Unable to Play DVD from External DVD Drive (though it does mount as a filesystem)

majikatsb · July 25, 2022 at 5:03 AM

Hello,

I'm running LibreElec 10.0.2 on a Raspberry Pi4 and Kodi 19.4.0 Matrix and having trouble with my USB attached external DVD player. When I plug it in, the system does recognize it and say removable media has been mounted, but then I can't actually play it. All I can do is browse the DVD as if it were external storage, so I can see all of the VIDEO_TS files, etc., but I actually want to trigger *playing* it and I can't figure out how to do that.

When a DVD is inserted, there is no "Play Disc" menu option that gets added to the interface using Arctic Zephyr - Reloaded skin. (I also tried reverting to the default skin, Estuary, but still no menu option appears.) When I try enabling the automatically play DVDs in the settings and then insert a DVD, it will merely offer to bring up the file browser. I have also tried manually creating a menu item that will trigger the "PlayDisc" Kodi command and when I use that, nothing happens, not even an error message. The last thing I'll mention is that the DVD drive does work just fine on my main computer which runs Ubuntu 20.04, and where I can play DVDs without issue.

So I'm at a loss of how to proceed. The reason I am posting in LibreElec forums instead of Kodi forums is that it seems to me that the system maybe isn't recognizing the DVD player as a DVD player and therefore isn't mounting it in the right spot or registering it correctly, etc. But I really don't know, I'm a fairly new user.

I've attached my error logs here: http://ix.io/45xV . The DVD I'm trying to play is "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", you can see there are a handful of errors such as the following, which may be where the problem lays.

Code

2022-07-24 20:25:33.867 T:1657     INFO <general>: CDVDVideoCodecFFmpeg::Open() Using codec: MPEG-2 video
2022-07-24 20:25:34.226 T:1657    ERROR <general>: Open - error probing input format, /var/media/ITSALWAYSSUNNYINPHIL/VIDEO_TS/VTS_05_1.VOB

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

**Da Flex** · July 25, 2022 at 7:56 PM

I think it doesn't mount as playable DVD due to copyright protection. Your Ubuntu probably uses a different version of libdvdcss.

PS: I just had a conversation with an LE developer. It turned out that libdvdcss is Kodi stuff, so ask for an update at Kodi forum.

PPS: Indicator for decryption fault:

Quote

When I try enabling the automatically play DVDs in the settings and then insert a DVD, it will merely offer to bring up the file browser.

majikatsb · July 26, 2022 at 12:39 AM

Okay thanks, I'll give it a try over there.

**Da Flex** · July 26, 2022 at 6:20 AM

Kodi updates will take a while. In the meantime you can try the latest LE nightly. (wget into .update folder, and reboot to install)

LE nightly has small DVD updates, but success isn't guaranteed.

arcasys · January 12, 2024 at 2:06 PM

I'm having the same problem as the OP.

When I directly connect to the RPi's USB port the Disc menu show up only for a short period of time and the drive won't settle when I insert a DVD. I think it's a power problem. Changing the 2A PSU for a 3A PSU didn't solve the problem.

When I connect the drive through a powered hub, LE mounts an inserted DVD without any problem but mount shows that /dev/sr0 is mounted as /var/media/<20 chars of the title> and no Disc option appears in the menu. I've read somewhere that DVD drives shouldn't be attached through a hub, so I'm not surprised.

I'm quite sure this can be solved by creating/changing a udev rule specific to my drive. Maybe someone knows more about this and spares me the hacking ...

petediscrete · January 12, 2024 at 3:18 PM

Check your logs for a definitive answer. It’s all there to be seen.

arcasys · January 12, 2024 at 3:18 PM

UPDATE

Navigating to Videos->Files lists the title. Choosing the title lists AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS. Choosing VIDEO_TS plays the Video. After the trailer the DVD menu is showing and works perfectly. From there everything works like I was coming from the Disc menu.

So there's some inconvenience to get to the DVD title but it works and it proves that DVDs can also be played by a DVD drive connected to a hub.

arcasys · January 14, 2024 at 4:05 PM

Quote from petediscrete

Check your logs for a definitive answer. It’s all there to be seen.

Yes, I know. But I wanted to avoid this kind of hacking like using 'udevadm monitor' to see whats going on and trial and error with udev rules ...

I hoped for someone knowing the details of the LibreElec implementation to answer.

My question was: what do I have to change to make the Disc menu appear when my drive is connected to a USB hub.

gibbon · January 23, 2024 at 11:56 PM

Quote from arcasys

So there's some inconvenience to get to the DVD title but it works and it proves that DVDs can also be played by a DVD drive connected to a hub.

I have DVD drive (in USB3 enclosure) connected through a powered hub as well Play Disc entry appears in the main menu of Estuary although I've noticed that it sometimes there is a delay. The problem with my powered hub is that drive keeps being spun up periodically even after powering off RPi causing inconvenience of having to disconnect the drive after usage.

arcasys · January 27, 2024 at 10:37 AM

In LE11.05, the Disk menu appears and the title of the inserted disk iis shown, That's perfect so far.

There is now some different behavior:

When viewing a disk had been interrupted, choosing Disk->Play immediately jumps tothe point of interruption without asking if the disk should be played from the beginnning. Has this choice been removed intentionally?
The parts before the disk menu are not skipped although this has been configured in the Player setup (bug?)