1394 drive freezing test results from SF

SonyEPM wrote on 5/29/2003, 10:38 AM
An update on the "1394 enclosure/drive freezing issue" some of you have reported:

One of the forum users ("CF") who has been experiencing the 1394 freezing problem was kind enough to send me his 1394 enclosure/drive and a sample project.

Here's the details:

I have Win2ksp3, with an ADS 1394 drive kit, containing a Maxtor 40Gb drive. This is fed into an ADS Pyro 1394 card. Zero freezes, no matter what the project.

CF's enclosure/drive (IBM Deskstar 80Gb inside an ADS 1394 drive kit), plugged into my known-good system...freezes constantly, just as all of you have described. CF's drive is plugged into the same 1394 card as my other drive, both drives are on.

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My tests & conclusions:

1) Is the problem project dependent? Nope. I copied CF's freezing project to my (good) 1394 enclosure/drive, no freezes. No freezes with this project on IDE or SCSI either.

2) 1394 Cable problem? No- I tried multiple 1394 cables, no change in results.

3) Power supply problem? No- I swapped power supplies, no change in results.

4) Too many 1394 devices connected? No- the bad enclosure/drive freezes no matter how many devices are plugged in.

5) Firmware problem? No. I spent an hour on the phone with an ADS tech yesterday and we flashed the firmware of the bad enclosure* and walked through a number of other scenarios- no change in results. Both the good and bad enclosures now have identical firmware settings, no changes in behavior though.

*ADS did mention that if you are getting a windows message:

"Windows- Delayed Write Failed: Windows was unable to save all the data for the file..... The data has been lost. This error my be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection..... "

that firmware updating can sometimes help- you need to contact them directly for instructions.

6) Master/slave settings on the drives? Both are set to master.

7) I switched the drives inside the 1394 enclosures. My Maxtor is now in CF's 1394 enclosure. CF's IBM drive is in my 1394 enclosure. Bam! FREEZE using the Maxtor in CF's 1394 enclosure, first minute of operation, multiple repros!

8) CF's drive works perfectly in my enclosure.

9) For reference purposes,

My enclosure says, on the circuit board: "8094 ver:c 0244 BM-01 E226252

CF's enclosure says, on the circuit board: 1394/IDE Bridge PC8 Rev 6.1-V (WA02040M)

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So, (and please check my logic all), after going through all of this, I believe the problem I am encountering is due to a problem with CF's ADS 1394 enclosure. Again, the drive itself appears fine when used anywhere else, the project coming from anywhere else is also fine, and the circuitry inside the enclosures is definitely different.

ADS has been really helpful with all of this and they should be able to work with you on further troubleshooting, or if needed, replacement enclosures (they have excellent support). All this info will be sent to ADS tech support right away.

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More: Quite a few people here have 1394 drives and use them without problems on different OSs- some are ADS, some other brands. Our CTO (SF Founder, ex-Microsoft driver engineer) uses 3-4 1394 drives simultaneously and I KNOW he'd be hollering if this was a ubiquitous, Vegas-centric issue. Douglas Spotted Eagle, who runs around the world demoing our apps with 1394 enclosure/drive does not have this problem, and many others are using ADS 1394 drive/enclosures without issue.

I hope this helps, at least a little. We'll be keeping our eyes on this and if we run across a simple solution, we'll post it immediately, and as I mentioned, I'll keep ADS up to date on all of this. Don't give up on ADS- they make some very good products, support them very well, and they'll want this resolved as much as anyone.

Comments

Arks wrote on 5/29/2003, 11:12 AM
Although I no longer have my ADS drive enclosure, I just wanted to say thank you for experimenting with this problem. This groups support and problem solving is just plain amazing.
CraigF wrote on 5/29/2003, 1:03 PM
And I'd like to personally say thanks for taking the time. Replacing my enclosure is cheaper than replacing my motherboard/soundcard/firewire card, etc. :) And hopefully ADS will take care of me.

Craig
filmy wrote on 5/29/2003, 1:07 PM
SonicEPM - Amazing work!! This is why SoFo is one of the best 'teams' to deal with. All this effort to help resolve an issue that doesn't even seem to be an issue caused by SoFo's software. Other companies would have simply ignored the problem, tossed it aside as 'not our problem' or simple said 'no one else is having this problem' and than ignored it. I have to say this really reminds me of Sunrize Industries and the way they dealt with problems that may, or may not, have concerned their Studio 16 software and hardware. Too few companies show this kind of support anymore, and it is still free at SoFo I might remind everyone, let alone post results on the forums.

Bravo!!!
bruceo2 wrote on 5/29/2003, 2:10 PM
I have this exact problem. I have a maxtor drive and enclosure and it works fine on my Sony Vaio and Dell Dimension, but on my collaborator's new Dell system he gets the freezing unless he mutes the sudio track issue. he hasnt tried the temporary workaround script that is going around that copes the audio to a new location, but I suspect that that is the problem.
SonyEPM wrote on 5/29/2003, 2:15 PM
Bruceo2: What sound cards and video display cards are you using on the "bad" Dell box?
Spot|DSE wrote on 5/29/2003, 3:44 PM
In truth, I own approx 50 of these drives, we have 8 guys working with us in the VASST programs, and we shift media to them using these. Both the old ugly blue boxes and the newer grey/rubber boxes. I suppose we've been very lucky after hearing from a number of guys, but I'm also hearing this about Ulead, Premiere, All4One boxes, and Maxtor branded boxes. So, it's clearly a hit and miss thing for some of the controller cards. Using the Oxford 911 chips, we're just not seeing this. Now that I've said it, watch it start happening to us! :-)
Thanks Dr. D for spending so much time trying to find this issue. Been driving many people nuts.
BillyBoy wrote on 5/29/2003, 4:02 PM
HEHE, hey SPOT, I hope you were rubbing a rabbit's foot or something when you said that. I had this "problem" about a year ago. When not only my original also my two replacement Maxtor firewire external drives failed. Its the cheesy interface card. I did a fair amount of ranting about in this forum back then.

In fact I took my last Maxtor "firewire" drive and rescued it from a likely early "death" by putting it in a removable IDE drawer and its been humming along with not so much as a single wimper ever since. If any of you reading this have what seems like a "dead" firewire external hard drive, the drive itself is probalby fine.

If people use a laptop I guess you may be stuck with these beasts. If not, do yourself a favor and just get a regular IDE drive put it in a drawer and you won't have any damn firewire problems. Faster too. WAY faster! Plus you save youself around $100 too.

Another heads up. The drives sold as fancy firewire externals are EXACTLY the same IDE drives you otherwise get. The only difference is the external power supply (worth about $5) and the cheesy interface card ($2). Or in my opinion GIANT rip-off.

BTW, I got one of the first Maxtor firewire drives when they first came out. Back then they were marketed as PORTABLE EXTERNAL drives and the ad copy was such that the consumer thought that meant you could use them between different PC's, why I and I bet tens of thousands of others bought them.

Well, Maxtor (others?) now marketthem as EXTERNAL driives, meaning if they just sit on your desk and you don't lug from PC to PC they may last. If however you move them around PC to PC, lots of luck, you'll need it.
CraigF wrote on 5/29/2003, 4:50 PM
The only reason I bought the ADS 1394 enclosure was so I can capture with my laptop, then move the drive to my desktop. The only REAL reason I need to capture with my laptop is to grap things off my Tivo--not extracting them, just using the Save-to-VCR fuction piped through a Canopus ADVC-100.

I've been doing less and less of this, so I supposed internal is the way I should go. I'd still like a working 1394 case--since I bought it expecting it to work. :)

Craig
Caruso wrote on 5/29/2003, 5:49 PM
Billyboy:
Either I'm lucky, or you (and Maxtor) are erring on the cautious side. I lug three Maxtor externals (and two ADS enclosures) back and forth twice a week from my week-day office to my week-end office. No complaints from any of these devices.

I doubt, however, if I'll ever buy another Maxtor external unit. As you correctly mentioned, the drives inside are no different than regular ide drives.

The plastic clamps on the cases of these units are a little "moddish" for me, but, if you handle them carefully, the cases are easily opened, and, once opened, swapping out drives is as simple as lifting the foil adhesive at the back of the unit (what's that foil for, anyhow?) and unplugging the drive/plugging in the replacement.

Frankly, while I like my ADS enclosures (and love their support), swapping drives in and out of my Maxtor enclosures is probably simpler and faster.

No screws to undo, no unscrewing the drive itself (it just sits there, trapped by the case), no fussing with the data cable (you just back the tail end of the drive onto the staionary pins) . . . really simple.

I did take note of Maxtor's explicit notice that these enclosures are external but not "portable" whatever that is supposed to mean.

I find them very portable, and love having access to all my data, no matter what machine I use or where I travel.

Caruso
24Peter wrote on 5/29/2003, 5:49 PM
Doesn't really solve my problem (I'm using an Acomdata 1394 drive enclosure which they just replaced the board on) but wow - I must say above and beyond the call of duty on this one. I really appreciate the effort to get us some relief. If anyone at SONY gives the people in Madison a hard time, send 'em my way! You guys rock! (Now, if we could just automatically snap events on different tracks or click 'n drag to scrub.... :-))
24Peter wrote on 5/29/2003, 5:57 PM
Thinking about all this... But you know what... why does the problem go away when I mute audio or on clips with no sound? Or sometimes (and other people have verified this) hitting F5 to rebuild peaks solves the problem for clips on the timeline. (Have you followed this thread?

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=177995&Replies=16&Page=1
BillyBoy wrote on 5/29/2003, 6:00 PM
I think that foil is a "security" device so we don't do what we did. <wink> I just got to the point where I said to myself, what the heck, the original failed, so too the two replacements, no way that Maxtor will give a third replacement so I just bit the bulllet and opened up the case to see what if anything I could salvage. I at first expected some Rube Goldberg type of interface inside, then when I saw it was nothing really, I felt like banging my head against the wall. Should have done it sooner. Shame on me.
rcampbel wrote on 5/29/2003, 6:02 PM
Thanks very much for figuring this out! I can confirm that it is indeed the enclosure
(or more specifically the IDE/Firewire bridge). I have a Maxtor external 160GB drive that was having the problem and I also have a ADS Pyro 1394 that I was using for backup on another laptop.

So, after verifying that the ADS enclosure had the "good" bridge, I proceeded to remove all of the metallic tape around the IDE drive in the Maxtor enclosure that had been put there to keep me from doing this, and swapped the drive into the ADS case. And guess what, no more freezes from the timeline or trimmer!!!

So, the hardware update path does appear to work. I don't know if there would be any possibility of a software fix, but I am sure that if there is, the SF folks will find it.

Thanks!

Randall
bruceo2 wrote on 5/29/2003, 9:20 PM
I will check with my collaborator tomorrow and post the info
rmack350 wrote on 5/30/2003, 3:03 AM
Well, since I've been one of the loudest complainers I ought to say THANK YOU! as loud as I can too.

If I had at least one working drive I'd be happier but I suppose that maybe on the third try I'll go for an ADS USB/1394 box. At least I can be reasonably certain they'll exchange it.

I also have an Acom enclosure and they exchanged the bridge board at least a year ago. When I bought it I went through every pcmcia 1394 card I could get at the local compusa and had to return every one of them. No card would work well with that drive although some came very close-you could exchange any file smaller then the disk's cache.

The moral is, buy 1394 gear with an eye towards having a clear way out. Everything should be easy to return. And just keep returning until you get equipment that works.

What's guaranteed to work? If it's 1394, nothing is guaranteed to work. Oxford911 doesn't always work, ADS doesn't always work. Just return it if it fails.

Sonic, out of curiosity, could you play a media file in Windows Media player? Most of us can, even when the media won't play in Vegas.

Rob Mack
rmack350 wrote on 5/30/2003, 5:54 PM
So, after reading through this thread (and getting a paycheck) I went down to the local circuit city and bought a new ADS USB2.0/1394 enclosure. I picked the numbskull warren at CC Inc because I can easily go ask for a refund if things don't work.

Anyway, I swapped the disk from my Acom box to the ADS enclosure and Viola! works like a champ.

I noticed something interesting when the boxes were open though. The Acom box used a 40 conductor IDE cable while the ADS used an 80 conductor cable. Since I still have more disks and boxes to experiment with I'll look into this over the weekend.

I'd be in heaven if it was as simple as an 80 wire ribbon cable.

Rob Mack
24Peter wrote on 5/30/2003, 6:00 PM
Maybe I'll try replacing the cable... Rob, what is CC charging for the ADS enclosure? Do you need to do anything to the drive if it's currently working when you switch? (I'm running Win XP)
rmack350 wrote on 5/30/2003, 6:23 PM
The CC price wasn't a bargain. $99.00

But I could get it over lunch.

I didn't do anything to the disk. Just swapped it.

The thing about the ribbon cable is that you're only supposed to use the 40 wire cable for ATA33. I think an onboard controller can detect it but I wonder if the enclusure's bridge board can tell the difference or if it naturally tries to drive data at ata66 or ata100 speeds regardless of the cable.

Or maybe I'm off on a crazy tangent.

BTW, I've had 55 minutes of flawless playback so far.

Rob
bokan wrote on 5/31/2003, 8:13 PM
Hello, thanks for doing all this tests.

I'm experiencing this problem with an enclosure based on oxford chipset.

I saw that it comes from the sfk files. If I delete the files then I could work without any bug. until I restart my computer.
I think this happens:
- when playing or previewing a video Vegas look for the coresponding sfk file and reads it from the drive (this cause the bug)
- when rebuilding peaks, windows system store the files in the disk cache so there is no need to read them on the drive

Can SF guys make an option to put the sfk files on local drive ? Or read the sfk files and store them in memory while reading ? This would be nice.

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=177995&Replies=16&Page=1

This issue is not a speed problem (my hard drive can sustain 2 dv stream playback simultaneousely).

Thanks all at SF


rmack350 wrote on 5/31/2003, 9:05 PM
Bo,

I had been asking for this. Nice to see it coming from somewhere else.

You know, I think what we're asking for is a fix that makes Vegas work with drives that are a little less than perfect. I'm not sure we'll get it.

I just got a paycheck so, rather than putting it away, I bought an ADS USB/1394 enclosure for about a hundred bucks. Swapped the disk from the old enclosure to the new and everything works fine now.

This was the first time I'd opened the old enclosure-it was factory sealed with an inpenetrable wall of tiny bits of warning tape. Turns out it had a 40 conductor ribbon cable (suitable for ATA33 but no more than that). Changed that to an 80 wire ribbon cable and the bad case is working without fault on my home computer. I'll take it back to work on monday and see if it works there.

On the other hand, I had yet another drive with problems and THAT drive's ribbon cable is proper. There WAS a firmware update for the bridge board though. This one also plays well at home now, after the update. I'll bring them all to work on monday to test.

Check inside your enclosure, just to be on the safe side.

Rob Mack
Albert Shroyer wrote on 6/12/2003, 2:45 PM
I've been plagued by this problem but may now be resolved!!

Received the December Firmware Update for the Oxford bridge from ADS Tech Support
and updated the firmware on my ADS Pyro external case (with WD 100 GB inside).

Immediately following the update I opened up a project with a 20 GB file in the Trimmer (the same file which kept continually locking up during playback) and it was smooth sailing. Bear in mind I didn't have but a short time to test this, but during that brief 10 - 15 minutes of my playing back this file at multiple speeds, etc. trying to get it to fail, it did not. Previously it has very quickly locked up in that amount of time.
I'll keep my fingers crossed this is a permanent fix but will test further and post if the issue shows up again.
One oddity was that the upoader program failed to detect the connected ADS drive case with either the ADS Pyro or SIIG cardbus cards I have. When I connected the drive directly to my laptop's built-in 4-pin port it detected the drive immediately.
Regards,
Albert

jerryd wrote on 6/12/2003, 3:55 PM
What update? Want to share it with the rest of us who can't get firewire drives to run on Vegas!
rmack350 wrote on 6/12/2003, 6:45 PM
I'm having much better luck with a new ADS enclosure. Didn't need an update nor was I offered one when I called tech support. Is the update for a prior model enclosure?

I don't like the case design much. I ended up buying a set of 5.25" drive rails so I could get some more air space around my drive. The cooling on these new ADS cases is just barely enough, at least for an IBM DTLA disk. I was getting write failures until I moved this disk into a better ventilated case.

Rob Mack
Albert Shroyer wrote on 6/12/2003, 6:45 PM
Jerry,

It's the firmware update mentioned by SonicEPM in his original note in this thread:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*ADS did mention that if you are getting a windows message:

"Windows- Delayed Write Failed: Windows was unable to save all the data for the file..... The data has been lost. This error my be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection..... "

that firmware updating can sometimes help- you need to contact them directly for instructions.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I contacted ADS tech support by phone as I'd seen that error message too, as well
as having the nasty freezing problem. So after some discussion about when I'd purchased my drive kit (December '02), etc. the technician emailed two files to me with instructions on unzipping and installing them.
I'd emailed them through their site the previous week but my email was nowhere to be found, so it's good that I called them direct. I didn't expect this firmware update to fix my problem (and not positive yet that it has) but so far it is looking good!
Here is the contact info for you from the ADS website (www.adstech.com):

--------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTACT OUR TECH SUPPORT TEAM:

North America and Rest Of The World
E-mail: Technical Support
Phone: 562.926.4338
Fax: 562.926.0518
Hours: M-F 7am -6 pm PST

Europe
E-mail: Technical Support
Phone: +353-61-702--042
Fax: 562.926.0518
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Regards,
Albert