Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: DCP Drive Error

This is topic DCP Drive Error - "No content to ingest" in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Steve R Pike (Member # 6238) on 12-12-2013, 12:41 PM:

Apologies if this has been discussed before, however for the past few months we have had about four drives sent to us that were unable to be recognised by our Doremi server. Most recently was this weekend when we received the drive for Captain Phillips.

After plugging it into the dock and USB socket on the server, the Ingest manager failed to appear. Nor does an orange flickering light appear on the dock to signal activity.

After some time, I went to open the Ingest Manager application manually. The system scanned anything that was plugged in, but just came back with the error "No content found to ingest".

I tried re-booting the server and trying again - but still nothing.

After speaking to the guy at Deluxe helpline he said that it was most likely down to the previous cinema using a Windows system and not safely removing the drive when they finished with it.

He didn't have any solution as to how I could resolve it on site, instead a new drive had to be sent to us. Thankfully, as it's Panto season here, we weren't showing it for a few more days - but this could have cost us a screening.

After the new drive arrived, and successfully ingested, I thought about plugging in the 'faulty' drive into our computer in the projection room (which uses Windows XP) and then proceed to 'safely remove the device' to possibly clear any errors. Unfortunately nothing happened [Frown]

Has anyone else had this issue with DCP drives, and if so - do you have any suggestions about how we could resolve it ON site?

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 12-12-2013, 01:05 PM:

Is your Doremi server an LMS? If so, one thing you could try it to insert the drive into a local server on one of your projectors then open and close the drive. I know this option works with GDC servers and a Cinedigm LMS.

Posted by Steve R Pike (Member # 6238) on 12-12-2013, 01:37 PM:

Oooh now you're asking!I'm not sure...

We just have the one server/projector - a Christie CP2000-Swith standard Cinelister..... [Confused]

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 12-12-2013, 02:46 PM:

It's highly doubtful that your issue is being caused by a corrupted file system.

Also, if you connect it to a Windows file system, you will probably be able to see a partition on it using the Windows Disk Management and maybe even a drive letter appearing, but you won't be able to access it, unless you install the proper tools to be able to access Linux Ext3 file systems.

But you mentioned this:

quote: Steve R Pike
After plugging it into the dock and USB socket on the server, the Ingest manager failed to appear. Nor does an orange flickering light appear on the dock to signal activity.

The fact that you do not see any LED flicker, is more an indication of a hardware failure than a software failure. So I guess your USB dock, cabling or one of your connectors is to blame.

Posted by Steve R Pike (Member # 6238) on 12-12-2013, 03:15 PM:

Hi Marcel
Thanks for your reply. The USB dock works because I used the same dock and cables with the 'faulty' drive with the working drive [Frown]

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 12-12-2013, 03:36 PM:

And did you try one of the USB ports on the back too, to make sure your USB port on the front isn't flaky?

Alternatively, you could also try to put this drive into a CRU bay if your server is fitted with a CRU carrier and you have a spare lying around (or you could use one from another drive [Wink]

Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 12-12-2013, 04:04 PM:

Marcel

If for some reasons the disk has a corrupted partition, Linux won't recognize it and won't mount it. Hence no content would be displayed and no light will flicker on the unit.

Windows won't be able to see a Linux partition unless you use a driver. What deluxe said is possible but I'm not sure how easy you can damage a partition simply not unmounting it. Very possible but shouldn't be so easy.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 12-12-2013, 04:40 PM:

The light on the disk should always flicker if you connect it and something in your hardware isn't broken. There are multiple processes at work here. First of all, the OS will probe any new device connected to the USB bus and once the OS detects that the attached device is actually a disk, it will scan the disk for any active partitions. That activity alone should be sufficient to trigger a short flash of your activity LED.

If your MBR on the disk isn't corrupted (I don't think any studio or lab is already using GPT, but later versions of Windows support that too), Windows will show the partition in the Disk Management, but as I already stated, it won't be able to mount the drive (unless you install something like Ext2Fsd).

Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 12-12-2013, 06:40 PM:

If I remember correctly during the mounting procedure the orange light flashes for a split second. Then the light flashes for a few seconds while the OS scans the drive. I believe this is the process Steve is mentioning.

Yes, Windows should show an unknown partition available.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 12-12-2013, 07:14 PM:

Last week, when I was out of town, the guy filling in for me had a similar
error message with a hard drive he was trying to ingest on a Dolby DSS 200.

I talked him through a number of things to try that didn't work, and then
he even called tech support and they had him try a few more 'tricks'.

Bottom line: The drive was either actually "empty" or perhaps the
interface on its' carrier was dead, making the drive LOOK like it was
empty to the server.

I asked him to hold onto the drive till I got back so I could personally
examine it, but he accidently shipped it out. ( D'oh! )

Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 12-12-2013, 07:50 PM:

I find that if I plug an ext drive into a Windows, it kindly offers to format it for me. It seems pretty easy to do by accident.

Harold

Posted by Richard May (Member # 2627) on 12-12-2013, 08:00 PM:

Hey Steve,

We have a Doremi also. We have gotten this too many times over the last 2 years especially with independent filmmakers. It has ALWAYS been the drive they send. They would send us another one and it would be fine. Exact same issue too. Ingest manager doesn't even come up unless you call it. Then it says no content to ingest. We have 2 Doremi server on 2 screens. Always does the same in both screens. It is NOT the server.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 12-13-2013, 07:07 AM:

The problem may be, most people suggest ext2/3 formatted drives for DCP distribution. However, most independent filmmakers and smaller mastering facilities do not use LINUX, but Windows or Mac OS X for the creation of the DCP. Then they will use third party ext2/3 drivers to copy the content to the distribution drives. But these are still alien file systems for these OS's. Another potential issue is the formatting of these drives, as the free third party ext drivers have no formatting option. So people use Linux boot CDs/USB sticks, etc. to format and/or copy files. ext2/3 has a range of format options, people do not know of typical constraints for DCP drives:

http://www.isdcf.com/old/ISDCF_Public/HDD_Recommendations.html

inode size can be critical.

In my opinion, this is unnecessary hassle going with ext2/3, as Windows and OS X can handle NTFS better. Most cinema servers nowadays can deal with NTFS drives without a problem. I would not suggest NTFS for large scale distribution, but under typical festival conditions, it is the better choice.

- Carsten

Posted by Steve R Pike (Member # 6238) on 12-13-2013, 09:41 AM:

Dear All

Thank you for all your replies.

I find it strange that, in this age of computers, that we are thrown these kind of errors. Deluxe emailed our film programmer to find out a bit more information about the errors, so it may look like they are examining it in more detail. Fingers crossed.

I use the same docking station (whatever you want to call it) and cables for all ingesting. Whenever I have had this error, I tried it again but using the dock they supplied in the case - and still no ingest. Plus, I don't know about around the World, but here in the UK - Deluxe are no longer sending cables, docks and power adapters, they are only sending the hard drives.

Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 12-13-2013, 10:30 AM:

Steve,

If your dock works properly with a drive and does not work at all with another drive, there is something wrong with the drive, don't worry. Bad drives and bad mastering do happen.

Another thing I do when I come across a drive which doesn't show any content is to put my ear on the drive while I power it up: listen for any unusual noise. I wouldn't be surprised if some of your non-working drives were not spinning at all or making all sort of clanging noise when spinning up!

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 12-13-2013, 10:56 AM:

Plus, you can always use a Wndows or Mac machine with one of the free ext2/ext3 drivers for a quick crosscheck - hook it up, try to mount it, see what's on it.

- CArsten

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 12-13-2013, 06:09 PM:

quote: Steve R Pike
I find it strange that, in this age of computers, that we are thrown these kind of errors. Deluxe emailed our film programmer to find out a bit more information about the errors, so it may look like they are examining it in more detail. Fingers crossed.

I happen to share Terry Gilliam's view of technology as depicted in his 1985 film Brazil. It will only grow in complexity and will continue to randomly fail [Wink]

.

But did you try the USB ports on the back of your Doremi server yet? Or are they totally out of reach? If the problem isn't obvious, you should try to isolate the problem by exclusion.

quote: Carsten Kurz
In my opinion, this is unnecessary hassle going with ext2/3, as Windows and OS X can handle NTFS better. Most cinema servers nowadays can deal with NTFS drives without a problem. I would not suggest NTFS for large scale distribution, but under typical festival conditions, it is the better choice.

Well, it will be interesting to see what the future brings. We're not there yet, but the current MBR scheme does not scale beyond 2 TByte. GPT is an obvious solution, but it will introduce new compatibility challenges.

EXT2/EXT3 might have been the only viable choice a few years back (it's open source and supports large files), but for the future I would rather go for something that focuses more on data consistency and availability (without the need to run manual FSCKs) like ZFS. But that would obviously introduce new compatibility issues.

For the time being, it would be best practice to mount those file systems on those disks in read-only mode. That way it is rather impossible to corrupt the filesystem or cause troubles because of being marked "dirty" after an unclean unmount.

Posted by Richard May (Member # 2627) on 12-13-2013, 07:19 PM:

Marcel, the problem is not with the Doremi server. When we have this problem, none of the USB ports work. Like I said, we also try it on other Doremi servers in the booth with the same results. The server is fine. On many occasions, we had the filmmaker contact Doremi and have Doremi tell them the proper way to format the drive. This ALWAYS fixed the problem.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 12-13-2013, 08:26 PM:

Since RHEL 7 will be using XFS by default instead of the EXT? filesystem that has been used in all previous RH releases (most recently EXT4), I suspect that a lot of enterprise systems will start using XFS and EXT will begin to slowly disappear. RH carries a lot of weight in the enterprise Linux sector.

Posted by Steve R Pike (Member # 6238) on 12-28-2013, 10:13 AM:

Hi all, hope you all had a good holiday.

I popped into my place today as I saw Philomena sat in the foyer. We have no screenings until Jan 7th as panto is on, but thought 'as I'm here, I'll load it up'.

Surprise surprise the drive failed. No content to ingest. This time tried all USB ports, but knew that wouldn't be the problem as the Pearl and Dean advert drive ingested fine using the same USB socket plug and dock.

This is about the 4th drive now in recent months that have failed - all if which are Deluxe! I know that as their helpline number is the only one we've called!

Getting frustraited with this as their only suggestion is "we'll send another drive". That's all very good and thankfully we still have over a week until it's screening, but I have a horrible feeling that if this continues to happen that it will fail on a film screen in the next day leaving no time for a replacement drive.

This digital world, in my mind, is slowly destroying the old age art of projection. :-(

Posted by Michael Putlack (Member # 6523) on 12-28-2013, 01:56 PM:

About half of the drives we get from deluxe have an issue being read when we plug it into the ports of our Doremi servers. We have a hard drive "shoe" always plugged into the back USB port of the servers, and when the drive doesn't work in the port it always works while using the shoe. It is annoying because it takes longer to ingest (sometimes an extra hour +!) but it gets the job done.

Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 12-29-2013, 03:59 AM:

Michael,

Rebooting the server should fix the problem. Also, make sure you press the grey button before removing the drive.
Finally, I've encountered some servers which were quite slow in scanning the content, make sure you wait a minute before giving up - I actually had an nGEST unit which was taking a couple of minutes before finally showing up some content.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 12-29-2013, 12:42 PM:

Note, our customer's incidents of drives that can't be read are on the rise too. Sometimes it is formatting, sometimes it is damage. Heck, some look like they are just plain empty.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-29-2013, 01:41 PM:

We've never had that issue here yet, thankfully.

I was going to make a joke about those "bad quality drives in the UK" but now people are saying it's happening in other countries too, so... maybe it's just drives wearing out from all the use and abuse?

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 12-29-2013, 02:32 PM:

Those drives are being shipped around a lot, that could cause some physical damage. But regarding the actual usage, such a drive is probably used a lot less than a regular drive would be. They're only written to if they're fitted with new content and every location that receives the drive will usually only ingest the content just once.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-29-2013, 10:05 PM:

Right, that's why I said "use AND abuse."

Mostly abuse by getting tossed around like footballs by the shipping companies, getting banged around or dropped while being inserted into servers, and so on.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 12-30-2013, 12:24 PM:

Yeah, I don't think there are many other industries that use "common household" harddisk for data distribution this way. Although it is quite astonishing what kind of abuse a disk in parked position can actually sustain, they were never really designed for this kind of abuse.

If it's just internal mechanical damage that causes many of those failures, that could probably be fixed by switching to SSDs, once they become a bit more economical at the required sizes. Such a move could also potentially dramatically improve the ingestion speed, as long as you're using SATA at 6g or USB 3.0 and not "plain old USB 2.0".