VLC won't play some dvds it used to, just locks up and...

[nowefg]

Hi,
Using an up-to-date Windows 10 Home with all firewalls and virus protection turned off. Running the latest VLC, 3.0.18, on a lenovo legion desktop with 1TB SSD system drive, 32 GB ram, i7 processor, Nvidia RTX graphics card, an internal cd-rom drive, and external usb Pioneer BDR-XD07S bluray/dvd/cd drive.

VLC will no longer play a number of the dvd's it's played with no trouble in recent months, on either the internal cd-rom, or the external bdr. Now it just locks up when attempting to load. The dvds are not damaged. Also, a brand new dvd, that's been tested on other computers, sometimes does start, but glitches badly and finally locks up in 20-30 seconds. Sometimes the disk identifying info shows up in the Open Media window, and it will start to play but quickly crash. Other times nothing in that window, and I either get a no-disk msg or similar, and VLC hangs. Have to use Task Manager to get unlocked.

Very strangely, but maybe helpful troubleshooting-wise, Windows 10 says this is a blank disk. It isn't of course. VLC has loaded and played it for a few second several times before locking up. Perhaps the answer is in there somewhere. Because VLC does recognize and read it sporadically, while Windows insists it's just a totally blank disk, it doesn't seem like a strictly VLC, or stricly Windows 10 problem. It seems like a combination of the two.

I'm not a tech person. In the old days, I'd have figured a corrupted codec or something like that. But VLC isn't supposed to need codec packs, and my VLC install is recent. I'd assume a bad player, but of the two I have, the problem occurs on both drives. I did try a player firmware update, but it had no effect.And I did try a driver update, but Windows said it's already up to date. Same for Lenovo. It's a this-year Windows 10 Home installation, fully updated.

The Windows 10 troubleshooting, and the lenovo troubleshooting, both say there are no hardware or communication problems. Windows 10 Defender is up to date and finds no malware or virus. To all appearances, there is nothing wrong, and VLC should be able to play the same dvds it has in the past. For example, a Star Trek dvd that VLC played about a month ago, with no systems changes beyond Windows update since, now won't load at all. It's not a scratched or damaged disk.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Lotesdelere]

Reset the preferences (the manual way) and try again:
https://wiki.videolan.org/VSG:ResetPrefs

You can also try to clear the content of the %APPDATA%\dvdcss folder, or move it as a backup elsewhere.

[nowefg]

Thanks,

Tried resetting preferences, but it had no effect.

[Lotesdelere]

Did you clear the content of the %APPDATA%\dvdcss folder ?

[nowefg]

That appdata folder %APPDATA%, which I accessed by typing %APPDATA% in the search bar at the bottom left, which brought me to Users\my user folder\AppData\Roaming\vlc,

has no dvdcss folder in it.

So I deleted the entire folder.

The problems, disk not loading at all, or loading sproadically, playing for a few seconds, and them glitching and eventually locking up, remain.

[Lotesdelere]

I'm not talking about %APPDATA%\vlc but about %APPDATA%\dvdcss or Users\<my user folder>\AppData\Roaming\dvdcss if you prefer.
You must have one, it must exist.

[nowefg]

Thank you for clarifying. It was there. Deleting it made a slight improvement. Now the disk plays smoothly for several seconds more, and then starts skipping as before. So far, with the disk playing now, it hasn't locked up yet, but keeps jumping ahead from one "still" to another, with an obvious gap between. Like a slideshow, not a video.

At the point where the glitching starts, the drive light starts blinking a lot more, kind of erratically if that makes sense. I don't know if this is a buffering issue, but it looks like one. Another symptom, during this glitching, the audio gets ahead of the video by several seconds. While the the screen is stuck on a "still," the audio sometimes contnues to a point further on, then the video jumps to that point. About a three seconds difference in timing...

[Lotesdelere]

Sounds like a faulty DVD player or a bandwidth problem since you're using USB. Make sure to use at least an USB 3 plug and wire.

Also open Tools -> Messages (set Verbosity to 2) before you start the playback, and then paste the full resulting log here or on Pastebin.com or on Justpaste.it if it's too long.

[nowefg]

Thanks, I ordered a new player and will find out. The reason I discounted the player as the problem is that both the external usb player, and the internal cd-rom both show the same problem.

[Lotesdelere]

the problem is that both the external usb player and the internal cd-rom both show the same problem.

That's not good, if both players expose the same issue then it might be something wrong either with the disc controller or some component of the motherboard or some altered setting in Windows.

[nowefg]

Ya think?