All discs are rejected by dbBatchRipper using Nimbie NB21-BR USB 3 autoloader.

[BillDem3D]

Warning: This is a long post detailing weeks of attempts to get a Nimbie bot working with dbBatchRipper. Skip to my plea for help at the end if you don't want a breakdown of what I've tried so far.

I have been trying for many weeks to get dbPoweramp to work with a Nimbie NB21-BR USB 3.0 autoloader. After working with Acronova support for a couple of weeks, we never got the first Nimbie working with dbBatchRipper. The first machine rejected about 250 different test discs after initially ripping about 12. The rejects started after I closed the dbBatchRipper software and reopened it the next morning. The Nimbie machine also randomly disconnects from Win 10 Pro after I run any of the db* software. Unplugging the cable sometimes gets it to reappear, but most of the time, I need to reboot the machine to get it to reappear in Windows after it disappears. If I don't run dbPoweramp/dbBatchRipper after a reboot, the drive stays connected to Windows. The Acronova tech and I tried different USB 3 cables and different USB 3 ports. We also tried it with several USB 2 ports and cables. We've tried it with and without the special Nimbie configuration file downloaded from the dbPoweramp site. We tried it with only dbPoweramp and the basic Nimbie driver installed. I've uninstalled and reinstalled all of the software and drivers too many times to count. I've manually removed the device driver in Device Manager (found by showing hidden drivers when the drive was disconnected,) then reinstalled it. The tech even tried to get it working for a couple of hours via remote desktop sessions, while I watched disc after disc being rejected out of the bottom of the machine. Eventually, even the Acronova tech gave up trying to get it to work and shipped me a replacement machine to see if the problem might be a faulty machine. Unfortunately, the brand new Nimbie rejects every disc using dbBatchRipper and disconnects the drive from Windows, exactly the same as the first Nimbie I tried. I'm stubbornly refusing to give up on the potential benefits of using an autoloader combined with the dbBatchRipper software. In addition, I have future plans to rip my Blu-ray/UHD collection to a media server, once I've ripped and archived my CD collection successfully.

To answer the most obvious questions: Yes, I ran the dbBatchRipper configuration application each time. I also double-checked the transcoder settings in the single disc db ripper each time before using the batch ripper. On most of the tests, the drive was configured as "Nimbie" using the file from the dbPoweramp site. I've unconfigured and reconfigured the drive many times. I've rebooted and even shut down my machine dozens of times, something I almost never do. My system runs 24/7 for months at a time before it ever needs to be rebooted. My machine normally only reboots if Microsoft installs an update which requires a reboot. There was no Windows update installed overnight on the day it stopped working. I checked the logs to make sure.

My hardware specs: (in case they matter)
* 8 core/16 thread Intel i7 6900K CPU with 64GB of RAM, - No overclocking on anything
* ASUS Sabertooth ruggedized X99 motherboard,
* Samsung 2TB Pro SSD boot drive,
* several (>5TB) internal Hitachi SATA6 hard drives,
* two internal optical drives (a Blu-ray writer and DVD writer - both rip perfectly,)
* many USB 3.1 & USB 2 ports,
* NVIDIA GTX 980Ti graphics card driving 1x34" 4K UHD display and 2x30" 2560x1600 displays,
* I'm running fully patched Windows 10 Pro (Build 15603)

** NOTE: I've also tried many of these tests on my Surface Book laptop (completely different hardware, but same OS build,) returning exactly the same results. It rejects discs until the drive eventually disappears from Windows. So, it seems to be an issue with Windows 10 in combination with dbBatchRipper.

I believe any minimum resource requirements should be easily covered by my desktop setup. On the other hand,... if you aware of any problems with any of that hardware, please let me know. The drivers are all MS-WHQL certified. The firewall and virus scanner are standard Microsoft issue, and neither has ever indicated a problem. But to be safe, I disabled both briefly for some of the testing with no change in behavior. The new new Nimbie drive also disconnects from Windows randomly, exactly like the first one. Oddly, I can play the music discs directly from the drive in the Nimbie without any problems using a number of different music player applications. I can also rip discs manually one at a time on the Nimbie drive using JRiver Media Center. The results on JRMC say the tracks were ripped with zero retries and zero errors. The resulting FLAC files play perfectly. So, the drive is verifiably capable of ripping the discs.

You might be asking yourself, "Why doesn't he just use JRiver to rip his collection, since he knows it works?" I purchased dbPoweramp Reference specifically because of the AccurateRip verification ability. My goal is to get 100% verifiable bit perfect rips to FLAC files along with your above average automatic online database meta data lookups for most of my collection. So, ripping everything with JRiver isn't really a valid alternative as far as my primary goals are concerned. Plus, the JRiver meta data database has more missing entries, which will kill the benefits of automating this process. I reallly want to get dbBatchRipper/AccurateRip working with the Nimbie changer, so I can run batches of disc rips unattended overnight and wake up to perfect results. I actually researched and selected your software first. I then chose to buy the Nimbie autoloader based on the recommendation I saw on your web site. If I can ever get it to work, I'm certain I will be very happy with this combination. But, I have to admit that I'm fairly disappointed with my experience so far.

SO... Does anyone have any additional ideas I can try in order to get dBBatchRipper working reliably? I've seen a few fairly recent posts about these (and similar) Nimbie problems on the forums, but none of them sound like they were ever fully resolved. Despite being pretty technically inclined, I'm frankly running out of ideas to try. Can anyone help me out? Thanks in advance.

[BillDem3D]

Re: All discs are rejected by dbBatchRipper using Nimbie NB21-BR USB 3 autoloader.

Over the weekend, I got the Nimbie to remain connected to Windows all the time. Unfortunately, dbBatchRipper still rejects every disc inserted on BOTH of the Nimbie units I now have for testing. Might this be caused by a bad AccurateRip configuration? If so, how can I force AccurateRip to recalibrate? Every other ripper I've tried works fine with these Nimbie drives I'm using. Unfortunately, none of the other rippers have the feature set I need to create the very specific file structure I need to create. In addition, most of them do now support AccurateRip, which I really want to use for reassurance that I have a perfect copy of all the music I've purchased.

[MattRX]

Re: All discs are rejected by dbBatchRipper using Nimbie NB21-BR USB 3 autoloader.

Hi Bill

None of this will help as I don't have a Nimbie but I found it interesting anyway.

In my messing around with batchripper for my own changer I had very similar results. For me maybe 1 in 10 discs were accepted and the rest failed.

In my setup the disc would start to rip and then the CD drive would spin up (at about 5% of the first track) and then every track would be quickly marked as failed.

After messing around for a few days with no improvement I bypassed the USB to SATA interface I was using and it just sprang into life and worked perfectly.

Anyway I was going to post up my findings as I could not find any posts with similar results. I plugged everything in again using the UBS adapter to collect log files and a few screen shots and the damn thing worked perfectly on discs that I know had perfect failure rates. Can't explain that behavior.

Best of luck

Matt

[BillDem3D]

Re: All discs are rejected by dbBatchRipper using Nimbie NB21-BR USB 3 autoloader.

Here is a VERY late update:

Sorry for the extremely late update. I haven't had a reason to be back on the dBPoweramp forums until now. I'm only here today because I upgraded my computer system and reinstalled Windows 10 Pro. As a result, I need to download and reinstall dBPoweramp. I just happend to notice I had a message asking about the solution, so I thought I would answer, even if it is too late to be useful for a lot of folks.

Yes, my problem got resolved perfectly and was worth the effort in the end. The guys who make the Nimbie were incredibly helpful. Like me, they stubbornly kept at it until we found a solution. I highly recommend their duplicator and their company because they bent over backwards to solve this bizarre riddle. They even trusted me enough to send a second machine to use for testing, which I promptly returned to them once we solved it. I'm very thankful for their awesome service and support.

Anyway, it turned out that the dbPoweramp installation routine for the Nimbie configuration files was installing old configuration files for the Nimbie which did not match the current version of dBpoweramp. The Nimbie guys sent me the correct, updated configuration files and told me where to copy them. Everything immediately started working perfectly. I was then able to rip my huge collection of music CDs in a couple of days instead of weeks of sitting at my computer swapping discs into multiple optical drives. It was a breeze. I just added more discs to the hopper on the Nimbie every time I walked past the machine and it ran non-stop for a couple of days, including overnight. I have to say, this combination worked great once it was working! The Nimbie with dBPoweramp Batchripper is a really great combination that will save you huge amounts of time.

Here are 5 tips:
1. Elevate the machine by placing something under the front legs and a second object under the rear legs. You want the rejection slot under the machine to be about 8 inches above the table surface so you can place the clear plastic top cover from a 100 blank disc spindle under the reject slot. This will catch all the rejects so they don't pile up and eventually slide off the table.
2. Place the same type of tall cylindrical clear plastic blank disc cover under the slot in the front of the machine for catching the completed discs. The short plastic container they include is just too small to keep the machine running non-stop and unattended.
3. Don't fill the hopper all the way to the top of the clear plastic guides. I started out filling the machine up to about 5 CDs above the clear plastic guides and it failed to load a few times due to the weight of all those CDs making it impossible for the feed mechanism to turn properly. The machine seemed to work better when I only had the hopper filled up to about 5 CDs below the top of the clear plastic guides.
4. You don't have to wait until the hopper is empty to add more CDs. I topped it off every time I walked past the machine so that it would run non-stop. To keep it running overnight, I just made sure the hopper was completely topped off right before I went to bed. By morning it was either empty or almost empty and I would just fill it up again. The loading mechanism is noisy, so you will want to run it in a room far away from the bedroom if you are a light sleeper.
5. Run the rejects through a CD cleaning machine, wipe them off thoroughly, then put them back in the hopper. I was able to successfully rip most of the rejects by doing this occasionally. Make sure they are completely dry before putting them back in the hopper. If they are even slightly damp, they stick to the other discs in the hopper, causing a feed problem.

I really can't say enough about how helpful the Nimbie guys were in solving this mystery. The dBPoweramp guys had understandably given up trying to solve it after a week or so for several reasons. First, they couldn't duplicate the problem. Second, they had double-checked their code to make sure it was right, which it was. Finally, it simply made no sense to them (or me) why this behavior would be happening. Of course they didn't realize that their Nimbie installer was installing out of date Nimbie configuration files. I told the guys at dBPoweramp the solution we had found, so they ideally should have updated their Nimbie configuration file installation with the correct Nimbie files by now. Hopefully they remember to always get updated configuration files for the Nimbie every time they make changes to dBPoweramp. The Nimbie makes Batchripper infinitely more useful. The AccurateRip was also worth the trouble to get working, btw.

Overall, I'm very happy with my Nimbie and dBPoweramp combination. Highly recommended!

Good luck!
-Bill

[georgemason]

Re: All discs are rejected by dbBatchRipper using Nimbie NB21-BR USB 3 autoloader.

I want to continue this thread. I have/had this same problem for about a week. Tried everthing the original poster did, called Acronova more than a few times and finally by divine intervention got the system to work, sort of. The Nimbie works fine. Disks are loaded and read and I run into the same problems I have with the basic dbpoweramp program-usually the metadata but that is another post. For now, I need to know if I can set the storage drive on the network. I use Roon and I need to be able to access my music from a variety of machines. I have tried a number of ways to record directly to a NAS with no luck. So, in Rube Goldberg fashion, I set the storage disk to my C Drive and record the music there. Then after a while I copy the files from the hard drive to the NAS and go back and erase the files on the hard drives. The extra step is cumbersome to say the least and I am sure I am missing some discs. Any thoughts would be appreciated and I have more questions should this one be resolved.

[Spoon]

Re: All discs are rejected by dbBatchRipper using Nimbie NB21-BR USB 3 autoloader.

Load Batch Ripper and click the 'Edit' Button next to the default profile, this shows a CD Ripper where you set the output folder, then close CD Ripper.

[georgemason]

Re: All discs are rejected by dbBatchRipper using Nimbie NB21-BR USB 3 autoloader.

I have done that many times. Each time the discs are read but not saved anywhere. The only time they are saved is when I set the output folder to my C drive. Perhaps I am not typing the destination name properly. If not, please give me a sample of what it should look like. I am setting up the name in the configuation menu and using the drop down menus to select the file name so I am not creating a new name, just using what is already there but no luck unless I set the file to the C drive.

[Spoon]

Re: All discs are rejected by dbBatchRipper using Nimbie NB21-BR USB 3 autoloader.

First you have to be able to browse the NAS share through:

Windows File Explorer >> Network

Then click 'Set' for the Path entry in CD Ripper and browse to the NAS.

[georgemason]

Re: All discs are rejected by dbBatchRipper using Nimbie NB21-BR USB 3 autoloader.

First you have to be able to browse the NAS share through:

Windows File Explorer >> Network

Then click 'Set' for the Path entry in CD Ripper and browse to the NAS.

Thank you. It appears to work now. I did not understand your message at first not realizing that CD Ripper and Batch Ripper were related. Once I did that, all is well or at least until the next issue arises. I am currently batch recording discs and it will be awhile since I have many of them to be completed which leads me to my next question. Cover art is hit and miss at best and when using CD Ripper it was not an issue since I could edit the disc before recording but with batch ripper it defeats the purpose if I have to stop the process to look for an album cover. I saw suggestions of GD3 and AMG as possible providers and I am aware that they charge for their service. Which one would you recommend and if none of these two, which other one would you recommend?

[Spoon]

Re: All discs are rejected by dbBatchRipper using Nimbie NB21-BR USB 3 autoloader.

AMG is no more, only GD3