I *CAN* play Blu-Rays. I'm having trouble with *SOME* specific Blu-Rays' menus...

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Laurence5905
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I *CAN* play Blu-Rays. I'm having trouble with *SOME* specific Blu-Rays' menus...

Postby Laurence5905 » 04 Dec 2021 22:58

I have been searching for an hour and every search leads me to "how do I play Blu Rays in VLC." I DON'T HAVE THAT PROBLEM!!! Blu Rays play just fine on my computer. I have a paid-for version of MakeMKV and it's set to let VLC play Blu-Rays and everything works perfectly -- most of the time.

With SOME of my Blu Rays, however, I cannot interact with any of the menus. It loads the title menu and the background video plays over and over, but I cannot select anything. The arrow keys don't work like they usually do.

Is there anything other than the arrow keys that are supposed to allow me to move and select things on the screen? I've looked all over the VLC interface customization settings and I can find no "left," "right," "select," or any other buttons of that nature. It's as if VLC is expecting the arrow keys to work. But they don't, like I said.

I *DO* have 64-bit Java installed. I *DO* have the java_home environment variable set. I *DO* have Java in my path variable. The Java I have installed is the 64-bit Oracle JRE, version 8 release 311 -- just installed it. The version of VLC I have installed is 3.0.16 -- it seems to be the most up-to-date version, yes? I can run other apps (like KMTTG, for example) that require Java and they work fine.

So I'm completely at a loss here. No clue why a few discs just seem to allow no interaction with the menu whatsoever.

And don't tell me to open the disc with "no menus" checked. I've tried that. It *DOES* play whatever title I select, no problem. But I NEED menus for this particular disc.

Thanks

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Re: I *CAN* play Blu-Rays. I'm having trouble with *SOME* specific Blu-Rays' menus...

Postby Hitchhiker » 05 Dec 2021 18:20


Laurence5905
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Re: I *CAN* play Blu-Rays. I'm having trouble with *SOME* specific Blu-Rays' menus...

Postby Laurence5905 » 05 Dec 2021 22:00

That did nothing.

I mean, it did something in that I no longer need MakeMKV to play Blu Rays. So, that's good. But it did not fix my menu problem. The discs that had non-functional menus with MakeMKV still have the same non-functional menus with libaacs.

So why do the menus on most Blu Ray discs work fine, yet the menus on a few of them do not? I'm still looking for the answer to that.

Thanks,
L.

Laurence5905
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Re: I *CAN* play Blu-Rays. I'm having trouble with *SOME* specific Blu-Rays' menus...

Postby Laurence5905 » 05 Dec 2021 22:27

Here's exactly what happens when I play the discs that give me a problem.

The first time I play one of these problem discs, I open VLC, I click "Media" then "Open Disc..." I select the "Blu Ray" radio button, and I make sure that "No menus" is NOT checked. Then I click the "Play" button.

The Blu Ray drive's "read" light blinks for about 10 seconds... The disc's artwork shows up in the VLC window. The drive's light blinks for a bit longer, then stops. VLC just sits there. displaying the disc's artwork. Nothing else happens. No menus, no playing of video, no nothing.

So I click the "stop" button in VLC. Then, without closing VLC, go back to "Media" then "Open Disc..." Same selections, I click "Play" and this time the artwork appears *IMMEDIATELY*, the Blu Ray drive's "read" light blinks and keeps blinking, I get the "This Blu Ray has been manufactured to the most recent specifications and your Blu Ray player might require an update, blah blah blah" message for 10 seconds, and then the main menu comes up. And I can't do anything with that menu.

If I then click "stop" in VLC, and do the whole "Media", "Open Disc..." thing again, the disc artwork doesn't even appear. The "manufactured to the most recent spec's" warning comes up immediately, and then the menus come up 10 seconds later. AND THE DRIVE'S "READ" LIGHT NEVER EVEN BLINKS ONCE!!! So clearly this thing is caching something somewhere...

I wonder if that cache is screwing something up on the menus? Why do I need to play the disc twice before I even get to the (non-functional but still playing) main menu?

Any ideas will be appreciated.

Thanks,
L.

Laurence5905
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Re: I *CAN* play Blu-Rays. I'm having trouble with *SOME* specific Blu-Rays' menus...

Postby Laurence5905 » 05 Dec 2021 22:37

TL;DR

- ALL Blu Rays play for me in VLC with no error messages.
- ALL Blu Ray menus appear for me in VLC with no error messages.
- SOME Blu Ray menus will not interact in any way. Arrow keys and enter key that normally work to select things in other Blu Ray menus will do nothing on these problem Blu Rays.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
L.

Laurence5905
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Re: I *CAN* play Blu-Rays. I'm having trouble with *SOME* specific Blu-Rays' menus...

Postby Laurence5905 » 05 Dec 2021 23:15

Ok -- I had to go back to the MakeMKV method of playing Blu Rays, because the changes I made above actually BROKE the discs that used to work. :-(

Laurence5905
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Re: I *CAN* play Blu-Rays. I'm having trouble with *SOME* specific Blu-Rays' menus...

Postby Laurence5905 » 10 Dec 2021 21:25

So no one has any solutions for this? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

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Re: I *CAN* play Blu-Rays. I'm having trouble with *SOME* specific Blu-Rays' menus...

Postby Hitchhiker » 12 Dec 2021 14:55



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