Media Player Not Playing

September 19, 2024 6:52 PM

My Media Player refuses to play any CD or DVD whatsoever. As I remember it, it worked fine until one night several years ago... and then it just stopped working, and has never worked since. It keeps claiming there's no disc in the drive, though of course there is one. It's not the disc because it refuses to play ANY of my discs. What could be wrong, and how can I fix it?
posted by orange swan to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

(for anyone who doesn't see the tags, this is about Windows Media Player)

Does your disk drive work? If you try to open the disk with a file explorer or some other software, does everything work right?
posted by trig at 6:55 PM on September 19

Hmm, just opened the D drive using File Explorer and got a pop up telling me to insert a disc, so I did, it made revving/clicking sounds for a minute or so, and then the D drive popped open and I got another message telling me to insert a disc. So the problem may be the disc drive, not Windows Media Player.
posted by orange swan at 7:06 PM on September 19

In the olden days, when a CD player stopped working it was usually because the laser diode had gotten bumped and misaligned, or else some electronic component had burned out. So it may be that the drive itself is just kaput.
posted by heatherlogan at 7:17 PM on September 19

I'm currently attempting to update my DVD/CD driver on the theory that it may have become corrupted. I'll just have to see how that goes.
posted by orange swan at 7:29 PM on September 19

Does the laser emerge with the tray or can you otherwise see it? If so get a cotton bud, dip it in whatever the common cleaning alcohol is where you are (methylated spirits, denatured, isopropyl, whatever) and give the lens a gentle clean. Wait for it to dry and see if it works. This fixes things 82.5% of the time.
posted by deadwax at 8:18 PM on September 19

Arghh. After jumping through a number of hoops on the HP website, it appears that for my laptop, they only provide updates for Windows 7, and I'm using Windows 10. (My laptop is a 2017 laptop that I bought secondhand in 2021, and the guy I bought it from had loaded Windows 10 onto it.)

HOWEVER, I just tried deadwax's cleaning idea, and it seems to have worked!!! I put in a DVD and it opened in VLC media player, and I'm happily watching it. Presumably I'll be able to play my CDs now too. Thanks so much!
posted by orange swan at 8:46 PM on September 19

Your drive is likely toast, but cleaning may help.
posted by kschang at 12:27 AM on September 20

As an Old, this is the first computer repair question on Ask that I’ve ever understood. Nice!
posted by Vatnesine at 2:56 AM on September 20

Your drive is likely toast, but cleaning may help.

FWIW I was a theatre/events/whatever tech for a long time and don't know how many of these things I've cleaned. The dirtiness of the laser lens has nothing to do with the state of the rest of the drive, it often is the only thing wrong with it. I give no guarantees but I'd suggest "likely toast" is a complete guess.
posted by deadwax at 3:35 AM on September 20

“Corrupt drivers” aren’t really a thing, but you should open Event Viewer and look at the system and application logs to see if there is anything waving big red flags that might tell you what’s going on.
posted by mhoye at 4:00 AM on September 20

Dirty lens issues in optical drives usually manifest as a slow increase in sloth and noise over time, as the drive mechanism lashes about in a desperate attempt to compensate for its failing vision. Most people don't pay any attention to these signs, which is why it comes as such a surprise when that compensation finally hits its limit.

The same pattern of usually-unnoticed slow degradation also applies to dust, scratches, dried coffee and so forth on the discs themselves. If you've got a badly-treated disc that won't play and a well-treated one that will, have a listen to the noises that the drive makes when you first insert the disc. Dirty discs prompt a lot more back-and-forth and vroom-vroom noises before the drive notifies the computer that a disc is present and winds its motor up to full speed.

Even discs that have been conscientiously kept clean and stored properly will spontaneously fail eventually. About a tenth of my own CD collection has proved incapable of being accurately ripped to FLAC files; putting a bright light behind the affected discs revealed that their foil layers are more transparent than they once were and/or speckled with bright little holes.

The old saying about digital information - that it doesn't really exist until you can put your hands on at least two identical copies - applies to optical discs every bit as much as to your treasured family photos.
posted by flabdablet at 5:18 AM on September 20