I am having trouble playing my dvds using a usb-optical-drive.
I have installed libdvdcss, libdvdread, libdvdnav as well as dvdauthor. I have used regionset to set the region on the disc drive to 2 corresponding to my locale and the locale listed on the dvd-box.
When plugging in the drive with a disc I get the following from /var/log/messages
Apr 14 23:27:29 fedorasus kernel: usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 7 using xhci_hcd
Apr 14 23:27:29 fedorasus kernel: usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0411, idProduct=55aa, bcdDevice= 1.00
Apr 14 23:27:29 fedorasus kernel: usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=1
Apr 14 23:27:29 fedorasus kernel: usb 3-1: Product: ASUS External Drive
Apr 14 23:27:29 fedorasus kernel: usb 3-1: Manufacturer:
Apr 14 23:27:29 fedorasus kernel: usb 3-1: SerialNumber: 00000000009C
Apr 14 23:27:29 fedorasus kernel: usb-storage 3-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
Apr 14 23:27:29 fedorasus kernel: scsi host0: usb-storage 3-1:1.0
Apr 14 23:27:29 fedorasus mtp-probe[17494]: checking bus 3, device 7: â/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:08.1/0000:07:00.4/usb3/3-1â
Apr 14 23:27:29 fedorasus mtp-probe[17494]: bus: 3, device: 7 was not an MTP device
Apr 14 23:27:29 fedorasus mtp-probe[17498]: checking bus 3, device 7: â/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:08.1/0000:07:00.4/usb3/3-1â
Apr 14 23:27:29 fedorasus mtp-probe[17498]: bus: 3, device: 7 was not an MTP device
Apr 14 23:27:30 fedorasus kernel: scsi 0:0:0:0: CD-ROM ASUS SBC-06D2X-U A101 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
Apr 14 23:27:30 fedorasus kernel: sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] scsi3-mmc drive: 31x/31x writer dvd-ram cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
Apr 14 23:27:30 fedorasus kernel: sr 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 5
Apr 14 23:27:30 fedorasus nfsrahead[17500]: skipping non-NFS device 11:0
Apr 14 23:27:32 fedorasus kernel: sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s
Apr 14 23:27:32 fedorasus kernel: sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 Sense Key : Illegal Request [current]
Apr 14 23:27:32 fedorasus kernel: sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 Add. Sense: Read of scrambled sector without authentication
Apr 14 23:27:32 fedorasus kernel: sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 3b 2e 58 00 00 02 00
Apr 14 23:27:32 fedorasus kernel: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 15513952 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x880700 phys_seg 1 prio class 2
Apr 14 23:27:32 fedorasus kernel: sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s
Apr 14 23:27:32 fedorasus kernel: sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 Sense Key : Illegal Request [current]
Apr 14 23:27:32 fedorasus kernel: sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 Add. Sense: Read of scrambled sector without authentication
Apr 14 23:27:32 fedorasus kernel: sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 3b 2e 58 00 00 02 00
Apr 14 23:27:32 fedorasus kernel: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 15513952 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x800000 phys_seg 1 prio class 2
Apr 14 23:27:32 fedorasus kernel: Buffer I/O error on dev sr0, logical block 1939244, async page read
The disk simply does not show up in in Files sidebar. Most of the time it does appear in Gnome Discs though its contents are reported as unknown, though other dedicated players can play back the dvds.
I did get it to work once, by mouting /dev/sr0 though this only worked the once.
CD and DVD drives can deteriorate with age. I think the chemicals in the laser that is used to read the disc gradually decay and the laser becomes weaker to the point that DVDs can no longer be reliably read.
Is the drive stamped with a manufacture date? I wonder if it is a ânewâ DVD drive that sat in a warehouse for 10 years.
Otherwise, if it is showing I/O errors, but the DVD works in other drives, I would guess that it is just a defective drive.
Maybe it could be a badly routed (or poorly shielded) data cable in the PC. If the data line is wound around some power cables, that might be enough to generate random I/O errors.
From the stamp it is from july 2025. The behavior is disc dependent, ie. it behaves consistently with the same disc. For now I have three discs that it reads, and two that it doesnât. I have tried with the different ffmpeg version with no change.
There is a separate aging problem that can affect the DVDs. There is a layer of aluminum between the outer layers of plastic. If the DVDs were made with low-quality or too-thin plastic, the aluminum layer might rust/oxidize due to small amounts of oxygen leaking through the outer layers of plastic. Also, sometimes writing (e.g. by a magic marker) on the opposite side of the DVD can bleed through and react with the aluminum.
If the corrosion is minor, there are cyclic redundancy checksums that might recover the corrupted data. The discs and the lasers are physical devices, and sometimes very minor differences in angles and laser strengths can make the difference between a drive that will read a disc and one that wont.
I have several DVDs that were produced by Warner Brothers that have oxidized over time and no longer work in any drive.
Inspired by I/O error, dev sr0 - #8 by hmmsjan, I tried running sudo cat /dev/sr0 when a disc was loading. It did correctly notice whether media was present or not. For all discs it did give an initial reading. For the working discs the reading seemed to continue and was easily escaped using ctrl+c, though with the problematic discs the process froze after a bit and I had to shut down the terminal session to kill the process.
But the PS5 is a blu-ray reader right? I believe those a designed with much stronger lasers that operate at a higher light frequency (ergo âblueâ) to read discs with data that is written at a much higher density on the disc. I wouldnât be surprised if a slightly damaged/degraded DVD would work in a blu-ray player, but not a standard DVD player (the other way around, however, would seem unlikely).
I guess it is just a defective (or cheap) drive then that cannot handle whatever the differences are between your discs (e.g. maybe some are double-layer while others are not or maybe the optical quality of the DVDs is a little different somehow).
One last thing you might try is updating your blu-ray driveâs firmware. Youâd have to check the manufacturerâs website to find an update, if one exists.
I had overlooked that you said this is a USB drive. It could be a problem with the USB port not supplying quite enough power. You might try a different USB port or try pluging your USB drive into a powered USB hub.
And if your discs are copyright protected, that is a completely separate problem. I think DRM/copyright protected discs will report bad sectors when read with unapproved software (e.g. cat) even when there is nothing wrong with the disc.