CD/DVD reading problem

[Alan Dacey]

On Wednesday, November 03, 2010 09:37:10 am Helder Terra wrote:
> Ever since I've installed Kubuntu Maverick, I have a problem about it recognising my CDs/DVDs. If I put a blank one, it normally appears as a empty mdia disk, and I can burn anything in it without problems.
> 
> But once I try to put a burned one (like a DVD movie, MP3 disk or even a recently K3b burned disk) it takes someime reading it and, in the end, it simply won't appear anywhere, as if no disk was inserted. Only a blank screen where it should show that there was a media inserted.
> 
> Is anyone having this problem and/or know how to solve it?
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Helder Terra

Funny, I was having the same problem but it went away with my upgrade to 10.10.  It was happening on only one machine out of four in my house but of course the one that got hit was mine :/

From what I gathered researching it for six months is that it is a (driver?) regression in the kernel.  When you search dmesg what do you get?  Use "dmesg | grep ata#" a couple of times without the quotes and replacing the # sign with numbers 1 through how many sata/ata prots you have.  I needed 1 through 8.  

You will start seeing the name(s) of your hard drive(s), like this:
$ dmesg | grep ata1
[    1.662096] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x9f0 ctl 0xbf0 bmdma 0xd800 irq 21
[    2.150015] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
[    2.190217] ata1.00: ATA-8: SAMSUNG HD501LJ, CR100-12, max UDMA7
. . . snip . . .
[62672.071473] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133

Then you may see nothing attached like this:
$ dmesg | grep ata4
[    1.662315] ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x960 ctl 0xb60 bmdma 0xc408 irq 20
[    3.070009] ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[47911.061261] ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[62663.710023] ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)

Eventually you'll see your DVD drives like this:
$ dmesg | grep ata7
[    1.662986] ata7: PATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x1f0 ctl 0x3f6 bmdma 0xec00 irq 14
[    1.871584] ata7.00: ATAPI: HL-DT-STDVD-RAM GSA-H55N, 1.02, max UDMA/66
[    1.871595] ata7.01: ATAPI: TSST CD-RW/DVD-ROM TSH492B, TB06, max UDMA/33
[    1.871605] ata7: nv_mode_filter: 0x1f39f&0x1f39f->0x1f39f, BIOS=0x1f000 (0xc5c00000) ACPI=0x1f01f (30:60:0x1f)
. . . snip . . .
[62663.180653] ata7.00: ACPI cmd ef/03:0c:00:00:00:a0 (SET FEATURES) filtered out
[62663.180664] ata7: nv_mode_filter: 0x1f39f&0x1f39f->0x1f39f, BIOS=0x1f000 (0xc5c00000) ACPI=0x1f01f (30:60:0x1f)
[62663.180667] ata7: nv_mode_filter: 0x739f&0x739f->0x739f, BIOS=0x7000 (0xc5c00000) ACPI=0x701f (30:60:0x1f)
[62663.220393] ata7.00: configured for UDMA/66
[62663.280442] ata7.01: configured for UDMA/33

My DVD drives are attached to ata7 (still got some ide ones).  When I was having problems the message for ata7 had "SATA link down" right after it.  Sometimes booting with a blank disk made them work for a while, sometimes it needed to be a disk with something on it, but most times it failed after a little while.  grep the dmesg for your dvd drives right after it fails too and see if you get anything.  I read that upgrading the kernel worked for some people.

What is your hardware?  Evga motherboard?  LG dvd drive?

Alan
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