[RTM]

Last night, like many before, I wanted to watch a DVD on my iBook G4. I grabbed a copy of The Proposition and popped it in the combo drive. A typical whirr and then, this:



"Oh well," I thought. I tried rubbing the disk with my shirt just in case there was some film of dust or something I couldn't see. Same error. So I popped in another disk, this time The Devil and Daniel Johnston. Lo and behold! the same error.

"Odd," says I. "I have watched many DVDs on this computer (details about said machine below), and I have never had a problem." I think and I think and I think some more, and only three hypotheses could I form. [Okay, this is getting lame and poetic. I'll quit.]

• These movies are both pre-street releases (I work at Blockbuster and can rent movies a week before they come out). Perhaps there is some sort of cruel copy-protection software that is preventing their play. They are both from different studios, but who knows? They could be mastered in the same place. Or something.
• I just upgraded to iTunes 7 (and Quicktime, natch) and it seems like a lot of people are having a lot of problems with that, even if I haven't had any yet (except the nasty UI, bleh). I don't really know if this could be related. I'm just postulating, right?
• MacNN introduced me to the dark arts of theming my UI. In my sad forays to that area, I tried to tweak a theme and failed and in the process had a lot of problems until I fixed them by outright deleting App Enhancer and Shapeshifter. Maybe I'm being paranoid that I screwed up my 'Book, but this seems viable. It was scary when nothing worked and I had to quit the "SystemUIServer" process to fix it.

Today I rented a couple more movies and they recieve the same error. These are older disks (about a year). When I insert CDs, everything works fine. Also, System Profiler lists the Media Type (when a DVD is inserted) as "DVD-ROM". And sometimes that message doesn't pop up at all, but the drive just whirrs infinitely (but not harshly) until I tell it to eject.

Alright, this is my first Mac -- I got it a year ago this month. I've listed a screenshot of the specs below if that's of any help. I was pretty skilled with using Windows but I needed something different for the same reasons everyone else here did, you know, whatever.

I'm afraid to call Apple Support because (a) doesn't that cost money? I'm broke. That's why I watch movies on my computer. (b) I don't want to admit to them I may have screwed up my computer by messing with the GUI. (c) I might as well try here first, eh?

Here's the specs:



Thanks a lot.

[seanc]

Well the whole GUI thing can be fixed by re-installing the OS, have you tried that? Does it recognize your install discs? Can you boot off them. If you can't boot from your install discs (dvds) then it's most likely that the drive has failed.

[gooser]

if your install discs don't work, try installing from another machine in firewire target mode before blaming the hard drive.

[RTM]

Well I fixed the GUI thing, I think. I haven't had the problems I had when I tried using the theme I made. But... re-installing rhe OS? Would that result in the loss of my data? It seems like a drastic move.

[HazMacFan]

How did you fix it? For install, Tiger will ask you if you want to "Erase and Install" or "Backup" so you have the option.

[RTM]

Originally Posted by HazMacFan

How did you fix it? For install, Tiger will ask you if you want to "Erase and Install" or "Backup" so you have the option.

Well, I should probably explain the problem I was having. I used ThemePark to tweak a pre-existing guikit to fit the way I wanted it to work. Somehow in the process, I ended up with a sort of frankentheme that didn't look at ALL like I wanted it to, and menu bar items would not load, programs would need to be reopened and then would not open anyway, etc. To solve the issue I ended the "SystemGUIServer" process in the activity monitor, which, for one reason or another, reset the GUI to Graphite, so then I ended Shapeshifter, the app used to "skin" OS X, and trashed it and a sister app ("Application Enhancer"). Thoroughly freaked out, I decided not to mess with the GUI again and emptied the trash. I have not had problems with the GUI since. Really, the only reason I brought all that up is because I thought it might have been linked to my DVD error issues.

HOWEVER, I noticed on the Apple Discussions threads that there are a couple of people with similar or identical problems to mine and we all seem to have a common denominator -- Flip4Mac, the app which allows Windows Media videos to play in Quicktime. It looks like another user has solved the DVD error issue by reinstalling Tiger. I guess this is the solution...?

[DmbShn41]

RTM, my take on this is that it is Flip4Mac. I tried using it on my iBook G3 Clamshell, and pretty much the entire computer was rendered useless until I removed it. Programs would or wouldnt load, ramdomly, I couldn't use CD's thru the drive, and while it was on my comp, I upgraded from 10.2.4 to 10.2.8. After the upgrade, I had to restart, and after the restart my CD drive was rendered useless as well. I got rid of Flip4Mac and re-installed the upgrade of 10.2.8 and everything was fine, including my CD drive. I would try taking Flip4Mac off your comp, give it a good fresh reboot, anbd see what happens. If you have a need for watching Windows Media content on your Mac, try using Windows Media Player 9 for Mac or get the RealPlayer Pro version. Hope this helps.

[RTM]

Alright, I uninstalled Flip4Mac and rebooted and still nada. According to this guy on Apple's Discussions forum, I should do the following:

1. Make sure you have registered an account with Apple by getting a user ID and password that's important you'll need it soon. Next put everything into the Hard Drive [every important file period, don't worry about applications-if you have any other than Apple like say Adobe or others you'll have to reinstall them later].

2. Now you'll restart; and again hold option down: this time choose the Installer, the middle option. Now go through until you get Installer then click OPTIONS in the lower left corner, don't click upgrade. In here you'll see a check box there that's checked saying preserve users folder; uncheck it.

3. Reinstall Tiger. You will restart at the end of this process and go through a whole welcome registration with apple reinitializing of your computer [You'll again register using your ID and password]. You should go through each upgrade after that using the Software Update function in the Apple menu on your desktop.

What this does is the same as erasing your computer; clearing of potential software problems but leaving your hard drive alone [it will put your old system in a folder called Previous Systems and you can throw that away when you're all done-this is a great way to get space back on your HD, but it can be costly so you only do it when something is really corrupted as on your system].

This should fix everything, but it's not impossible it could still be a dirty lense [However with the recent trouble with iDVD I doubt it, if you've done everthing here and still it's the same then it has to be a lense problem {You should save the text of this page and put it in your hard drive so you have step by step instructions.}]

Is this a good idea? He says to put everything into the hard drive, but to uncheck "Preserve Users Folder". Will this erase all data in my home folder?

[seanc]

DON'T do that. As far as i'm concerned it will erase your entire HDD. Do an Archive and Install, this will preserve your files and re-install the OS.

[RTM]

That's what it seemed like to me, which is why I aimed for a second opinion before digging out my Tiger discs. Anybody else?

[RTM]

Success! Thanks to all who helped.

If anyone suffers the same problem, the above solution worked for me. Archive and Install.