Mythtv DVD woes

[mythfreak]

Greetings,

I'm not able to play DVDs within Mythtv frontend. I have the path set to /dev/sr0 in the player settings, but nothing happens when I try to play a disc. I can mount a disc and see it in the filemanager. I can also eject the drive via terminal.

I suspect that the hardware is locked somewhere because of this in the frontend log:

ct 27 14:02:55 mythbackend mythfrontend.real: mythfrontend[1592]: I CoreContext mythmainwindow.cpp:2904 (LockInputDevices) Locking input devices
Oct 27 14:02:55 mythbackend mythfrontend.real: mythfrontend[1592]: I CoreContext mythmainwindow.cpp:2906 (LockInputDevices) Unlocking input devices

Any help would be appreciated.

Kind regards

[white_haired_uncle]

What OS, myth version, etc?

What are the permissions on /dev/sr0 and does the user running mythfrontend have access (most likely needs to be part of group cdrom)? You probably covered this by being able to do things like eject, but we can't assume you're running the FE and the filemanager as the same user.

What do you have the player set to (Internal?)?

DVD, not bluray, right?

Can you play the DVD with something like VLC? With DVDs, there's a big difference between being able to play them and being able to mount them.

FWIW, I don't have any messages about "ocking input devices" in my FE log when I play a disc. My messages start around "Attempting to change from None to WatchingDVD".

Anything interesting at the end of dmesg when you try to play a disc?

[mythfreak]

I could only play an audio CD .wav files with VLC. Here is what dmesg shows when trying to play a DVD from the FE:

[18578.532138] Buffer I/O error on dev sr0, logical block 100, async page read
[18578.568219] sr 4:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
[18578.568223] sr 4:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 Sense Key : Illegal Request [current]
[18578.568227] sr 4:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 Add. Sense: Illegal mode for this track
[18578.568230] sr 4:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 00 00 ca 00 00 02 00
[18578.568232] print_req_error: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 808
[18578.568237] Buffer I/O error on dev sr0, logical block 101, async page read

I set the /dev/sr0 to 777.

jamie@mythbackend:/home/mythtv/.mythtv$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS
Release: 18.04
Codename: bionic

Also I'm running version 29 of Mythtv.

User is in the cdrom group.

[white_haired_uncle]

It's a lot easier to find info on how to get VLC to play DVDs than it is for mythtv. But the answer is basically the same, so if you "fix" VLC myth should work too.

And you might look at this:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3377&p=16422

[mythfreak]

You're absolutely right. i've never had DVD or optical playback issue in MythTV ... I just haven't tried to play one in a while.
VLC will darn near play anything.

[blm-ubunet]

DVD & BD works fine here.
VLC for Windows includes the required extra libraries. So Win users do not have to take any action.
VLC packages for linux require user to download install the libs. These files are hosted on VLC website.
The same packages are used by MythTV.

[mythfreak]

The dmesg messages are fairly telling to me. The drive itself or the cable could be bad. Although, why does a data CD mount fine. Actually mythtv doesn't know anything about the drive as when you go to eject media, it says "no devices." When I opened the case, I was surprised to see that I have a IDE drive there. I thought that I had gone sata on everything. I'm going to order a SATA DVD drive....actually I think I'll go external USB 3.

[white_haired_uncle]

Most video DVDs are encrypted, or at least the content is. If you can mount/play CDs, and mount DVDs but not play the contents, you probably haven't installed the packages you need. While you might actually have bad hardware, almost no DVDs will ever play until you install the support packages, even with a brand new DVD drive. If you don't know what you need, the easiest way to find out is to get VLC working first. The answer(s) are also in the link I provided, though they're not all correct for 18.04.

I'd just tell you what to install, but that sort of thing is generally frowned on by some public forums, especially by/for those of us in the colonies, and I don't know the rules here.

[mythfreak]

I'm still at a loss. I used to build Myth frontend/backends by compiling everything including the hauupage capture cards and for the life of me I don't know what's going on.

[mythfreak]

This is all I get from mythfrontend -v playback

I CoreContext mythmainwindow.cpp:2904 (LockInputDevices) Locking input devices
Nov 21 12:14:08 mythbackend mythfrontend.real: mythfrontend[3039]: I CoreContext mythmainwindow.cpp:2906 (LockInputDevices) Unlocking input devices
Nov 21 12:14:10 mythbackend mythfrontend.real: mythfrontend[3039]: I CoreContext mythmainwindow.cpp:2904 (LockInputDevices) Locking input devices
Nov 21 12:14:10 mythbackend mythfrontend.real: mythfrontend[3039]: I CoreContext mythmainwindow.cpp:2906 (LockInputDevices) Unlocking input devices
Nov 21 12:14:19 mythbackend mythfrontend.real: mythfrontend[3039]: I CoreContext mythmainwindow.cpp:2904 (LockInputDevices) Locking input devices
Nov 21 12:14:19 mythbackend mythfrontend.real: mythfrontend[3039]: I CoreContext mythmainwindow.cpp:2906 (LockInputDevices) Unlocking input devices

[mythfreak]

Also another clue, when I attempt to play a DVD, I see the drive light up.

[blm-ubunet]

You did install the required libdvd*** libraries from VLC website?

Check mythfrontend Setup for drive device selected.
I have separate DVD & BD drives & both work in MythTV.