On Friday, 14 July 2023 at 11:30:38 UTC-7, micky wrote:
> DVD can't be read, what to do?
>
> Toyota Solara with Navigation, which means map DVD. Two or 3 years ago,
> occasionally I'd get an error message when car first started so radio
> first tries to read the map. I would either stop and start the car, or
> later I realized I could eject the DVD and reinsert it and it always
> worked the 2nd time. (There is a separate CD drive for playing music.)
>
> Bought a DVD cleaning DVD, which is a disk with a brush! Used 2 or 3
> times. Didn't help.
>
> Changed from the 2005 edition of the map, that came with the car when
> new, to the 2008 edition, the last year they made one. Didn't help.
>
> Both map DVDs look pristine. No fingerprints, not even old ones that
> have been wiped away.
>
> In the last month, problem's gotten more frequent, but still worked the
> 2nd time every time. Yesterday, didn't work until the 3rd time. And
> today, right after I bought tires for a car trip tomorrow, wouldn't work
> right at all.
>
> I restarted the map, and the map restarted itself 2 or 3 times** for
> each time I restarted, and never completely displayed the map, and
> always insufficent for moving my location while I drive***.
>
> A couple strange things, never happened before today: 1) Start of the
> day, changing stations, which is usually instantaneous, took 5 or 10
> seconds every time. Changing volume, for which there is a knob
> (although it's not a direct rheostat control) also took 5 or 10 seconds.
> Changing from FM band 1 to 2 (6 memories each) also took 5 or 10
> seconds. Saving presets took 5 or 10 seconds. This delay phenomenon
> never happened before and I don't see how it's related to not reading
> the map DVD, but otoh, it's not a coincidence, is it? (Once the radio
> was on a station, the radio worked fine.)
> 2) Sometimes**** much of the map showed, but a quadrilateral
> to the left of center, using about 1/5th of the screen, was dark and
> blank. But driving didn't move the map. ****Or maybe all the time. Sun
> was very bright.
>
> How do I fix this?
>
> Is there a better way to clean the head? A more expensive DVD head
> cleaning CD? Maybe the one I bought didn't know how to work because it
> was not a general purpose DVD or CD slot, but a dedicated map DVD??? So
> the radio software was incompatible with, or didn't try to execute, the
> cleaning DVD software. Maybe NO cleaning CD knows how to work with a
> Map DVD slot?
> Or should I disassemble the radio and clean the head directly?
> (Previous car had a 5-CD changer that broke. Major effort just to get
> the CDs out, had to destroy the changer mechanism. Never did see the
> head.)
>
> Should I try cleaning the head again, even if it didn't seem to help the
> first few times, because clearly now it's worse, so maybe even a partial
> cleaning will be enough?
>
> Should I use a liquid or solvent on the brush. I think it didn't say to
> and I didn't last time.
>
> There are junkyard radios, but would they be fully tested? How can they
> fully test a map that is meant to move when the junkyard car has no
> engine or tires? And no GPS antennna. I presume the radio is tested,
> but seriously, do they, can they test the map?
>
> ***I've only used navigation twice in 5 years, once in the dark in
> Charlston, S. Carolina, but I use location all the time.
>
> **Convertible, top down, lots of sun, so hard to see the screen, but I
> could see between attempts, in the center of the screen was a little
> clock symbol, and the time on the clock was different each time!!!
> Curious if there's a pattern, but had to pay attention to the road.
>
>
> BTW, I just bought two new used tires today, so that I could go on a
> 4-day car trip tomorrow, and as I was leaving the tire place, or maybe
> first thing this morning, that's when the map broke! I love my map,
> especially when wandering around places I've never been before, which
> was the exact plan for the next 4 days. What irony!
>
> (I've liked maps since I was a little boy, loved them for the last 50
> years)

It sounds like the vehicle is many years old; I would suspect the Laser in the DVD reader is the culprit..

The light output of the laser will reduce with time until there is inadequate SNR to read a DVD.

This is probably exacerbated by the high-temperatures that can occur in dashboard mounted players.

A dash mounted CD changer in one of my previous cars (Toyota Prius) was frequently failing to play
CDs once the car was more than bout 5 years old. This would occur mainly after the car had been sitting in the sun in a parking lot all day. It would work ok in the morning.

kw