DVDs won't play though libdvdcss2 is installed

[Paul Adasiak]

My media players just started refusing to play encrypted DVDs, even though I have libdvdcss2 installed. Any idea why?

I'm running SimplyMEPIS 6.5. My player of choice is Kaffeine, though I've also tried this on Totem and KMPlayer. The first two give me the nonsense about not having rights for the encrypted DVD -- what I'd expect if I hadn't already installed multimedia codecs.

Kaffeine:

The source can't be read.

Maybe you don't have enough rights for this, or source doesn't contain data (e.g.: no disc in drive). (Encrypted or faulty DVD)

Totem:

An error occurred

The source seems encrypted, and can't be read. Are you trying to play an encrypted DVD without libdvdcss?

KMPlayer, for some reason, will play the DVD, though it launches into the movie, skipping any menus. (But this is ordinary for MPlayer, I hear, so it doesn't worry me.)

I don't have the expertise to diagnose, though I'll mention the only serious thing to happen recently: some files in my /var/log directory ballooned up overnight a couple of days ago, completely filling my root partition and leaving me unable to log in to KDE. (Though the terminal worked.) Details here.

Any clues why my media players now think I lack libdvdcss2? Any suggestions how I can get them to recognize it?

--Paul

[Paul Adasiak]

A day and a half later, the problem has righted itself -- for no reason that I can see. My computer has spent some time off, but I didn't expect that to make a difference, since I'd already re-booted a couple of times in trying to get the media players to work. Maybe it just needed a good night's rest.

--Paul