Can't burn CDs - "burner in use by another application"

Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately, they didn't solve the problem. (I thought that when you start up in Safe Boot mode, the Mac repairs disk permissions during the boot sequence. Was I wrong about that?)

Anyhow, I repaired disk permissions, and I clicked the option to ignore the CD when it's inserted - and I still get the same error message when I try to burn a CD.

Does anybody have any other suggestions? (Help! I am unable to burn CDs now!)

Thanks for the suggestion. I looked at the start-up items. (There is only have one user account on the computer.) The start-up items are:

Microsoft AU Daemon
Microsoft Database Daemon
LCCDaemon
System Preferences
iTunes Helper
iTunes

Would any of those items be the culprit for tying up the CD burner?

Thanks for the suggestion. I removed iTunes from the list of applications that launch at start-up and then rebooted the computer. I installed a CD and tried to burn a playlist from iTunes and I got the same error message. I.e. the problem still exists.

Any other ideas as to what could be causing this?

Thanks for the suggestion. I downloaded OnyX and ran the Automation option. After it finished I rebooted the computer and attempted to burn a music CD. I got the same result - an error message that another device is using the burner.

Then I followed the next person's suggestion, and something interesting happened.... (see my next post).

Good suggestion. It didn't solve my problem - but it did lead to a new error message.

I told iTunes to burn a CD, and I waited for it to prompt me to insert a blank disc. After I inserted the disc, iTunes started trying to burn the disc, then spat it out after a few seconds. An error message popped up that says:

"The attempt to burn a disc failed. The device failed to calibrate the laser power level for this media."

Now that's an interesting error message. Any ideas about this?

Thanks again for the suggestions and support. (The Mac community is really great.)

I read the article that you referenced. All of my settings/preferences were set as that article recommends, except that I had the burn speed set to 4x. I reduced it to 1x - the slowest possible speed - and then inserted the blank disc when prompted. I got the same error message as last time - the one about "unable to calibrate the laser".

Hi Ali,

I did half of that. I don't have confidence in my ability to locate and re-enable the Login Items, so I didn't disable any of them. However I doubt any of them (except iTunes Helper) would use the CD burner. The other Login Items are two from Microsoft (I think they are related to running the Office apps) and a Logitech mouse controller.

I did trash the plists that you recommended, then restarted. I still experienced the same problem. 😟

Should I drag those plists out of the trash and put them back where I got them from? Or are they recreated automatically?