Ubuntu 16.04 -17.10 unable to access DVD

Asked by youthinkso

I can not access a DVD disk on 16.04, thru 17.10 installs. I have been here before with 16.02 but was able to get it to work. I have followed all the recommended procedures for this well known issue and have gained nothing,

I have been to ask ubuntu as well as answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/ These solutions do not fix the issue.

With the same drive, I can put in a data disk and it works immediately every time. The system sees the drive. But when I put in a DVD - nothing. VLC + Kodi + all other dvd reading software can not open the file system..

Like I said earlier... This same computer and same drive worked perfectly under 16.02.x

libdvd-pkg
libdvdread4 libdvdnav4
libxvidcore4
gstreamer1.0-plugins-base
gstreamer1.0-plugins-good
gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly
gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad
gstreamer1.0-alsa
gstreamer1.0-fluendo-mp3
gstreamer1.0-libav
Codecs - all installed

Are all installed successfully

sudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg - tells me it is already installed.

/usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh` - does not exist in these ubuntu versions and can not be executed.

I have hooked up external dvd drives - same issue. They read data but not DVDs

Am I missing something?

Thanks for your assistance!

Question information

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Ubuntu ubuntu-docs Edit question
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youthinkso
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This question was originally filed as bug #1715028.

Revision history for this message
Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj) said :
#1

On 2017-09-04 23:38, youthinkso wrote:> I have been to ask ubuntu as well as answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/
> These solutions do not fix the issue.
Well, I still think that that kind of resources is the right place for an issue like this. As long as we don't know why you fail to access DVDs, it's hard to adapt the documentation. It might be some none-docs bug or something special with your system...

Another option is to post to the ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss

> Like I said earlier... This same computer and same drive worked
> perfectly under 16.02.x
There is no Ubuntu 16.02.x released. Do you mean 14.04?

> sudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg - tells me it is already installed.
That indicates that the libdvdcss library is already installed. You can confirm it with this command:

dpkg -L libdvdcss2 | grep so

> /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh` - does not exist in these
> ubuntu versions and can not be executed.
Right, that's why the documentation was changed.

I convert this bug report to a question in the hope that someone can shed some light on the issue.

Revision history for this message
youthinkso (jlxb) said :
#2

My apologies.

When I referred to 16.02 - I meant 16.04.0 - 16.04.1 - it worked

In July 2017 I installed 16.10 - have not been able to get it working
September 3rd 2017 installed 17.10 - have not been able to get it working

I should have been more careful

Revision history for this message
youthinkso (jlxb) said :
#3

jlxbm@jlxbm:~$ dpkg -L libdvdcss2 | grep so
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdvdcss.so.2.2.0
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdvdcss.so.2

Revision history for this message
Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj) said :
#4

Thanks for clarifying the version.

The output from the command shows that the libdvdcss library was successfully installed. (That's what the install-css.sh shell script was used for in pre 16.04 Ubuntu versions.)

Revision history for this message
Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj) said :
#5

This is a long shot, but you may want to try this series of commands:

sudo apt purge libdvd-pkg

sudo apt install libdvd-pkg

sudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg

Revision history for this message
youthinkso (jlxb) said :
#6

That is really interesting....

The version purged was 1.4.0-1-2

The version re installed was 1.4.0-1-2

As soon as it was done A desktop icon appeared called 34Gb Volume - it
does not name the movie

Caja shows the drive but not the file system.

VLC will not play it.

Hey! closer then I was before.

Also, after the purge and reinstall, I ran "sudo apt update". It says
There are 320 packages to update. I have been updating regularly
through out the day.

I am going to update and reboot. See what happens.

On 09/04/2017 07:34 PM, Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:
> Your question #657532 on ubuntu-docs in Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-docs/+question/657532
>
> Gunnar Hjalmarsson posted a new comment:
> This is a long shot, but you may want to try this series of commands:
>
> sudo apt purge libdvd-pkg
>
> sudo apt install libdvd-pkg
>
> sudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg
>

Revision history for this message
youthinkso (jlxb) said :
#7

no go! All updates completed and the dvds can not be accessed.

At least the system is ALL 17.10 now. There was something seriously
wrong that it did not complete the install from 16.10 to 17.10 until 24
hours later.

I had run update and upgrade at least 30 times with the same number of
reboots since last night. I had also used Software & updates as well as
synaptic - none of which indicated that there were updates available.

Back to no dvd.

On 09/04/2017 07:34 PM, Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:
> Your question #657532 on ubuntu-docs in Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-docs/+question/657532
>
> Gunnar Hjalmarsson posted a new comment:
> This is a long shot, but you may want to try this series of commands:
>
> sudo apt purge libdvd-pkg
>
> sudo apt install libdvd-pkg
>
> sudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg
>

Revision history for this message
Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj) said :
#8

Did you run the last command too:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg

Revision history for this message
youthinkso (jlxb) said :
#9

Yes

On 09/04/2017 10:08 PM, Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:
> Your question #657532 on ubuntu-docs in Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-docs/+question/657532
>
> Gunnar Hjalmarsson posted a new comment:
> Did you run the last command too:
>
> sudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg
>

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#10

Did you try:

sudo apt-get install libdvdread4
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

From:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/PlayingDVDs

Revision history for this message
youthinkso (jlxb) said :
#11

libdvdread4 is installed
/usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh - does not exist on system 16.04 and later per https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-docs/+bug/1571208

On 09/05/2017 01:28 AM, actionparsnip wrote:
> Your question #657532 on ubuntu-docs in Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-docs/+question/657532
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> actionparsnip proposed the following answer:
> Did you try:
>
> sudo apt-get install libdvdread4
> sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh
>
> From:
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/PlayingDVDs
>

Revision history for this message
Doug Smythies (dsmythies) said :
#12

It isn't working for me either.
My system complained that it couldn't find the packages referred to on step 1 of this page:

https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/video-dvd-restricted.html

Anyway, I just inserted the DVD I wanted to play and then just did what it asked. It installed a bunch of packages and then tried to play the DVD, expect that nothing happened. I re-booted and tried again, and it installed another bunch of packages, and then tried to play the DVD, except that nothing happened. I re-booted again, but this time it didn't seem to want to install anything and actually started the DVD just fine. However, when I selected "Play Movie" from the menu, it started to play the movie, but had an internal streaming error after about 10 seconds or so. I re-booted again, and got the same.

I don't care really, it is just that I have been following this thread since the beginning (back on bug 1571208) and decided to try it.
My test computer is a LapTop ungraded to 17.04 from 16.10 yesterday.

The point is that the documentation does seem rather useless on this subject.

Revision history for this message
youthinkso (jlxb) said :
#13

Doug,

Is your laptop an AMD with 64 bit Ubuntu installed?

I saw a similar result one time. After reboot it was nothing again.

On 09/05/2017 10:57 AM, Doug Smythies wrote:
> Your question #657532 on ubuntu-docs in Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-docs/+question/657532
>
> Doug Smythies posted a new comment:
> It isn't working for me either.
> My system complained that it couldn't find the packages referred to on step 1 of this page:
>
> https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/video-dvd-restricted.html
>
> Anyway, I just inserted the DVD I wanted to play and then just did what
> it asked. It installed a bunch of packages and then tried to play the
> DVD, expect that nothing happened. I re-booted and tried again, and it
> installed another bunch of packages, and then tried to play the DVD,
> except that nothing happened. I re-booted again, but this time it didn't
> seem to want to install anything and actually started the DVD just fine.
> However, when I selected "Play Movie" from the menu, it started to play
> the movie, but had an internal streaming error after about 10 seconds or
> so. I re-booted again, and got the same.
>
> I don't care really, it is just that I have been following this thread since the beginning (back on bug 1571208) and decided to try it.
> My test computer is a LapTop ungraded to 17.04 from 16.10 yesterday.
>
> The point is that the documentation does seem rather useless on this
> subject.
>

Revision history for this message
Doug Smythies (dsmythies) said :
#14

My CPU is: AMD Turion(tm) II Dual-Core Mobile M500
And yes 64 bit.

Anyway, I installed VLC (I had been using the default before) and the DVD is playing just fine.

Revision history for this message
youthinkso (jlxb) said :
#15
Revision history for this message
Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj) said :
#16

@youthinkso: Great that you solved it. Are you able to spot what the problem was and the key to fix it?

Revision history for this message
youthinkso (jlxb) said :
#17

On the following page there is a trouble shooting section at the very bottom. In sub section 1 In the last sentence, it indicates that there may be corruption ind ~./dvdcss folder - and to delete it.

See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/PlayingDVDs

This is the solution that solved my issue. Corruption in this folder was preventing any access to the drive as long as there was a DVD in it. If a data disc was inserted it worked fine. As soon as I deleted the files in this directory, my dvd drive activated and Identified the movie in the drive.

This issue arose after and upgrade from 16.02 to 16.04 and continued through 17.10 install.

I recommend that as a standard procedure that the ~./dvdcss directory be emptied or removed during a non destructive.
version upgrade.

Continuing issues with VLC - VLC can access the drive and play the movie. However the video portion is nothing but white dots. the audio is perfect. Other players like Kodi and Mplayer are perfect video and audio..

I have cycled through ALL of the output formats, hardware acceleration and interlacing with no results within VLC.

Thank you all for your patience and assistance.

Revision history for this message
youthinkso (jlxb) said :
#18

I keep screwing up the versions. It should read:

This issue arose after and upgrade from 16.04.2 to 16.10 and continued through 17.10 install.

Thanks again Gunnar

Revision history for this message
Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj) said :
#19

Thanks for explaining.

There was a tiny change to the libdvd-pkg package between 16.04 and 16.10, but AFAICT it can't reasonably explain why that folder became corrupted for you. I tend to think it was a coincidence that it happened after the upgrade from 16.04.2 to 16.10.

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libdvd-pkg/1.4.0-1-2

Another thing (and this is for Doug):

Those packages are in the multiverse pocket of the archive, so multiverse needs to be enabled.

The video-dvd-restricted.html page is one of the few Ubuntu specific pages I thought we'd better keep in 17.10. We haven't exactly concluded that the page is useless, have we?

Revision history for this message
Doug Smythies (dsmythies) said :
#20

Hi Gunnar,

I figured I had to enable some archive, but I didn't know which (and I was trying to just use the doc and not think on my own). Anyway, I made more progress when I gave up and just tried stuff, and let the default install whatever it thought it needed. I got no value added by trying to use the web page, and actually it probably slowed me down.

Revision history for this message
youthinkso (jlxb) said :
#21

Gunnar, I think I may have stumbled on anoth (possibly related) issue.

My systems are only recognizing about 20% of my DVDs. The rest will not
register.

What are the chances that I had 10 bad dvds in a row - absolutely zero.
I put each of them into a cheap dvd player and all work perfectly. I
put them all into my windows 7 system and they all work perfectly. All
of these dvds worked on this same computer when it was <16.04.02

Any ideas?

On 09/05/2017 07:03 PM, Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:
> Your question #657532 on ubuntu-docs in Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-docs/+question/657532
>
> Gunnar Hjalmarsson posted a new comment:
> Thanks for explaining.
>
> There was a tiny change to the libdvd-pkg package between 16.04 and
> 16.10, but AFAICT it can't reasonably explain why that folder became
> corrupted for you. I tend to think it was a coincidence that it happened
> after the upgrade from 16.04.2 to 16.10.
>
> https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libdvd-pkg/1.4.0-1-2
>
> Another thing (and this is for Doug):
>
> Those packages are in the multiverse pocket of the archive, so
> multiverse needs to be enabled.
>
> The video-dvd-restricted.html page is one of the few Ubuntu specific
> pages I thought we'd better keep in 17.10. We haven't exactly concluded
> that the page is useless, have we?
>