Disc Won't Play in VLC

Please post here for issues related to Blu-ray discs
koberulz
Posts: 135
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2019 8:24 am

Re: Disc Won't Play in VLC

Post by koberulz » Mon Jun 22, 2026 5:16 am

If I reinsert the D.E.B.S. disc and play that in Kodi, I get the list of titles etc., but when I select Show Blu-ray Menu it just gets stuck on Please Wait... forever.

Sayaka
Posts: 60
Joined: Sat Feb 28, 2026 3:00 pm

Re: Disc Won't Play in VLC

Post by Sayaka » Mon Jun 22, 2026 10:01 am

Understood. Please give me a few days to investigate this issue (assuming nobody else manages to solve the problem beforehand), it shouldn't take more than 5 or 6 days, hopefully. And apologies for making you wait.

koberulz
Posts: 135
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2019 8:24 am

Re: Disc Won't Play in VLC

Post by koberulz » Mon Jun 22, 2026 10:39 am

I updated Kodi, which now has a completely different interface, and it's just an infinite spinning wheel rather than a Please Wait... message.

Sayaka
Posts: 60
Joined: Sat Feb 28, 2026 3:00 pm

Re: Disc Won't Play in VLC

Post by Sayaka » Mon Jun 22, 2026 11:11 am

and it's just an infinite spinning wheel
That's a classic error when a Blu-ray menu is not supported (or at least not with a specific Java version), which is why I'm going to need time to investigate this. Once I have received this particular Blu-ray, maybe I can find a way to make Java work with it by switching Java versions until it works or something.

Just to be clear, the Blu-ray menus *do* work with other Blu-ray discs, yes ? Just to make sure the problem you're having is not due to some obscure Java configuration problem.

koberulz
Posts: 135
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2019 8:24 am

Re: Disc Won't Play in VLC

Post by koberulz » Mon Jun 22, 2026 12:22 pm

Yeah, I've never had any issue with any other disc, and other discs have continued to work fine once I got the environment variable thing sorted out.

Sayaka
Posts: 60
Joined: Sat Feb 28, 2026 3:00 pm

Re: Disc Won't Play in VLC

Post by Sayaka » Mon Jun 22, 2026 12:31 pm

Thank you for clarifying. I will probably receive D.E.B.S. on Friday or Saturday at the latest. Hopefully I can figure out what's causing this.

Sayaka
Posts: 60
Joined: Sat Feb 28, 2026 3:00 pm

Re: Disc Won't Play in VLC

Post by Sayaka » Thu Jun 25, 2026 1:47 pm

All right, so :

On Linux, VLC and Kodi sometimes manage to load the Blu-ray menus for this movie, provided you have the latest JRE. However, even so, the Blu-ray menus do not work properly. Switching to another version of Java merely resulted in VLC refusing to play the disc and Kodi flat-out telling me that Blu-ray menus are not supported for this disc.

On Windows, it's even worse : Neither VLC nor Kodi can load the disc if you attempt to load the menus. Attempting to play the disc with Kodi without the menus resulted in graphical glitches on my Windows computer.

Workaround number one :

Install the (Standard, I think) version of the K-Lite Codec Pack : https://codecguide.com/download_kl.htm

Then, use the MPC-HC player that comes with it to play the mounted ISO file from the virtual drive without the Blu-ray menus and switch from one title to another as desired. The longest title should be the movie, the title that's 8 minutes or so should be the deleted scenes, the title that's 12 minutes or so should be "Infiltrating Debs" and the title that's a bit more than 5 minutes long should be the animatic. The first audio track for the movie is the main track, the second one is Angela Robinson's commentary and the third one is the actresses' commentary.


Workaround number two (the correct way to do this but it will be expensive and you may not want that) :

Purchase Cyberlink PowerDVD and open your ISO file directly, installing the driver as needed (or open your Blu-ray disc directly from the drive, if for some reason that's beyond me you don't mind causing unnecessary laser wear and tear) : PowerDVD handles the menus for this disc just fine, and will therefore likely have the best playback experience.

Linux workaround : VLC 3.0.23 Vetinari should be able to play D.E.B.S. just fine if you deactivate the menus.

EDIT : Clarified something.

koberulz
Posts: 135
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2019 8:24 am

Re: Disc Won't Play in VLC

Post by koberulz » Thu Jun 25, 2026 3:11 pm

Sayaka wrote: Thu Jun 25, 2026 1:47 pm Workaround number two (the correct way to do this but it will be expensive and you may not want that) :

Purchase Cyberlink PowerDVD and open your ISO file directly
It's free if you skip the “purchase PowerDVD” step and go straight to “open your ISO file in PowerDVD,” which I can do through the magic of already having PowerDVD. Presumably a very old version—I'm pretty sure I was running Vista when I got it—but it does the trick. I'd completely forgotten I had it TBH.

So what's actually causing this issue? Presumably not an authoring fault if it works in PowerDVD and I'm guessing actual Blu-ray players.

Playing it without menus isn't really any help because I already have the titles ripped anyway, and I was just trying to figure out what each one was.

Sayaka
Posts: 60
Joined: Sat Feb 28, 2026 3:00 pm

Re: Disc Won't Play in VLC

Post by Sayaka » Thu Jun 25, 2026 3:25 pm

So what's actually causing this issue?
I am not sure exactly, but I believe that for a free media player to actually be able to play Blu-ray menus you need 1) a version of the media player that's been programmed to handle this particular Blu-ray menu, and 2) a compatible version of Java.

Apparently, the issue here is likely 1) - neither VLC nor Kodi programmers have implemented something that allows us to play every Blu-ray menu in existence, and at the moment it seems neither VLC nor Kodi are fully compatible with that one disc. They might support that disc in the future, though.

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