Sorry, this is going to come across as a newbie rant... mostly because I just switched a few months ago. I'm not completely unfamiliar with Linux. I had to use Unix in college for some projects. I've dual-booted with Windows before. I use a Mac at work. I'm reasonably comfortable in the console, though I'm certainly no expert. I feel like what I'm about to talk about shouldn't be so confusing/unintuitive.
I'm running Kubuntu on an older laptop. I have a burnable DVD that may or may not be blank. The disc is old, scratched, and unlabeled, but I would like to see if anything is on it.
I press the eject button on my laptop's disc drive. The tray comes out. I insert the disc and close the tray. The system gets busy trying to read the disc, but eventually stops spinning. Nothing pops up. Dolphin doesn't show my disc drive in the "Devices" panel, or that there's anything in the drive. VLC says it can't read the disc.
Ok, fine. The disc is probably either empty, or it's too scratched to read and needs to be trashed, so I would like to remove it from my system. I push the eject button again, and... nothing happens. It's the same button I used to open the tray to insert the disc, but now it's unresponsive. I open Dolphin and confirm that it doesn't show that I even have a disc drive in the "Devices" panel (presumably because nothing's in it). I open the "Discs and Devices" section in the Notification tray, and the most I can get it to show is my hard drive. It's like my computer doesn't believe the DVD drive exists.
So, what do I have to do? I can open MakeMKV, and it has an Eject button that opens the tray. I'm sure plenty of other software has similar functionality. I can also open the terminal and type "eject", and the tray pops right open. Clearly, my system knows that there's a DVD drive, and it has the ability to open the tray.
Why doesn't the eject button work? Why doesn't Dolphin just always show the DVD drive? Why do I have to google "How to eject a dvd kubuntu"? What am I missing?
System:
Ubuntu 25.04
Drive: BD-RE BU40N (Firmware: 2024-04-23 13:47)
CPU: Intel Core i7-5500U CPU @ 2.40GHz
Memory: 16GB (2x 8GB SODIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1600 MHz)
Most drives have an emergency eject function built in, totally independent of the operating system. Some work differently than others, but try something along these lines..
Usually works for me.
Edit: Most drives also have an emergency eject hole near the eject button, just push a straightened paperclip in when the drive is powered off and it should eject.
Thanks for the tips.
I did try holding the eject button for up to 15 seconds when I first noticed this issue, but that was ineffecive. I just tried it again so that I could try tapping the eject button afterward, but it didn't work, either.
I used the paperclip in the past. That works because it's mechanical.
It's been a little hit/miss for me at times as well, I totally feel your frustration when dealing with scratched discs. Still, at least with my drives, spamming the eject button seems to eventually work.
Did you catch the other commenter that said..
eject /dev/sr0Came here to type this, this was the solution for me many years back with a stuck disk