The VideoLAN Forums

I searched the forums for half an hour and found some similar threads, but none with solutions. If I missed something, please let me know!

VLC media player just stopped playing DVDs for me. I don't remember if it coincided with installing the latest version or not, unfortunately. I've tried 5 different DVDs and it's been the same for all of them. They work on other computers.

I am running VLC 2.1.2 in Windows 8 and I can play CDs fine in the drive, as well as explore the contents of the disc in Windows. I tried playing the "Video_TS" folder in VLC but it skipped a lot. I don't have any other DVD players installed on my computer.

This is the error message:

Playback failure:
DVDRead could not open the disc "E:".
Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'dvd:///E:/'. Check the log for details.

And here is the log:

main debug: adding item `dvd:///E:/' ( dvd:///E:/ )
qt4 debug: Adding a new MRL to recent ones: dvd:///E:/
main debug: no fetch required for (null) (art currently (null))
main debug: processing request item: dvd:///E:/, node: null, skip: 0
main debug: rebuilding array of current - root Playlist
main debug: rebuild done - 1 items, index 0
main debug: starting playback of the new playlist item
main debug: resyncing on dvd:///E:/
main debug: dvd:///E:/ is at 0
main debug: creating new input thread
main debug: Creating an input for 'dvd:///E:/'
main debug: using timeshift granularity of 50 MiB, in path 'C:\Users\P\AppData\Local\Temp'
main debug: `dvd:///E:/' gives access `dvd' demux `' path `/E:/'
main debug: creating demux: access='dvd' demux='' location='/E:/' file='E:\'
main debug: looking for access_demux module matching "dvd": 12 candidates
dvdnav warning: cannot open DVD (E:)
dvdread error: DVDRead cannot open source: E:
main debug: no access_demux modules matched
main debug: creating access 'dvd' location='/E:/', path='E:\'
main debug: looking for access module matching "dvd": 20 candidates
main debug: no access modules matched
main error: open of `dvd:///E:/' failed
main debug: finished input
main debug: dead input
main debug: changing item without a request (current 0/1)
main debug: nothing to play

Can you help me out? Thanks!

Exactly the same problem but how did you find the log. It's taken me half an hour to get nowhere.
Since vlc last worked I have added mkvmake, handbrake and had a new version of nightly, so I will try removing these
Regards
wiggy

The log is under the Tools menu, then go to Messages and select Verbosity to debug (2).

Thank you. I would not have found this in a month of Sundays.
Maybe the problem is the same as on this posting

VLC won't play DVD's, even with the newest version. ?

hey, check this thread out:

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.ph ... 83#p396083

found it using some different search terms. just switch to the 32 bit version, i did and DVDs are playing again.

Update to 2.1.3

I get the exact same error message! Attempting to play DVD through HDMI on Samsung TV. I have HDMI cable connected to my PC (notebook) and to the HDMI 1 slot on the TV and I have selected HDMI setting in my Samsung TV menu.

I have Windows 8.1 64 bit. Has anyone found a solution to this problem? Is it Windows 8.1? What?

Another possible solution I stumbled upon.
If the optical drive is external, the drive might not be receiving enough power to read the disc(this also causes the drive to appear/disappear) whenever you click play. To fix this, you need to use a powered USB cable(cable with 2 USB plugs) for the drive. Hope this helped