New Blu-ray discs often required being used once before being readable

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Hi, I've ripped quite a few Blu-rays using MakeMKV, and I've come to notice a trend. If the disc is brand new, in 50-75% of the cases I have trouble getting macOS, or the drive, to recognize the disc. My drive will try and read it for ~20 seconds, before spitting it out again. I then play a game of pushing the disc back in, and doing this 3-20 times before either giving up or getting it to work. For discs that have been played several times, this is almost never an issue!

Now, washing the discs with a bit of soap and some water, fixes this problem in 25% of the cases, but for the rest I need to actively watch the movie using my Blu-ray player attached to the TV, in order for them to be readable by the computer drive. I assume this is due to residues after production, that needs to be removed or burned away.

That being said, would a new drive fix this? Is this something people usually see, or is this related to my drive? It is a no-name drive I bought 12 years ago on Amazon, and it was the cheapest available back then, but it has worked very nicely for me over the years. But now that they are so cheap, I am considering upgrading if it would easily fix my problem.

[westend94]

I have come across this same issue in just the last 2 months. Still trying to figure it out. I will try playing the movies in my blu-ray player to see if that helps. I"m having the issue on windows and Mac OS.

[dcoke22]

It is rare that a new disc doesn't work for me. Drives do wear out over time. I think a new drive might help. MakeMKV supports using more than one drive at the same time (turn on Ask for single drive mode in preferences) so it isn't like you have to throw your existing drive away if you get another one. Personally, I have three drives. When a disc doesn't work in my main drive, I try another. Often the disc works just fine in a different drive.

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Thanks, that is good to know and fits with my hypothesis. Sounds like I should consider getting something just mildly modern!