I've used rewriteable DVD's multiple times in the past, no problem. Normally I place the DVD in the tray, close it, a box pops up asking to "Open In Finder" or 'ignore'. I'd hit 'ignore', then DVDSP4 would erase the DVD and write the new files.

Suddenly, now the Apple DVD Player keeps taking control of the DVD, preventing the burn. In the Player's prefs, "When a disk is inserted... start playing disks" is de-selected.

If I erase the DVD using Disk Utility, then Finder pops up while DVDSP4 is working, taking control of the DVD and preventing the burn.

The message in both cases is: "Formatting Failed. One of the volumes on the media is still in use."

Any way around this, back to normal?

It's time to run some system maintenance. Download and run all the cleaning and maintenance routines in Onyx which should clear the problem.

This type of behavior often occurs when the "dyld shared cache" and other system-wide temp files become full or corrupted causing System Preferences to either ignore settings or worse, do something un-commanded.

Having Onyx clean up these and other core files should get you back in running order in less than 5 minutes. If not, let us know as this might be the signs of a hardware issue.

Thanks, Robert.

I downloaded Onyx and dragged the image to the Apps folder. Every time I double click on it, it crashes as it opens, resulting in a message: The application Onyx quit unexpectedly.

??

However, the good news is, based on a tip, I went to the CD's and DVD's section of System Preferences and set the blank CD, DVD and Video DVD options to 'Ignore' and now it's back to normal.

Any thoughts on getting Onyx to run?

First, make sure you downloaded the right version for your OS; Onyx comes in different flavors for all versions of Mac OS X.

Assuming you have the right version and still getting that message then try using the "Repair Permissions" command from Disk Utility. Then try opening Onyx. If it still fails then you do in fact have some corruptions in your OS that either DiskWarrior will need to address or, re-installing the OS.

If you have Snow Leopard you don't have to do a clean install, follow my "Self Healing Mac" thread and you'll be back up in no time.

Right, I had the Snow Leopard version installed. All is well.

Thanks-