Zoltán Süle's questions

Question: can you recommend an external DVD player that I can use for watching legal movies in Europe (region code: 2) using Ubuntu 18.04?

I bought a new notebook and an external DVD player because it didn't have one. I installed Ubuntu and installed all the necessary libdvd* packages:

ii  libdv4:amd64                               1.0.0-11
ii  libdvbpsi10:amd64                          1.3.2-1
ii  libdvd-pkg                                 1.4.2-1-1
ii  libdvdcss-dev:amd64                        1.4.2-1~local
ii  libdvdcss2:amd64                           1.4.2-1~local
ii  libdvdnav4:amd64                           6.0.0-1
ii  libdvdread4:amd64                          6.0.0-1
ii  ubuntu-restricted-extras                   66
ii  regionset                                  0.1-3.1

Then I wanted to play a DVD and got 3 pages of error messages:

$ vlc dvd://sr0
VLC media player 3.0.8 Vetinari (revision 3.0.8-0-gf350b6b5a7)
libdvdnav: Using dvdnav version 6.0.0
libdvdnav: DVD Title: VENOM_2018
libdvdnav: DVD Serial Number: 4d9292d9
libdvdnav: DVD Title (Alternative): 
libdvdnav: DVD disk reports itself with Region mask 0x00e50000. Regions: 2 4 5

libdvdread: Attempting to retrieve all CSS keys
libdvdread: This can take a _long_ time, please be patient

libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.VOB at 0x00000167
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.VOB at 0x000002f5
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB at 0x0000d271
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0

libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_15_0.VOB at 0x002dade8
libdvdread: Error cracking CSS key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_15_0.VOB (0x002dade8)
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_15_1.VOB at 0x002daf42
libdvdread: Error cracking CSS key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_15_1.VOB (0x002daf42)!!
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Found 15 VTS's
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0

libdvdread: Invalid IFO for title 14 (VTS_14_0.BUP).
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2993628
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2993628
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2993628
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2997149
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2997149
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2997149
libdvdread: Invalid IFO for title 15 (VTS_15_0.BUP).
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2963152
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2963152
libdvdread: Invalid IFO for title 12 (VTS_12_0.IFO).
libdvdnav: ifoOpenVTSI failed

Then I connected the external DVD to my old notebook which has an internal DVD. I was able to play the DVD by the internal one but the external returned the same error messages.

Device:

$ dmesg | grep -i dvd

[ 5164.196463] scsi 2:0:0:0: CD-ROM            HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GP57ES40  PF01 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
[ 5164.220633] sr 2:0:0:0: [sr0] scsi3-mmc drive: 24x/24x writer dvd-ram cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray

$ sudo lshw -C disk

  *-cdrom                   
       description: DVD-RAM writer
       product: DVDRAM GP57ES40
       vendor: HL-DT-ST
       physical id: 0.0.0
       bus info: scsi@2:0.0.0
       logical name: /dev/cdrom
       logical name: /dev/cdrw
       logical name: /dev/dvd
       logical name: /dev/dvdrw
       logical name: /dev/sr0
       version: PF01
       capabilities: removable audio cd-r cd-rw dvd dvd-r dvd-ram
       configuration: status=ready
     *-medium
      physical id: 0
      logical name: /dev/cdrom

$ ls -l sr0

brw-rw----+ 1 root cdrom 11, 0 Nov  8 19:11 sr0

Troubleshooting:

1. No disc menus:

I delete the folder related to the movie inside the ~./dvdcss folder. I ticked the No disc menus checkbox in the VLC UI then it played the DVD but it stoped when it reached 19:18 dvdread demux error: read failed for 3/4 blocks at 0x72d80

I tried to play it from command line without disc menu and it also worked: vlc dvdsimple://sr0 Then I tried to play it defining the title and the chapter but it always played the first title:

vlc dvdsimple://sr0@01
vlc dvdsimple://sr0@02

I tried to list the titles and the chapters but it resulted the same output when I tried to play it:

$ lsdvd /dev/sr0

libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2676815
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2676815
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2676815
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2678061
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2678061
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2678061
libdvdread: Invalid IFO for title 2 (VTS_02_0.BUP).

libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2993628
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2993628
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2993628
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2997149
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2997149
libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2997149
libdvdread: Invalid IFO for title 15 (VTS_15_0.BUP).
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

2. I changed the regioncode to 2 (I live in Europe) by the regionset package. Didn't help.

$ regionset /dev/sr0

regionset version 0.1 -- reads/sets region code on DVD drives
Current Region Code settings:
RPC Phase: II
type: SET
vendor resets available: 4
user controlled changes resets available: 4
drive plays discs from region(s): 2, mask=0xFD

Would you like to change the region setting of your drive? [y/n]:n

3. I checked the values of the DVDCSS_METHOD. It was empty. I changed it to title, disc and key. None of them helped.

4. Enables libvdpau-va-gl as the default VDPAU driver didn't help either.

5. I installed mplayer, mplayer-gui and mencoder. Fixed the GUI error and tried to play the DVD.

$ mplayer dvd://

It recognized the chapters differently (see the Error cracking CSS key things):

Playing dvd://.
There are 41 titles on this DVD.
There are 1 angles in this DVD title.

libdvdread: Attempting to retrieve all CSS keys
libdvdread: This can take a _long_ time, please be patient

libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.VOB at 0x00000167
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.VOB at 0x000002f5
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB at 0x0000d271
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_0.VOB at 0x0028d858
libdvdread: Error cracking CSS key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_0.VOB (0x0028d858)
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_1.VOB at 0x0028d9b2
libdvdread: Error cracking CSS key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_1.VOB (0x0028d9b2)!!
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0

It played the first 4 chapters of the DVD till it reached the very same moment in the film when it crashed. Interesting is that the timestamp was 40 seconds more like 19:50:

The error:

 MPlayer interrupted by signal 2 in module: decode_video
 A: 369.6 V: 369.6 A-V: -0.021 ct:  0.059 9237/9237  7%  1%  2.3% 0 0

The situation is same if I try to play other DVDs. Is it an encoding, a driver or a hardware error?

Do you have any ideas how can I fix it? Or do you have an external DVD player which works for you?

I have 2 same notebooks running on Ubuntu 18.04.

Applications Menu by fmuellner is installed on both, but it doesn't show any menu item on one of them.

There are 2 differences between them:

1. the working one runs on higher kernel the other one uses the default kernel
2. the working one uses English language the other uses another one

Any idea how can I find out what the problem is?

There is no error message or any useful information in

journalctl /usr/bin/gnome-shell

There is an ubuntu 18.04 on my notebook. It was upgraded from 16.04.

The notebook's lid is closed and it is connected to a monitor. When I switch on the notebook and login to the system, half of the times it goes to suspend and in the other half times it logins correctly.

I found this answer, but I cannot accept it, because:

1. it worked well with 16.04
2. this setting IgnoreLid=true would mean that the lid of my notebook is broken which is not true.

My lid is not broken, it worked before the upgrade and it works half of the reboots. What is the explanation of this? Also, I want to keep this feature that I want my notebook to suspend when the lid is open and I close it.

For the record. My notebook is docked in a station, so the power button is always available for me. Means, I can switch it on or suspend it without opening the lid.

Any better idea how to fix this issue?

UPDATE: I can't test it anymore because I don't have a docking station to my new notebook. So I can accept one of the answer if multiple people say this or that is the working solution.

After the upgrade I noticed that I don't have internet access. The wired network and the wifi settings looked good, but it didn't work. After the login the system always switched itself into airplane mode. I tethered the network via USB and Bluetooth by my mobile but they also didn't work.