Look at the bugs filed for kscd before you make these statements.
Gentoo users are a small minority in Linux land.
Most of the reports are from people using binary distro's.
And why did it work with earlier versions of kde?
Gerard.

But we aren't talking about bugs in general, we are talking about your specific issue. If you made a concerted effort to isolate the source of the problem to KDE, you have not mentioned it.

As for why it worked in previous versions, I explained that, but you probably replied while I was editing my previous post. Please look at it again, I have provided more details.

To put it simply, the linux software stack has changed a lot since KDE 3.5 came out. gstreamer, pulseaudio, udev, and other similar software components were either not available or not in widespread use back then, but have become standard in the intervening years.

And let me just add that rather than letting this thread ramble on and on and on it'd better for gerard to open a new one pertaining to his problem with kscd.

These are the errors I get in .xsession-errors when trying to play a cda with kscd:

Object::disconnect: No such slot QObject::dataUpdated(QString,Plasma::DataEngine::Data)
Object::disconnect: (sender name: '/org/freedesktop/UDisks/devices/sr1:media')
Advanced probing on /dev/sr1 failed while reading block size
Advanced probing on /dev/sr1 failed while reading block size
Advanced probing on /dev/sr1 failed while reading block size
Advanced probing on /dev/sr1 failed while reading block size
Advanced probing on /dev/sr1 failed while reading block size
Advanced probing on /dev/sr1 failed while reading block size
Advanced probing on /dev/sr1 failed while reading block size
Advanced probing on /dev/sr1 failed while reading block size
Advanced probing on /dev/sr1 failed while reading block size
Advanced probing on /dev/sr1 failed while reading block size
++ WARN: error in ioctl CDROMREADTOCHDR: No medium found

++ WARN: error in ioctl CDROMREADTOCHDR: No medium found

Of course the cda doesn't play.

And this I get when I use audacious:

Checking /dev/scd1 for cdrom...
CDROM sensed: TSSTcorp DVD-ROM SH-D163B SB04 SCSI CD-ROM

Verifying drive can read CDDA...
Expected command set reads OK.

The cda plays fine

Now tell me what is wrong with my setup to prevent kscd to play while audacious plays ok.
And check this: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=278022

Gerard.

Gerard, I've asked you to open a new thread for this issue. Please do so.

Closing.