DVD not responding on playback

I discovered on Friday nite a problem with my laptop. It will not play movie discs. I initially thought it might have been the media player(Potplayer). So I downloaded and installed KMPlayer, (which by the way is sweet) but still no joy. Media player(s) not the problem.

Each player plays music perfectly, same with video files. Load a movie disc I can hear the normal sounds to play but then 'not responding'. So I started implementing the process of elimination to get to the root of the problem. I disable and uninstalled a new security app I'd install recently to see if it might've been the cause. The problem still persisted after doing so.

I then went into device manager to see if there were any issues showing with the DVD drive. There was none. A query shows the drive is working properly and that the driver is the most current.

But I did discover 3 issues in device mgr that were not there prior to updating Windows from 20H2 to 21H1 earlier in the day. And subsequently spent a couple hours chasing down drivers to correct those.

Question: Could the windows update have broken something? Could also be the drive going bad? What am I overlooking here? Any thoughts?

 

DVD? is that like that VHS thing?

 

Yeah, the next step in that evolution.

 

A windows update can always break things (if you are unlucky). Did the DVD work before the update? Maybe try them on another pc to see if they work at all.
(Not that they have some special DRM that doesn't let them be played on a pc) //guessing here

 

Yeah, I was being a tad flippant there, having been in the Windows world since Win 95.

 

The problem persist even after resolving the issue of the missing drivers.

 

I'll likely end up buying a USB external blu-ray player which I'd been thinking about for a while. But still, would like to determine what went awry, coming as it did on the heels of a Windows update.

 

Probably the update, although it's a possibility that the optical drive may have collected some dust or debris. It might be worth cleaning it a bit.

 

I treated the drive bay with compressed air Friday nite. Also cleaned the optical lens with an alcohol dabbed cotton swab. Didn't seem to make a difference. Appreciate your input.

 

If you made an image prior to update use that. That will help you with dust consideration etc. I had a similar thing happen to me awhile back and it was due to a Windows update.

 

Yeah, it was a bit of a shot in the dark. I have fixed optical drives on laptops in the past by cleaning them. The drive on my Lenovo G500 has been acting oddly for a couple of years. It seems to work sporadically for some reason. I suspect an update (Ubuntu) caused the problem. Buying an external drive worked at first but soon started to act like the internal drive. So I really do suspect a software problem. Weird thing is, some DVD's work and some don't.

 

Bad or missing Codecs?

 

Well that puts a wrinkle in the notion I had of a work around...

 

I don't think so. With 1 media player maybe, but what's the likelihood of both afflicted similarly? Thanks for your input.

 

No recent image I'm afraid. Have an external SSD drive on order for that purpose. Be a few days yet b4 it arrives. Lesson learned...

 

I suggest download Media Player Classic Home Cinema. Then I'd be convinced.

 

I mean you have played these DVD successfully at this PC before, right?
If no try some were you know they worked and see what happens.

 

You never know, it might work for your machine.

 

Correct...

 

Well there has been an increment of progress made. It will now play the previews of each DVD I try but stalls at the movie itself. An online search on the subject indicates quite a few people experienced this oddity, but I couldn't find where there was a definitive solution.

 

You could try software to create an ISO image of the DVD, and if that works, play the ISO image.

 

Actually, now that I think about it, that's happened to me as well. IIRC it was the same on every media player I tried: VLC, SMPlayer, mpv (plus the bundled Ubuntu movie player). The really odd thing was that at least one of my DVD's would sometimes play past the preview stage.



This is a screenshot I took a couple of years ago. Sometimes this particular DVD would actually play past the preview.

 

Thanks for your input. Yeah, I saw that as one of the work-arounds some people resorted to with the issue. I am not sure about going that route. I have a substantial DVD collection and that just seems impractical for my situation. A usb external drive/player would make more sense.

 

'A usb external drive/player would make more sense. '................I would say so. I am doing that now with another PC and they work and don't cost much.