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I can't play a DVD on my Ubuntu laptop. I've tried VLC. A window with a traffic cone opens and the Drive spins for a short time, then stops. Nothing else happens.

slm
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Felix
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2 Answers2

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It's usually easier to just install the restricted extras package:

$ sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

If you have any problems the official Ubuntu documentation on playing DVDs has a good troubleshooting guide as well.

The specific steps outlined in @illuminE's answer are from this page as well, mainly:

$ sudo apt-get install libdvdread4
$ sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

References

slm
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  • thanks for your suggestion. I'm new to this. I've done what you suggest, the first line got response that libdvdread4 is already the newest version. the s – Felix Aug 11 '13 at 07:31
  • the second line got "Command not found" I'll follow the links and references you give here – Felix Aug 11 '13 at 07:32
  • Is the issue only this movie DVD and does the dvd reader work in general? In the reference slm gave there's information on simply using the Media/open disc/ menu in vlc to disable "DVD menus", and I remember that being useful to me once. Also a package which is installed can sometimes be reinstalled, just to make sure, with the sudo apt-get install --reinstall packagename command. –  Aug 12 '13 at 03:05
  • Wow, that worked for me and I have been at this for 6 hours! Thank you. – Shane Jun 02 '14 at 00:38
  • @Shane - glad it helped you out! – slm Jun 02 '14 at 00:47
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Make sure you have the proper codecs and libraries, including libdbdcss2:

sudo apt-get install libdvdread4

then

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh