Toast Anywhere

[messenger82]

Wow, I can't believe how disappointed I am in Roxio's support. I'm hoping there are some awesome users out there who can help us out.

 

Question 1; Question 2 may not be relevant if the answer to this is no. Is Toast Anywhere a supported feature in Toast 11? Roxio's phone support said Toast Anywhere is no longer a part of Toast and has not been since version 9. We have both version 10 and 11, both have Toast Anywhere as an option. Am I seeing things, do I have a dud version? Is support correct? I have a feeling I got a dud technician.

 

Question 2:

Setup and Details: We have five licenses of Toast in our shop all running 10.7.4, all on the same LAN. Four are installed on our editors, a fifth copy is installed on a centralized Mac Mini Server we use as a DVD printing and authoring center. Attached to the Mini is a LaCie Blu-Ray / DVD burner. On the Mini we have the "Toast Anywhere" enabled. We can burn DVDs and Blu-Rays locally from the Mac Mini to the LaCie. Our Mac Pro editors can also burn DVD's locally to the internal drives.

 

Problem: When using Toast from an editor and selecting the Mini's LaCie drive, when we click 'Burn', the Editors say "writing" and the bar appears, the Mac Mini give us a timer and then give us the same "writing" bar that appears on the Mini. They both finish and reach 100% then drop back to the standard disc authoring and design portion of the app. HOWEVER, no DVD is written or generated.

 

All of the obvioius "duh" has been done (we think), we are using blank discs, we have tried both blu-rays and DVD's. Everything is plugged in and trouble shot seperately.

 

Thoughts?!?!

[tsantee]

Roxio support is wrong. ToastAnywhere is continues to be a part of Toast, as you've seen. I just did a test and it worked for me with the writing drive using Toast 11.1 beta and the sending drive using the latest version of Toast 10. This involved a built-in disc burner so I need to test it again using an external burner.

 

I'm wondering if you have simulation mode turned on. That option is in the Advanced tab of the Recorder Settings window. It only applies to the Toast that's doing the disc writing.

 

Addendum: I just tried it again with an external drive and that worked fine, too.

[messenger82]

Thanks, I'm glad they are wrong, it was really quite a frustraiting conversation with them.

 

Problems still exists. Both our test systems (client and burn "server") are running 11.0.6. I followed your advise and checked the recorder settings, both machines indicate simulation mode is off. There really doesn't seem like there's too much to this, I'm not sure why it's failing. The machines are communicating. I don't see the converted media in the "Converted Items" folder so I'm not sure if it's being delivered correctly or not. That's one thought. The other is that the server isn't controlling the burner but I'm not sure about that since I can burn locally.

 

Edit: the item does appear in the converted media folder for a minute but clear out after Toast returns to the authoring layout.

[tsantee]

Thanks, I'm glad they are wrong, it was really quite a frustraiting conversation with them.

 

Problems still exists. Both our test systems (client and burn "server") are running 11.0.6. I followed your advise and checked the recorder settings, both machines indicate simulation mode is off. There really doesn't seem like there's too much to this, I'm not sure why it's failing. The machines are communicating. I don't see the converted media in the "Converted Items" folder so I'm not sure if it's being delivered correctly or not. That's one thought. The other is that the server isn't controlling the burner but I'm not sure about that since I can burn locally.

 

Edit: the item does appear in the converted media folder for a minute but clear out after Toast returns to the authoring layout.

The test I performed was with the Data window so there wasn't any need for conversions. Something you can try is to choose Save as Disc Image on the source computer and then select the resulting .toast file using the Image File setting in the Copy window to send it to the burning computer. That way there is no conversion involved in the burning process. If that works then I'll also try a project that requires conversion to see if I can confirm your experience on my Mac. You also can look for the 11.1 beta posted by patatrox in this forum to see if it is still available for download. I once was told that the final release of 11.1 was scheduled for this past May but that obviously didn't happen.

 

I'm using the 11.1 beta version of Toast to burn the discs. If you have access to 11.0.4 (it's also available as a download from Roxio's software updates page) you might give that a try because a lot of things went wrong with 11.0.5 and 11.0.6. My source Macs used Toast 10 because I don't have two licenses for Toast 11.

[messenger82]

Very good suggestions. I attempted to burn a data disc, same result. My editor says "writing" and even gives a speed and the "chime" at the end of the process. The server side copy of toast says "receiving" but never says writing. But the result is the same, a blank DVD with no data written to it. I also tried the suggestion of burning to an image, then using the Image File setting in the Copy window to eliminate the conversion process as a possible culprit. Again, the result was the same.

 

I reopened a case with support, they gave me the suggestion to delete the following files but we can't find them anywhere on any of our computers. I have little confidence in support at this point so I'm not sure if they exist at all. I don't think prefs will help as this is not a single computer issue, all computers on our network are failing to print to it, all we get is "receiving".

 

Folder Paths:

Macintosh HD/Library/Prefrences/

Macintosh HD/Users/(your user name)/Library/Prefrences/

 

Trash these below files from both folders above(if found in both):

 

com.BelightSoft.DiscCover2.plist

com.BelightSoft.GetBackup2.plist

com.boinx.fotomagico.plist

com.elgato.VideoPlayer.plist

com.lightcrafts.app

com.lightcrafts.jai.plist

com.lightcrafts.metadata2.plist

com.lightcrafts.templates.plist

com.lightcrafts.ui.plist

com.lightcrafts.utils.plist

com.lqgraphics.motionpictures.plist

com.CDSpinDoctor6.plist

com.roxio.Deepseasoftware.CDSpindoctor.plist

com.roxio.Popcorn.plist

com.roxio.Streamer.plist

com.roxio.Toast.plist

com.tivo.desktop.plist

Popcorn Preferences

Roxio Toast Prefs

[tsantee]

Very good suggestions. I attempted to burn a data disc, same result. My editor says "writing" and even gives a speed and the "chime" at the end of the process. The server side copy of toast says "receiving" but never says writing. But the result is the same, a blank DVD with no data written to it. I also tried the suggestion of burning to an image, then using the Image File setting in the Copy window to eliminate the conversion process as a possible culprit. Again, the result was the same.

 

I reopened a case with support, they gave me the suggestion to delete the following files but we can't find them anywhere on any of our computers. I have little confidence in support at this point so I'm not sure if they exist at all. I don't think prefs will help as this is not a single computer issue, all computers on our network are failing to print to it, all we get is "receiving".

 

You're getting the standard response to trash everything installed with Toast Pro or created after launching each of the Toast Pro bundle apps. The only thing that could matter is the Toast plist and prefs files that are in the burn-Mac user Library preferences folder. You may know that to access that folder in OS 10.7 you need to hold down the Option key while selecting the Go menu in the Finder.

 

So far we know it's working on my Macs and not on yours. You're experiencing no problem seeing the networked drive and "sending" is behaving as it should. The receiving Mac has a window appear saying it is receiving but you never get to the point where you see the disc-burning progress window. Have you tried switching to Toast 11.0.4 for the receiving Mac?

 

One reason it may be good to go back to 11.0.4 is that 11.0.6 couldn't get past 99% when burning discs. I know it's hard to believe they didn't catch this issue before releasing it, but I guess that's why I'm here.

 

I don't think you have a network issue because both ends see the transfer. But for some reason the receiving one isn't doing what it should. I did my tests with just a few files burned to RW media so it would go fast and not waste discs. There was a delay between when the files were received and disc burning began. If I had a large amount of data it's possible that delay could be so long that it appeared to be frozen. If you haven't tested with just a few small files, please do so. Or do a test by sending the file before going home for the evening to see if it is just a matter of waiting forever. The receiving Mac can't be allowed to go to sleep, though.

[messenger82]

Just borrowed a second external Blu-Ray burner. This one is the Apple USB DVD R version. We also eliminated both of the machines as the possible source and tried it with two other Macs. The issue is still the same and I don't feel is hardware related. I'm open too about any other ideas at this point, I'm starting to feel like there is a bug in the product.

[tsantee]

Just borrowed a second external Blu-Ray burner. This one is the Apple USB DVD R version. The issue is still the same and I don't feel is hardware related.

That makes sense to me. Try a different version of Toast.

[Imacer]

Roxio toast is the worst in the business for support. When they shipped jobs overseas and can't understand them is difficult. When company's they pay cheap this is what we get.