VLC can't read DVDs even after I installed things to read them

Question

Moment ago and I got this from VLC media player

Playback failure:
DVDRead could not open the disc "/dev/dvd".
Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'dvd:///dev/dvd'. Check the log for details.

I typed this command to enable DVD playback, It worked on my desktop with Ubuntu 13.10

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg libxine1-ffmpeg gxine mencoder libdvdread4 totem-mozilla icedax tagtool easytag id3tool lame nautilus-script-audio-convert libmad0 mpg321 && sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

I am using Ubuntu 13.10 32-bit. Thanks

Solution

Had the same thing with my rarely used dvd drive today. Apparently the symlink to the block device was missing. After inspecting dmesg I found it is sr0 in my case.

So:

sudo ln -s /dev/sr0 /dev/dvd

fixed it for me.

PS: Try man dmesg, man sudo, man ln, if you do not understand this. The first few years of linux is all about reading man pages, I'm afraid.

Comments

[Thomas Ward]

Did you check the VLC logfiles like the error says to, to find details of why it couldn't read it?

[Alan]

I thought the log file would display exactly what I just copied and pasted. I guess I will find the file and read it. thanks

[Alan]

I don't know where the log file is, I am still new to Ubuntu it's not like windows where I can check C:\Program files\VLC. I am lost in this OS, I am not sure where anything is yet. It's still better than Windows