After installing the latest security update for 10.5.4, I noticed my DVD player is not working. Won't play any discs. The video starts, stutters, stalls, then freezes. No audio plays. Then the program beachballs and eventually hangs.

Tried all the usual suspects, Disk Utility, repairing permissions, deleting prefs, etc. The discs play in VLC, and on the powerbook (running Tiger).

Anyone else gotten DVD player breakage after installing the latest updates?

Mine is working fine.

I did the update earlier today.

Try running the fsck line command.

One of the first things I tried, broeder. No luck. Still broken. I'm at my wit's end trying to figure this one out. Happens with every DVD I put in. Has to be some 3rd party app. I've been going through and trying to isolate it, whatever it is, but so far no go.

Do you think the drive itself has finally quite on you? How is it reading other content?

I don't think so, because the same disks play fine in another app, namely VLC. If the drive was pooched, it wouldn't play that content.

Plus, I have been using data disks in the drive with no problem. Burning with no problem.

Try reinstalling DVD Player. Naturally you can not just download or reinstall DVD Player for Leopard though.

I found these instructions on Apples boards posted by the user floba:

quote:

The simplest way is to extract it from your Install Disc. For that you don't need any 3rd-party program! Just insert the Install disc, open up a Terminal and copy/paste the following command (in one line and make sure there's one blank between "pkg" and "/Users")

cp /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ Disc\ 1/System/Installation/Packages/DVDPlayer.pkg /Users/<your-home-folder>/Desktop

You have to substitute <your-home-folder> in the above command with your home folder's name. Now you'll have a copy of the DVDPlayer-package on your Desktop that you only have to click in order to install DVDPlayer.

floba

PS: Because this thread is already nearly one month old, some kind of feedback for the suggested solutions (i.e. whether one of them solved the issue) would be appreciated.

Message was edited by: floba

kudos to floba if it works.

I tried restoring an earlier version via Time Machine. Same story. Won't play DVDs.

I ran the security updates on my Tiger machines. No problems. DVD player (an earlier version) works fine. But that earlier version won't run in Leopard.

You can use Terminal to reinstall DVD player from your Leopard install cd using the method floba has laid out in the quote. It will put the install package on your desktop.

That wasn't the correct path for the Leopard Install DVD, but anyway, I got the package on my desktop, installed the DVD Player (after deleting all the old prefs, app, etc.)... Still doesn't work. Still can't play a DVD.

I don't understand it at all. I thought maybe the driver for the double-wide Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra card might need updating... except there's no such thing now. You go to the site and there's no reference to that product anymore, or the Mac in general.

And I guess Apple doesn't use that card anymore either.

Well,
I installed Leopard on another hard drive, went through all the updates EXCEPT the security update, used that as my startup disk, and lo and behold, the DVD player works.

Now I'll try the security (and mobile me) updates, and see if that pooches it like before... hang on...

OK, the DVD player still works. Fuck. That means it's a conflict with an app or third party util. On virgin Leopard, the DVD player plays fine.

I guess my next step is to --groan--try reinstalling leopard on my main hard drive (a raptor)... I don't have the time to do a total clean install, so at first I'll try reinstalling over top.

reinstalling over top on the first raptor didn't work... the DVD player is still pooched.

So I did a clean install on the second raptor, and started loading apps, one by one. A nightmare, and I haven't installed them all yet, but so far the DVD player still plays.

It's driving me nuts trying to figure out what broke on the first install. This is one of those instances where the only thing that worked in OS X was starting from scratch. So irritating. And I still have no clear idea what the problem is or was.

Sounds like heaps-o-fun. Reminds me of an old X-man reply as to how X is "better":

"Yeah, but troubleshooting extensions in OS 9 was such a PITA."

LOL, Brother Harv. Reminds me of the same thing. And even hardcore geeks couldn't figure this one out. After a while, even they were telling me to reinstall everything from scratch and start over.

Now, keep in mind that I'm STILL not done reinstalling everything. It's been something like three days. Back in the OS9 days, even if I had thirty extensions and control panels to troubleshoot, it didn't take this long. And back then, stuff didn't SUDDENLY break for no good reason, and stay broken. I don't think in my entire pre-OS X career, that I went and reinstalled the system software from scratch over a software issue. I may have copied a clean system FOLDER from some other disk, but that wasn't as involved as doing what I'm doing now: Reinstalling from the DVD... then going through ALL the friggin' online updates... then going through ALL my master disks or downloads and reinstalling every single app, then entering every single fucking serial number for ever app to activate the programs.