Defective drive or very unlucky?

[CrazyRob]

Of the five UHD BD's I own, 3 of them are on the list of known VUK's. The VUK's appear to be working, as the disc can be decrypted and the different tracks are detected. However, all 3 movies error out when I try to rip them with makemkv. As far as I can tell, the location of the errors seem to be random, as each time I try, it's usually at a different point in the rip. I've tried cleaning the discs, even though they're all brand new. Am I doing something wrong, or might I have a bad drive?
The drive is an LG WH16NS40 (on the list of recommended drives) that I just acquired specifically for this application. As far as I can tell, it is the correct revision.

[preserve]

It sounds like you might be unlucky, which I wouldn't be too surprised about - reading UHD forums, I see more posts than I'd like to about people encountering seemingly defective discs (whether it's the discs or the players can sometimes be a debate), and needing to return or exchange them, sometimes multiple times, before getting a good one - which is unfortunate, since I'd have hoped that we were moving out of the early life of the format where any such issues would be resolved.

Of course I've experienced my share of legitimately defective Blu-rays in my time, but fortunately maybe less than a dozen total over hundreds of discs.

That's why I didn't start buying UHDs until now - now having a way to "test" them to make sure there really are no problems with the disc, I can easily exchange or return them shortly after purchase if they do have problems.

However, if MakeMKV really is hitting errors in a different place each time, that sounds more like it might be your drive. If you do a clean start each time and save the full debug log, you can do a more careful comparison of the errors between two attempts on the same disc.

Not sure what else to suggest other than to keep testing, either the same discs in a different drive, or test more discs in the same drive. So far multiple people (including myself) seem to be having good luck with the ASUS BW-16D1HT, which is a relatively inexpensive purchase, although I realize it's annoying when you've already purchased a different drive for this application.

[preserve]

It occurs to me that another thing to try would be, don't open the disc, and attempt MakeMKV's Backup function to your hard drive to see if MakeMKV and your drive will successfully copy the entire disc.

[CrazyRob]

It occurs to me that another thing to try would be, don't open the disc, and attempt MakeMKV's Backup function to your hard drive to see if MakeMKV and your drive will successfully copy the entire disc.

I've been trying a few different things since my last post, including connecting the drive to different computers, but so far, the results have been the same. I tried backing up the disc without decrypting with both makemkv, as you suggested, and also anydvd. Both were unsuccessful. At this point, I feel pretty confident the drive is defective Time to exchange I guess.

[CrazyRob]

Just an update: I just received my RMA replacement, and this one seems to be reading the discs fine. So the first drive was definitely defective.

[Mondays]

Once a drive starts throwing errors on every or most every Blu-Ray and MakeMKV is up to date it is time for a new Blu-Ray player. Fortunately they are cheap and I don't waste time trouble shooting the drive and drivers anymore. I average a new Blu-Ray ripper drive every few years:

Samsung SH-B083L/BSBP November 26, 2010 $69.99
Pioneer BDR-206DBK February 28, 2012 $86.67
LG WH14NS40 January 17, 2016 $46.95
LG WH16NS40 June 29, 2017 $45.89

I am not sure why they don't last that long. I only use them to maybe rip 4 movies a month on average and for nothing else.