OK,

So I have a Toshiba Blu-Ray player (multi-region for DVD and Blu-Ray) upon which I played every blu-ray I own quite happily until about a week ago.

I decided to watch a Christmas film ("Die Hard" of course) but it rejected it as an "unrecognised disc", I took it out, found some kind of smudge on it and tried again, same problem. I tried another blu-ray which again had the same problem, then another and another all the same. I tried a DVD which worked but that didn't surprise me since, as I recall, they use different lasers. I tried the errant blu-ray discs upstairs on another player (also Toshiba but not multi-region) and they all worked including the first disc, "Die Hard".

This has led me to the conclusion that the contamination on my "Die Hard" blu-ray disc, before I cleaned it off, did something to the blu-ray laser on my player.

As such I am after advice as to what can be done? Can I clean the blu-ray head and if so how? I don't mind taking the player case off (assuming it can be done) but primarily I am wondering if anyone has any recommendation WRT a cost-effective cleaning kit I can buy from Amazon UK.

Thx in advance

Keke

You can get away with a simple cotton bud and plain tap water if you want a cheap and cheerful cleaning solution. Better would be to use Isopropyl Alcohol, don't need much so a 100ml bottle would be more than enough.

You lightly dampen the cotton bud in the liquid, certainly don't have it dripping wet, then very gently rub over the laser lens. The lens may be on a spring mount so may move a little as you wipe but be careful as you can easily do more harm than good if you are especially ham-fisted.

Then use a dry bud to finish off the cleaning.

NB the gunge doesn't need to be visible to screw up the laser. I've cleaned many a laser and been unable to tell the difference between before and after. Other than before no disk played and after they did.

Thx ... I already have isopropyl alcohol which I use to clean things so I will try that.

I'll reply again later to let you kmow wjhat happened

Keke

If we are talking about the smudge as some kind of finger print or grease mark then it is very doubtful that that transfered to the laser mech's lens. Or to put it another way, if fingerprint marks caused the sort of contamination that you think caused the error with subsequent discs then nearly every Blu-ray player in existence would quit working pretty soon after purchase. If we are talking about a blob of jam (other breakfast condiments are available ) then sure, that might transfer to laser lens if it survives the spin up procedure. But unless you're the sort of person who puts jammy discs in players then I think that is an unlikely scenario. I think there's something else going on. I think it's the disc motor.

If I understand you correctly, you came to the player when the machine was cold because it has been switched off for a while. All the discs you tried came up with an error. This is because the laser can't read the disc.... This diagnosis is correct but it's not cause by disc contamination. I think the motor isn't spinning up.

If you planned to open the player to clean the laser lens then you are 3/4 the way there to do a simple test. With the lid off and the deive exposed try load a disc. You should see the laser mech move and if all was well the disc would spin. I think yours won't unless you give it a little nudge to start it. Once it is spinning then it will read.

What's happened is the motor is worn out. Giving it a little kick start overcomes the friction from the failing bearings. Once the motor is warm then there's a good chance that subsequent discs will play fine. Next time it is powered off then the friction will become an issue again. The bearings will continue to wear to a point where even a manual start won't be enough to overcome the issue.

The solution is to replace the motor with a like-for-like model. This will involve some soldering but other than that it's just unscrewing one and replacing it with another. Motors are relatively cheap... a few pounds sterling. If that doesn't cure it then it an issue with the drive electronics.

By all means clean the lens, it won't do any harm, but if the disc doesn't spin then the motor is where I would look.

Good luck

Believe the OP said that when DVDs were inserted they played fine. Would this not suggest that the motor is fine but the optical unit for Blu-Ray is failing/failed.

Yep, I missed the bit where he said DVDs work. I was reading off the phone. My bad. It could be the laser, or it could still be the motor. Either way, I'd be very surprised if cleaning the lens had any positive effect.

BDs spin faster than DVDs, so the motor has to run much faster. If the player can't attain that speed then the disc won't read properly.

True, our engineer normally says cleaning a lens might prolong the useful life of a failing optical unit but that's about it.

Hi Chrisjr,

I cleaned the heads and, whilst it improved things, it didn't seem to entirely solve them.

I don't know where I saw it but someone mentioned something about USB drives (I had an 8GB flash attached for downloadable content) so I checked that in my PC and it couldn't see it (it detected the electronics but not the drive itself) so I ditched it completely and running blurays with no USB is now hassle free.

Thanks to you and others in this thread but [fingers crossed] it all seems OK now.

Keke