Cannot locate block device '/dev/dvd'

[coverup]

I get this message every time my Mandrive LE2005 box boots. A nuissance is that neither Xine nor mplayer can play DVDs until I create a symlink to /dev/dvd0. Even more annoying nuissance is that the symlink disappears after restart.

 

How can I fix this please? The optical device is a DVD multiburner (burns and rewrites DVDs and CDs, have not tried burning yet).

[Kjel Oslund]

Take a look at /etc/udev/cdsymlinks.conf. udev is responsible for creating the appropriate links. Edit the OUTPUT line to add DVD as a required link.

[coverup]

Take a look at /etc/udev/cdsymlinks.conf. udev is responsible for creating the appropriate links. Edit the OUTPUT line to add DVD as a required link.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The line OUTPUT was commented out. Uncommenting it did not have any effect. The symlink /dev/dvd gets deleted during reboot.

[pmpatrick]

A quick hack is to put this in /etc/rc.d/rc.local at the end of the script:

 

ln -s /dev/hdx /dev/dvd

 

i.e. put whatever command you use to make your link on reboot at the end of rc.local. The command will run every time you boot and create the link. Also, rc.local is the last init script to run so nothing else should remove the link.

[coverup]

A quick hack is to put this in /etc/rc.d/rc.local at the end of the script:

 

ln -s /dev/hdx /dev/dvd

 

i.e. put whatever command you use to make your link on reboot at the end of rc.local. The command will run every time you boot and create the link. Also, rc.local is the last init script to run so nothing else should remove the link.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

that would only partly solve the problem. The error is produced by the rawdevices service. This service is loaded before rc.local. Do I need it at all? What does it do?

[pmpatrick]

I have no clue as to what rawdevices services does but if the only problem is the missing dvd link and you can manually recreate every time you boot, what I gave you will eliminate that problem. That's why I called it a quick hack.

[scarecrow]

Actually you don't explicitly need using /dev/dvd in xine or mplayer... you can also use /dev/hdx

This is what I had done in my Arch box when there was a previous buggy udev release , and both kaffeine and mplayer were playing back just fine, with non-root permissions ( /dev/hdx in that system has "root:optical" permissions, and all you have to do is adding the user to the "optical" group ).

BTW it may be just an udev bug- may I ask which version you're using currently? Some recent ones were close to unusable, presenting problems similar to yours... The last one (0.68 ) seems being OK.

Edited August 25, 2005 by scarecrow

[coverup]

Actually you don't explicitly need using /dev/dvd in xine or mplayer... you can also use /dev/hdx

This is what I had done in my Arch box when there was a previous buggy udev release , and both kaffeine and mplayer were playing back just fine, with non-root permissions ( /dev/hdx in that system has "root:optical" permissions, and all you have to do is adding the user to the "optical" group ).

BTW it may be just an udev bug- may I ask which version you're using currently? Some recent ones were close to unusable, presenting problems similar to yours... The last one (0.68 ) seems being OK.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I will post the version of udev when I get home.

 

How do I tell xine to use a device other than /dev/dvd? I have devices /dev/dvd0. /dev/dvdram0, /dev/dvdrw0 - all of them are links to a SCSI device /dev/scsi/..../cd. If I could tell xine to use /dev/dvd0, that would solve the problem. In fact, symlinking /dev/dvd0 to /dev/dvd was enough.

 

A similar problem occurs with playing back CDs. Some of those I tried, eg KsCD (?), did not work at all, and for some (Amarook, I think), I had to manually create symlink /dev/cdrom to /dev/scsi/..../cd, despite there is a simililar symlink /dev/cdrom0.

[scarecrow]

For xine, you must first change the "configuration experience level" to advanced, and then the setting is available (and you can also use kaffeine to adjust the xine engine settings).

For mplayer, it's under preferences/ misc.

[coverup]

For xine, you must first change the "configuration experience level" to advanced, and then the setting is available (and you can also use kaffeine to adjust the xine engine settings).

For mplayer, it's under preferences/ misc.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

udev version is 0.54.

 

Thanks, I edited xine and kaffeine configs and stopped rawdevices. Hope I won't need it.

 

Since you mentioned it, udev causes me a lot of headache. For a reason beyond my undertanding, from time to time the /etc/fstab file gets overwritten and the entry for the CD/DVD is removed. The funny thing is that once that happens the optical device does not show in the hardware list in MCC. As soon as I manually insert the line to fstab, bang - the cdrom icon pops back on the desktop and I have my drive back! I would appreciate if somebody can post an original /etc/fstab created by Mandriva 2005 installer - I edit mine back and forth and did not keep the orig.

 

I also noticed that mandrake attempts to mount the optical drive filesystem on boot as a "local filesystem" and gets upset if there is no cdrom in the bay for it to mount. Is this a normal?

[scarecrow]

0.54 is problematic- either downgrade to 0.53, or upgrade to 0.58- whatever is more convenient. A HUGE thread about is is present at Gentoo Linux forums.

fstab is automatically altered by fstab-sync (on Mandy 2005LE anyway, if udev/hal/ivman are running). If you already have static mount points for your CD-ROM in there and you do run at least dbus and hal, then delete them and whenever you insert a disk in your optical drive fstab-sync will autocreate a mount point and automount the medium. In Mandriva I recall it's under /mnt/cd or mnt/dvd (with vanilla daemon rules), on my Arch Linux it's under a /media folder.

Edited August 26, 2005 by scarecrow

[coverup]

fstab is automatically altered by fstab-sync (on Mandy 2005LE anyway, if udev/hal/ivman are running). If you already have static mount points for your CD-ROM in there and you do run at least dbus and hal, then delete them and whenever you insert a disk in your optical drive fstab-sync will autocreate a mount point and automount the medium.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I wish it worked they way you described! If the box boots with no cd in the bay, the entry for the cdrom gets removed. I insert a CD... and nothing happens. There is no icon on the desktop to click on and mount the CD. And there are no optical devices in /dev/. Haldaemon and udev are running, ivman and dbus are not on the list. Do I need to install those services?

 

wouldn't be better simply stop HAL and hotplug to prevent /etc/fstb/from being overwritten?

 

EDIT: rpm did not allow uninstalling udev-0.54 because of some dependencies. I downloaded and compiled ver 0.68, and symlinked it to /sbin/udev (that way i was hoping to keep the old version...) That was a disaster, I am back to 0.54...

 

EDIT: tried 0.68 rpm from cooker - it stuffed up the soundcard. Oh boy, does it have to be so much pain in the neck? Back to 0.54 again (rpm -i --force --nodeps ..).

Edited August 26, 2005 by coverup

[scarecrow]

OK, I do know it's a pain in the ass to manage these new services... if you don't like them ,then disable them and use the old, bad "supermount".

However buggy they may be, they are how the future Mandy releases will handle CD-ROM and USB devices, although there were severe issues till pretty recently. IMO, just wait for the official Mandy 2006 (due soon)- myself having no issues currently, but tis is mainly due to the Arch Linux packagers effort, who have managed to pull out a hare from the current udev mess...

To be honest, they still have big problems putting the new gcc 4.0.1 and the current buggy QT releases in order, but I'm not the one to file a complaint about the issue!

Edited August 26, 2005 by scarecrow

[coverup]

OK, I do know it's a pain in the ass to manage these new services... if you don't like them ,then disable them and use the old, bad "supermount".

However buggy they may be, they are how the future Mandy releases will handle CD-ROM and USB devices, although there were severe issues till pretty recently. IMO, just wait for the official Mandy 2006 (due soon)- myself having no issues currently, but tis is mainly due to the Arch Linux packagers effort, who have managed to pull out a hare from the current udev mess...

To be honest, they still have big problems putting the new gcc 4.0.1 and the current buggy QT releases in order, but I'm not the one to file a complaint about the issue!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Neither will I :D.

 

Sounds stupit, but it all seemed to work fine until I tried to configure the burner using MCC config tool in a hope this would create /dev/dvd. No matter what I tried since, I can't get automount work.