DVD player will not open. We use a butter knife to open the unit. Once it is started, it opens fine. It closes fine just using the button.

If it is the older type like a computer CD-R, you can gently pry the drawer open with a butter knife. Once open fully it should start closing and ejecting with the button.

Question edited for clarity.
Question moved to Television DVD Player category.

Slip the tip of a butter knife in the crack, press the button and ease it open. After a few open and close cycles, it should sort itself out.

While hitting the eject button use a small flat screwdriver or butter knife to ease door open, probably the rubberband like belt broke or the gears jammed up!

You can try unplugging the unit for 3 hours or overnight but if that still does not reset the unit you will have to pry open the disk tray carefully and cautiously with a butter knife.

disc is stuck, remove cover screws and carefully remove the disc, do not force the unit, once the disc is out use the remote to close the unit, then use remote to open and use a different disc press play and hopefully it will work, try to avoid not using the remote for all functions,including open-close. do not push tray in manually.

tap it gently from the side while pressing the button......or with a knife try to open it gently...while pressing the button....after it,s open..clean the side n the belt..

hello i have had the same problem with my 5 cd changer,i way i solved this was to turn the player top slide down then do this care fully ,shake it gently and see if a cd came out of it, groove sit in the player.if you hear a rattle than there is a stray cd in the device. you have got to shake the cd to the front of the cd dawer to take it out with a thin ruler or a butter knife but be care ful with the knife preess on the open button wale trying to slide the butter knife between the stuck cd and the inside of the cd sit cation be care.

I have had this before, get yourself a butter knife, slide it gently into the space, and try to maneurver the dvd back a little, and while you have the butter knife in, push your open/close button, hope this works for you it did for me!

Hey this is a great site!
I was having a similar problem with my Toshiba SD-K860. Bobbyj, thanks for the link to the SD-4900 service manual, it was extremely helpful even though it was a different model. I could not find an emergency eject pinhole, and leaving the unit unplugged for a while did not help (two suggestions found on other sites), so I simply took the whole thing apart, got the disc out, found the eject slider on the bottom of the tray, massaged the tray open and closed, and put everything back together again. The connections were solid and the belt was in tact so everything seemed to be fine. Once I reassembled and powered it back up it worked again!
I posted a more detailed solution on my problems to solve site, which is similar to this one:
http://problemstosolve.com/solved/toshiba-sd-k850-wont-eject-solved/

I figured it out....Butter Knife did the trick. Thanks anyway!