LG blu-ray player is stopping playing blu-ray discs

[mausinho]

Hey there.

So, I own this 3D 7.2 home theater from LG model HX996TS which I've researched comes with BD960 blu-ray player.

CD's and DVD's are playing extreme normally, no problem at all. But, when I insert a blu-ray disc, it may be spinning forever loading, it may recognize it's a blu-ray disc, but then freeze and not play (then I have to unplug from the energy plug to reboot and remove the disc), sometimes it recognizes the blu-ray disc as a data disc, even though it doesn't show the data itself, sometimes it does play, but starts freezing while playing and sometimes it plays perfectly fine, as it had no problem at all.

So I figured it might be a dust problem and bought this lens cleaner at Mercado Livre (which is like eBay in South America) and I am waiting for it to arrive and do a lens cleaning to see if it helps.

Does any one have a suggestion on how to get my blu-ray player to play blu-ray discs properly? I've seen people opening their players and cleaning the lens manually, but I won't do that because I think I may mess something up badly.

May it be a hardware problem? Because I don't understand how the processing of discs works, I figured if it were a hardware problem, DVD's and CD's would have problem being played as well.

Anyways, any help?

[El Heggunte]

Apparently the violet laser diode in the "optical unit" is dying.
In this case, cleaning the lens won't be of much help.
In the end, you would have to either repair the device, or buy a new one — whichever is less expensive, or more convenient.

[mausinho]

That was my fear, that I would hsve to repair it. Those things are extremely expensive in Brazil and since it's a 7.2 3D home theater I can't just lose the blu-ray playing. Even though I can connect another 3D blu-ray player through HDMI and use pass-thru audio, it'd be a temporary solution.