Blu ray player acting as if it were empty, while there is an actual disc in it

[thaelis]

Hello,

I am curently encountering this odd issue I so far only encountered with 4k UHD disc before patching the firmware. Except this time it happens with a HD blu-ray and I am not aware of a new version of the patched firmware.
I have bought the french blu-ray for 'Jo' a movie featuring de funes and this disc, despite I can read it with my home player, makes both my Pioneer GGC-H20L and ASUS BW-16D1HT drives as if they were empty when I put the disc in.
So of course MakeMKV won't allow it to be ripped. Google search revealed dozens of other people reporting various issues for this particular title both on PC and home players.
Any idea please ?

[edit]
The Pioneer drive is on stock driver and I barely use it, only as a secondary drive.
The Asus drive is patched, here is the LibreDrive information reported by MakeMKV:
LibreDrive Information
Status: Enabled
Drive platform: MT1959
Firmware type: Patched (microcode access re-enabled)
Firmware version: 3.10
DVD all regions: Yes
BD raw data read: Yes
BD raw metadata read: Yes
Unrestricted read speed: Yes

[MartyMcNuts]

Hello,

I am curently encountering this odd issue I so far only encountered with 4k UHD disc before patching the firmware. Except this time it happens with a HD blu-ray and I am not aware of a new version of the patched firmware.
I have bought the french blu-ray for 'Jo' a movie featuring de funes and this disc, despite I can read it with my home player, makes both my Pioneer GGC-H20L and ASUS BW-16D1HT drives as if they were empty when I put the disc in.
So of course MakeMKV won't allow it to be ripped. Google search revealed dozens of other people reporting various issues for this title both on PC and home players.
Any idea please ?

1. Clean the disc. Even if it looks perfect. Sometimes a good wipe can help a drive read it.
2. Ensure MakeMKV is closed before you insert the disc. Let the OS initialise the disc first so you can see it in explorer, then open the MakeMKV application.

[thaelis]

Thank you for your reply.
The disc has been cleaned several times already and the disc not being recognized at all happens even before starting MakeMKV.

[tomty89]

Do you really mean like it's the first time you have UHD BD inserted into the drive? Has the drive been flashed with MK firmware yet? Or does it still have the stock firmware?

Better post the LibreDrive information shown by MakeMKV btw.

EDIT: Ah I misread your post. Never mind then I guess.

[thaelis]

No worries, I've edited the initial post to clarify the status of my drives, especialy the one that is patched. But I am pointing out again that this appears with a regulard HD blu-ray, not a 4K UHD blu-ray as you might expect with an unpatched drive, except mine is.

[MartyMcNuts]

No worries, I've edited the initial post to clarify the status of my drives, especialy the one that is patched. But I am pointing out again that this appears with a regulard HD blu-ray, not a 4K UHD blu-ray as you might expect with an unpatched drive, except mine is.

Unfortunately not every drive will read every disc. As silly as it sounds some drives just don't like some discs and won't read them no matter what you do. This is why most of us have multiple drives. I have 5 myself but mainly use 2. The others are backups.

I have had success before with a troublesome blu-ray disc by quickly rubbing it on my tee shirt sleeve a few times. I think that little bit of static helped the drive recognise it and read it.

[thaelis]

Quite honestly, I don't know what to think about this. The logical explanation would be that this disc copy protection is tampering with my drives ability to read it, we had this a while ago with copy protected CD and car CD players for instance. But the thing is I don't see myself spending around 80-100$ to try my luck with a new drive. Especialy since I would not even know where to pick a new drive that could be patched and usable with MakeMKV, let alone the fact that I would not have any guarantee that I would be able to read the bloody disc after more or less attempts at new drives.

[MartyMcNuts]

Quite honestly, I don't know what to think about this. The logical explanation would be that this disc copy protection is tampering with my drives ability to read it, we had this a while ago with copy protected CD and car CD players for instance. But the thing is I don't see myself spending around 80-100$ to try my luck with a new drive. Especialy since I would not even know where to pick a new drive that could be patched and usable with MakeMKV, let alone the fact that I would not have any guarantee that I would be able to read the bloody disc after more or less attempts at new drives.

How old is the disc?

Around 2020 or 2021, I had a blu-ray disc from 2007 that would no longer read in any drive but would still play in a standalone blu-ray player. I'd say it had degraded just enough to no longer be able to be read by a PC optical drive. I replaced that title and ripped the replacement without issue.

Did you try quickly rubbing it a few times on your sleeve then put it in the drive and see if that works? I've done it occasionally on the odd troublesome disc. I reckon that little bit of static electricity helps.

Your LG GGC-H20L is a very old drive too. These were out in what, about 2010? Your BW-16D1HT is a bit newer but overall, these LG drives are not very good quality.

[thaelis]

The disc was released in 2025 and I bought it like 6 weeks ago, so it should be in decent working order.
Yes I tried cleaning the disc with lens cleaning wipes (I'm a hobbyist photographer so I have plenty of stuff to clean up objective lenses), and I also gave it that static rub you mentioned to no effect. As for the state of my drives, I mainly use the Asus which works just fine. Maybe the disc is just faulty, I can see about getting another copy.

[MartyMcNuts]

The disc was released in 2025 and I bought it like 6 weeks ago, so it should be in decent working order.
Yes I tried cleaning the disc with lens cleaning wipes (I'm a hobbyist photographer so I have plenty of stuff to clean up objective lenses), and I also gave it that static rub you mentioned to no effect. As for the state of my drives, I mainly use the Asus which works just fine. Maybe the disc is just faulty, I can see about getting another copy.

Can you get someone else (friend, relative etc) that has a PC and a drive to try to rip it?

[thaelis]

Sadly I have no one around me with a disc drive on his pc.

[Sayaka]

Private message sent.

[Sayaka]

In case anyone is curious, we were able to solve Thaelis's issue. However, I ran some tests with *two* of the Blu-ray discs that were made for this movie, and I can confirm that something very odd is going on here.

I will be posting the results of my tests with 5 different drives here, with a "drive abuse level" indicating how much physical "abuse" the drive has been through.

Attempt #0 (Movie rip for Thaelis, not part of the tests I ran today, same drive as with Attempt #7, see below) : Succeeded on the first try.

First attempt : Verbatim 43888, Pioneer BDR-UD04.
Drive abuse level : Not much, however I did apply slightly too much pressure on it while putting it back in its box at one point (for those wondering, I am currently suffering from Parkinsonism, and while it does not seem to be a "true" Parkinson's disease, it does cause me to have shaking hands and I do drop items at times, or am unable to handle some items as carefully as I should). This drive works fine with just about everything, it's one of my best drives.
Result : Either failure to detect the disc at all, or (just once) the rip started veeery slowly and media and hardware errors showed up almost immediately after. The ripping attempt ended in total failure, for both discs. I tried cleaning the discs as usual, to no avail.

Second attempt : 2nd LG BP55EB40 I own, flashed with BP60NB10 1.00 MK firmware. Manufactured in 2026 (yes it's the real thing and it can rip UHDs flawlessly).
Drive abuse level : Not much, my hands just shook a bit too much while handling it. I reflashed it a few times for this test (see below).
Result : Total failure to even detect the discs.

Third attempt : Same BP55EB40, reflashed with BU40N 1.00 firmware.
Result : Total failure to even detect the discs.

Fourth attempt : Same BP55EB40, reflashed with BU40N OmniDrive firmware.
Result : Total failure to even detect the discs.

Fifth attempt : Buffalo BRXL-PUS6U3B-US (not TAA version), bought from Amazon.com, flashed with BU40N 1.00 firmware.
Drive abuse level : Zero and this is almost a brand new drive. This is also one of my best drives.
Result : Total failure to even detect the discs.

Sixth attempt : 3rd BP55EB40, original non-LibreDrive encrypted 1.03 firmware. Manufactured in 2026.
Drive abuse level : Zero.
Result : Total failure to even detect the discs.

Seventh and final attempt : 1st BP55EB40, flashed with BU40N OmniDrive firmware, manufactured back in 2025.
Drive abuse level : Heavy. This was one of my first times dealing with an external slim drive, and I had no idea how to handle it properly. It was mistreated in all kinds of ways, including car trips, improperly done transport in a suitcase (the drive wasn't even in its box!)... It was also reflashed quite a bit. Despite this, this is still a very good drive.
Result : As with Attempt #0, succeeded on the first try, flawless rip.


In short, these discs are so weird they managed to make a mistreated LG drive succeed where absolutely everything else failed, including a Pioneer ! Go figure. Lots of French people have also complained about not being able to read the Blu-ray discs for this movie.

[incognibro]

I am also having the same issue with my blu ray drive player. I have been using it for the past month with no issues until today. Every time i open my Blu Ray drive, i insert a disc, and it spins for about a minute, and then it just ejects it. It's so frustrating because I have done all the basic troubleshooting, but nothing works. Here is what I have:

Drive Information
Manufacturer: ASUS
Product: BW-16D1HT
Revision: 3.10
Firmware date: 2119-01-04 10:14
Bus encryption flags: 1F
Highest AACS version: 81

LibreDrive Information
Status: Enabled
Drive platform: MT1959
Firmware type: Patched (microcode access re-enabled)
Firmware version: 3.10
DVD all regions: Yes
BD raw data read: Yes
BD raw metadata read: Yes
Unrestricted read speed: Yes

Troubleshooting:
1) Unplugged and replugged usb into macbook pro (via an usb hub - the usb hub is powered into an AC outlet)
2) Turn off/on macbook pro, even restarting it.
3) Uninstalled and reinstalled MakeMKV, re-entered the product key

Is there anything else I that I missed? I'm sure i may be overlooking something.

[Sayaka]

While I am not one of the true experts... I do believe this is likely to mean :

1) The laser you're using is dead,

2) The lens is dirty and needs to be cleaned with a q-tip with 90% isopropyl alcohol and then wiped with a dry and clean microfiber cloth (don't let the lens air dry and do this twice). (Thanks to dcoke22 for the tip)

You can check the laser pretty easily - if the disc that's being ejected is a Blu-ray disc, try inserting a CD or DVD instead. If the disc that's being ejected is a CD or DVD, try inserting a Blu-ray disc instead. If it works in the first case, the blue laser (for Blu-rays) is dead, if it works in the second case, the red laser (for CDs and DVDs) is dead. If nothing works it might be worth attempting to clean the lens.