One of my DVD discs will not get beyond the “Entertainment in Video” graphic – screen just stays black and no matter what control buttons are pressed, nothing happens. Played it about 5 months ago perfectly well. WTF?

Someone needs to ask the obvious, so it may as well be me…

…it’s pron, right? So wipe it, dude, and it’ll play. 😉

Usually a scratch or something sticky on it like camo16 suggest.

Nope, and nope.

Believe it or not, the first thing I did was actually LOOK at it for dirt or scratches – weird I know… 🙄

Nope, and nope.

Self-denial comma pron? That’s some seriously niche thing you got going on there, Mr. W. 8)

Wipe the disc, centre to edge, with a lens cloth or similar. Don’t do what everyone does and try and clean it by going round the disc in a circle.

(The way data is encoded, error correction can cope with small radial scratches, but not ones that go ‘with the grain’ as it spins.)

Scratch on the imprinted side i.e. label side?

Believe it or not, the first thing I did was actually LOOK at it for dirt or scratches – weird I know…

Well you asked for what it could be so that’s what you got.

Other thing is after trying Cougar suggestion is to try another player as it can be a sign of the laser being dirty or on it’s way out. Unless you’ve tried that too of course which we have no idea about as we’re playing guess the mystery fault.

Stick it in your ‘pooter, see if DVD Shrink will rip the content off.
Either it will, so you can burn a new copy (that’s what us kids call making a new DVD) or it won’t and DVDShrink will tell you what’s wrong with the disc.
(Or it will hang your ‘pooter, so you get angry and throw it across the room)

That’s what I would do, Mr Rolly-Eyes at people who try to assist you 🙄

Hold it up to the light and look for holes in the foil.

Then try it with another device.

Self-denial comma pron?

Rule 34