I'm a bit in shock I hardly give my oppo 203 much use but tonight I tried ejecting the dvd that was inside of it which is a DVD of Columbo part of a season. When pressing open on the remote or player the tray opens half way with the disc nowhere near in sight. Then it closes. Then I hear it spinning inside when the tray closes, and I get a "unknown disc" message. I tried resetting to factory mode. Same issue. Disconnected the player from the wall, same issue.

It's under warranty but shit now I got to shell out cash for shipping it out.

Any Oppo owner ever had such an issue like mine?

I don't think so because how is it then spinning? I think the inside disc mechanism is holding on to it and does not want to release it.

Just noticed I purchased this player on April 2018. So it's 11 months old.

Nothing banged the player. This just happened randomly. I wonder if I should open the player but then I would have to open the disc compartment as well.

I fully admit I've never opened an Oppo, but generally, when you open any sort of optical player, the tray mechanism is fully visible. At that point, it'd be easy to remove the disc.

Given that it's 11 months old, and with Oppo getting out of the business, what is the warranty status? My only concern would be voiding the warranty, if they use any tamper indication.

Of course, having said that I haven't opened an Oppo, I had to look into it, and found this video, which shows that the drive in a 203 is separately enclosed within the player, but still easy to access.

Anyway, you can have a look at this and decide whether you want to do it, or look into a warranty repair.

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It came with a 2yr warranty so I'm good, I hope lol. That video makes me want to open my player it looks easy. But what you made mention of, tampering can void the warranty so that sets me back.

I'm also wondering if recently updating the firmware had something to do with it but I was watching the disc just fine for many days with the new firmware.

Nothing banged the player. No earthquakes here either lol

Thanks for posting the video, the player is very easy to open since it only involves very few screws.

If I did open it and remove the disc, what would be the chances that the same issue might occur again? These are some questions I have in mind.

I really don't know what to suggest.

As it is an enclosed unit, the disc 'should' be close to where it needs to be to be played. I.e. it's not like it can go somewhere else in the player.

That makes it sound like there may be some sort of mechanical issue or failure.

If I read correctly, Oppo covers return shipping, so it would depend how much shipping to Oppo would cost.

I'm the type that has fixed or tried to fix, just about anything I've ever owned, electronic, mechanical, or whatever. But, even then, I'd be hesitant with this one while it's still under warranty.

Is there any chance the disc, itself, is broken? If you unplug and gently shake the player, or turn it over, do you hear anything rattling around?

andicus thanks so much for your advise and help I greatly appreciate it! The video you posted inspired me to open up my player. I just opened it up and closed it a few minutes ago. Josh-da-man was right, the disc was loose and stuck all the way to the back in the mechanism preventing the loading tray to pop out. I didn't have to remove the smaller disc plate to take out disc since it was easy to pull it out.

I just put in a blu-ray disc and everything is working fine again.

What could have caused the DVD Columbo disc to come off the tray? I didn't look to see if the middle hole on the dvd disc is too big or something lol There was no turbulence in my home unless I might have hit the remote buttons in a way which set the player tray to go nuts? Or was this a fluke? Is this something common on players?

The curious in me tells me to re-insert that disc again to see what happens. Guess I'll give it a shot tomorrow.

Thanks andicus and Josh-da-man

Glad you're up and running again, and you're welcome if I was of any help.

I would've tried the Columbo DVD again while I had the player open. That way you could see if something was going wrong.

The only time I've seen something like this happen was when using a non-standard size disc (specifically, a CD single). Many trays have two indentations to accommodate two sizes of disc.

If you quickly opened/closed the tray, and you had a smaller disc in the player, the quick change of direction could cause it to slip our of the smaller indentation. This would mean it wasn't seated properly to be clamped on the spindle. I'm wondering if something similar happened, and that allowed it to not seat properly, and end getting stuck?

That didn't cross my mind but that is a great suggestion. Took me less than 5mins to open the player and close it back up. I hope there isn't a next time I have to do this.

I'm actually contemplating on selling my player now on eBay and be done with 4K media.