...The "Insert a Disc" error...

[Karfston]

While not technically a MakeMKV problem, I'm just trying to figure out what the @^$# I'm dealing with so that I can move forward.

I have a UH12NS30 drive.
It's worked great for me for several years, reading Blueray and DVDs both with little issue. Recently, following the installation of windows updates, I was forced to select a region for the drive (a nice "Pick a region, none is currently selected, and you can't close me without picking one" dialog).
Following that odd window, the drive no longer reads bluerays.
No errors. No warnings. No exceptions. No... anything. It just refuses to acknowledge that it has a disk in it, ejecting the disk it has with a windows popup stating "Insert a disc." if I try opening the drive. It does however still work to read DVDs without issue.

"Ok", I says to myself. "The drive probably went bad. Time for a new drive."
I nab a BP60NB10.
This new drive, like my failing UH12NS30, reads DVDs without issue. About half of the blueray disks that I've given it so far, it reads without issue... and the other half (including bluerays the UH12NS30 drive read before it gave up, as well as pristine 'fresh out of the package' disks) it refuses to acknowledge exist, same as the UH12NS30 is doing presently.

If I had a real error, I'd have some clue to what I was dealing with.

• Am I looking at disk/drive region shenanigans? Research suggests no.
• Bad media? Unlikely - some of my disks have been slow to do the initial read. When I clean them, the initial read finishes promptly with the drive recognizing no disk - as if it had trouble getting at data on the disk pre-clean, and post-clean it could get the data, but decided it wouldn't recognize the disk. Others of my disks have truly been pristine,straight out of newly opened Blueray cases, and it's refused to recognize them.
• Viruses? Antivirus says no, but it's said that before...
• Bad firmware? The LG firmware updater says "up to date", but it makes no statement as to >what< firmware is up to date. Truly a fatal shortcoming in software design if I ever saw one. If LG.com has support files/information for the drive I've not found them -> I can't say anything about what firmware has existed/exists now for the drive. The pessimistic interpretation I could make of the LG site is that it sells the drive, but doesn't support it (it just may be a poorly designed/updated site).
• Bad codecs? AFAIK this isn't a thing for just recognizing a disk... but it's one item I ran across on the LG website while trying to figure out what I was dealing with.
• Bad drive design? I can believe this, but to get away from a bad design, I'd want to use a different, prominent brand of drive. That I can tell, that rules out LG and by affiliation ASUS drives, which appears to rule out the leader for the market, and I'm not seeing any prominent second place options. >.<

Again, I realize this is perhaps outside the precise scope of this forum, but frankly I'm seeing a large enough lack of troubleshooting information (From the drive, from the vendor, etc) that I feel like I'm missing something dead obvious, or I'm seeing a type of problem that falls well outside the normal problem set. How problems started, and that both drives fail in the same way when they fail to read a disk, suggests to me that I may be facing a single problem affecting both drives.

...for want of an error...

[Woodstock]

Have you read the message at the top of the forum about "If you are experiencing read errors" yet? Failing "pristine 'fresh out of the package' disks" is covered, and is usually easily fixed.

[Karfston]

Woodstock,
Despite my not having any read errors, yes I have read the initial post and skimmed the remainig thread: If you are experiencing read errors

Do you refer to "Mastering and manufacturing errors do occur and these will prevent successful rips"
Do you refer to mentions later down the thread of films occurring on new disks (that, paradoxically get better as the disks age? I don't get it, but whatever), or smudges left on the disks by equipment used during manufacturing/packaging?
Do you refer to bits about "Some disks only work in some drives", or am I thinking of other posts elsewhere in some of the forums I've perused while researching this?

Yes, yes, yes, I've read it. Yes, I know how to clean disks and have an appropriate equipment for doing so.

Reading between the lines of your message, what I'm hearing from you is:
"It's normal for a drive to produce no error at any level if any problem of any severity is encountered."
If true: Worst. Design. Ever.

Perhaps my past experience (the early CD-writer era) is coloring my expectations. Back then, I'd been able to insert a badly damaged disk (read-only, write-once, or rewriteable), and the drive would correctly identify what kind of disk it had. The disk could be so badly damaged that it couldn't used at all , but the drive would both admit there was a disk, and identify the type of disk, even if it was a disk type the drive didn't support.

My past experience has also exposed me to damaged disks normally allowing me to identify the contents, but failing to access parts of them. Sometimes, even the contents listing is unavailable, but that requires damage to a specific part of the disk (track 0).

What I'm expecting, if the disk is damaged/defective: An error. Usually, a listing of the disks contents should be available even if the contents are themselves damaged/unavailable.
What I'm expecting, if the drive is damaged/faulty: An error.
What I'm getting: "What disk?"

Is the problem with my expectations? Has error handling for drives declined over the years to the point that fatal errors are now completely suppressed?
--Karf

[Woodstock]

We should expect most disks to load and rip just fine.

Reality sometimes gets in our way, though. If you stick a disk in a drive and you get a "no disk" error, or worse, the disk is ejected, the drive has reported to the operating system that it cannot read the disk. This is a pain in the ass when it happens, because you are never told WHY it couldn't read it, just that it couldn't. This happens outside of MakeMKV; MakeMKV makes the requests, and the drive/OS say it can't be done.

You will get this when the drive doesn't understand the format. A Bluray in a DVD drive, for example, or a UHD disk in a non-UHD drive. But you can also get it when the laser is out of alignment, or the detector is failing (drive problems), or the disk is bad.

For me, the only time I've seen the "no disk" in the last year or so was when I put a UHD into either a plain BD drive, or my "official" UHD drive that isn't UHD-friendly. Prior to that, I've had them for broken disks. Lots of read errors, though.

For me, troubleshooting is made easier by having 3 different BD drives online all the time, and external DVD, BD, and UHD drives available. Doesn't read in one drive? Try a different one. But seeing "no disk" on more than one drive would indicate a disk problem, rather than a drive problem.

[Karfston]

So:
1) Cleaned disk. No smudges, no smears, no specks, no oily sheen, no scratches.
2) Put disk in drive.
3) Comptuer says: "What disk?":
4) Removed drive from computer.
5) Attached drive to a Mac (Disk still inside).
6) Read full contents, no issues.

It's not the disk. I'm beginning to think the drive's not at issue either. What's the deal here?

My whole fiasco started with the installation of windows updates... and no, backing out those updates did not fix the issue.
-- Karf

[Krawk]

So:
1) Cleaned disk. No smudges, no smears, no specks, no oily sheen, no scratches.
2) Put disk in drive.
3) Comptuer says: "What disk?":
4) Removed drive from computer.
5) Attached drive to a Mac (Disk still inside).
6) Read full contents, no issues.

It's not the disk. I'm beginning to think the drive's not at issue either. What's the deal here?

My whole fiasco started with the installation of windows updates... and no, backing out those updates did not fix the issue.
-- Karf

External drives are flaky when it comes to power. At least, that's what it sounds like you're using.

[Karfston]

Yes, the drive is external (I'm still not convinced my old drive is bad, and I lacked a blueray for use with my laptop, so external made sense).
External drives have a moving USB standard to adapt to... or not, where the power available changes by version, but they generally use the same data/power connector... so I could see power being a plausible issue for the drive in general, but not here.

The fault is not consistent with a power issue in the drive.

- The documentation with the drive was minimal, and didn't make power requirements clear, I have it connected to 2 USB 3.0 ports. It works fine on power from a single Thunderbolt 3 port.
- The failure pattern continues to consistently affect a specific set of disks (a set of 6 that I've identified thus far), and consistently does not affect other disks.

Being blunt: This now looks to me like a software/driver issue (which would be consistent with problem onset - with the installation of new software). And I'm still at square one for troubleshooting/resolving that type of issue.

--Karf