia" brand, which is the Best Buy store brand of stuff. Could have gone the Amazon route (Prime rocks) but wanted to try today (Sunday) as opposed to Tuesday.

I have never cleaned a CD/DVD device in my life, whether standalone music/movie player device or a computer attached device. Typically when non-functioning there is a tray grinding, or lens positioning grinding such that you know the drive is done. Then again - never had this problem either. Had been going on for a while, but I figured the drive was winding to end of life and I used it for what I knew still worked. Today I just got fed up with it's silliness and I needed a disk to work in the Mini, so I explored options.

So the cleaning disk has about 10 tiny brushes located in strategic spots embedded in the working side of the disk. The instructions indicated that it would have audio on the disk for what to do - and examining the working side of the disk yeah it looked as if there were audio tracks recorded there. So loaded it up. Nothing - after 30-45 seconds, the disk ejected. Finder never blinked. I tried again - why not.

This time it loaded into iTunes, registered, and showed 15 tracks. Played the "English" track, and followed the instructions. After ejecting it I checked the working side. Just after three of the brushes there were now heavy smudge marks, like grease or finger print residue but only directly after the brushes as if the brushes kinda sprayed it onto the disk after wiping it off somewhere else.

Loaded up a burned disk that only 2 hours early loaded as an "empty" disk, with Finder prompting me what I'd like to do. This time it mounts to my system and I can browse the files I knew were on it. Everything was perfectly accessible.

Loaded up 4 more disks that had issues in the past - all previously burnt that came up as empty. All now working perfectly.

Considering an OS X update as a trigger, each update could have firmware updates as well. And conceivably a different firmware might react differently to the signals from the laser if they aren't perfect - such as if the lens is dirty.

As I said - sounds like snake oil, and such was my expectation, but there you go. Because there are so many of these threads out there on this topic, after my experience I found the most recent one I could and decided to add my $.02 from my personal experience. Your mileage may vary.

Mine is a (used, eBay) Mac Mini (Early 2009), El Capitan 10.11.6, with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD as post purchase upgrades.

 

[adw5826]

Since upgrading to Mojave, when I load a music CD in an external USB-connected CD/DVD drive, I get this message

The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.​

I don't think it can be a problem caused by the device or the disk because

1. I never had any problems on previous releases of MacOS reading music CDs (either to play the music or using iTunes to copy the contents to my iTunes library)
2. I tried two different external CD/DVD devices with the same result.
3. I can attach the drive to a VMware Windows 10 virtual machine running under Mojave on the exact same hardware and the guest Win 10 machine handles the music CD perfectly.

What's changed in Mojave and how can I fix it?
[doublepost=1541956495][/doublepost]Here's a weird thing.
I discovered by trial and error that if I boot MacOS Mojave with the external CD drive connected and with a music CD in it, iTunes is auto-launched and plays the CD as it should.
The device correctly shows up in Finder as an Audio CD.
I can eject the Audio CD and insert another one and it works just fine.
Until the next boot...

 

[Fishrrman]

adw5826 wrote:
"I discovered by trial and error that if I boot MacOS Mojave with the external CD drive connected and with a music CD in it, iTunes is auto-launched and plays the CD as it should.
The device correctly shows up in Finder as an Audio CD.
I can eject the Audio CD and insert another one and it works just fine.
Until the next boot..."

I just did the following:
1. Booted into Mojave (from an external USB3 SSD)
2. Got logged in to the finder
3. Connected my external USB CD/DVD/Bluray drive (Samsung)
4. Put in a home-burned CD
5. The CD mounted on the desktop
6. I was then able to open it in the finder, select a track and play it.

No problems, worked as would be expected.

 

[adw5826]

Thanks, that's interesting.
I'm also booting Mojave from an external USB, but mine's in a Thunderbolt enclosure. That shouldn't be relevant to the problem though.

It sounds as though your system is working as expected.
When I use my external USB3-attached CD/DVD drive it works fine with normal data CDs, but it will only read audio CDs if the USB drive is attached at boot time (although a guest Win 10 VM will read them whenever that external CD drive is attached).
Can you think of an explanation for that?

 

[adw5826]

adw5826 wrote:
"I discovered by trial and error that if I boot MacOS Mojave with the external CD drive connected and with a music CD in it, iTunes is auto-launched and plays the CD as it should.
The device correctly shows up in Finder as an Audio CD.
I can eject the Audio CD and insert another one and it works just fine.
Until the next boot..."

I just did the following:
1. Booted into Mojave (from an external USB3 SSD)
2. Got logged in to the finder
3. Connected my external USB CD/DVD/Bluray drive (Samsung)
4. Put in a home-burned CD
5. The CD mounted on the desktop
6. I was then able to open it in the finder, select a track and play it.

No problems, worked as would be expected.

The culprit turned out to be Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac.
Kaspersky protection was already disabled on my iMac because it had appeared to cause another problem.
But after I uninstalled Kaspersky completely, my external CD/DVD reader/writer started working fine again with audio CDs.