"Remote Disc" in Finder sidebar

This discussion has wandered off course, so let me summarize for the benefit of anyone who stumbles upon it in the future and goes straight to the last entry.

1. It seems that, contrary to documents available on Apple website (Use the CD or DVD drive from another computer with your Mac - Apple Support), Remote Disc appears in the Finder sidebar under Devices even if the computer has a built-in optical CD/DVD drive (thus contradicting the first sentence under "If you can't use a shared disc").
2. I have not been able to get this feature to work when an MBP 13" with built-in optical drive shares its drive with an MBP 17", which also has a built-in optical drive [1]. On both machines, the procedure giving the MBP 17" access to the MBP 13"'s drive proceeds normally until a disc -- in this case, an unprotected software installation CD -- is inserted in the latter's drive. Then, on the MBP 17", Finder becomes unresponsive and must be relaunched. The situation is analogous if the the roles of the machines are reversed.
3. I have not been able to test with an MBP that lacks a built-in optical drive, as I have no such machine. I soon will, and I would be naive to ignore the evidence that Remote Disc might not work on it either, at least, not with either of my present machines.
4. If nobody does so before me, I will post my experience with Remote Disc on the new MBP.

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[1] MBP 13" is mid-2010 running macOS 10.13.6. MBP 17" is late-2011 running macOS 10.13.6.

Thanks for your reply.

It is irrelevant if you have or do not have a CD/DVD drive. It exists whether or not you have a drive. It's just not normally shown if you have one. Drag it out of the Sidebar and forget it.

Do you have an Apple laptop running macOS 10.13.6 with a built-in optical drive? If so, does Remote Disc appear in the Finder sidebar when Finder is configured to display "CDs, DVDs and iPods" there?

As I wrote, I have two MBP's. Both are running macOS 10.13.6 and have built-in optical drives. The 13" one behaves as Apple says it should, i. e., regardless of whether the option "CDs, DVDs, and iPods" is checked in Finder > Preferences... > Sidebar, no Remote Disc appears in the sidebar. The 17" one shows Remote Disc when the option is checked, otherwise not ... but Remote Disc does not work. When I turn on System Preferences > Sharing > DVD or CD sharing on the 13", clicking on Remote Disc on the 17" displays an icon representing the 13" MBP in Finder's main window. Double-clicking it seemingly has no effect when Finder > Preferences... > General > Open folders in tabs instead of new windows is checked, but if I right-click it and select Open in New Tab, the new tab opens, the icon disappears, and a bar with the message "Connected" and a button "Ask to use..." appears at the top. Clicking the button causes a window to pop up on the 13" with a message to decline or accept the 17"'s request to use the drive, while a progress window shows "Asking to use the DVD drive in {name of 13" MBP}" on the 17". That changes to "Waiting for disc..." on the 17" when I accept on the 13", then disappears when I insert a disc on the 13". On the 13", everything proceeds as if it weren't sharing its optical drive, while on the 17" the Finder displays the beachball and becomes unresponsive (as clicking 🍎 > Force Quit... shows), requiring a relaunch.

Note:

1. Remote Disc never appears on the 13", not even when I turn on System Preferences > Sharing > DVD or CD sharing on the 17". Nor does it disappear on the 17" when the 13" is not sharing its optical drive. I think we can rule out another computer, say, in the apartment upstairs, that is sharing, because the 13" and the 17" are inches apart, so both would "see" the share.
2. Ejecting the disc on the 13" does not cause Finder on the 17" to become responsive again.

Finally,

1. If, as you say, Remote Disc is always present but only appears in the Finder sidebar when that option is configured, why does it never appear on the 13"?
2. Why does Remote Disc not work on the 17" (see detailed description above), if, as you claim, it's always present?

After almost 40 years in IT I have learned that such inconsistencies are most often not problems in themselves, but symptoms of a less evident, perhaps serious problem.

OK, I rebooted the 13" MBP, and now Remote Disc behaves the same on both machines, i. e., it always appears, regardless of how the Finder is configured. But when I attempt to use the optical disk drive of the 17" from the 13", the same thing happens as the other way around. Everything works until a disk (software installation on DVD, not music or video) is inserted in the shared drive. Then the finder on the other machine becomes unresponsive.

So now both machines behave the same way. Does optical drive sharing work on your 2010 MBP? Can you really use an optical disc mounted on another computer?

Yes, I know. This was the storage utilities installation disc from LaCie. I'm preparing for a new MBP that won't have a built-in optical drive. I don't have an external optical drive, because up to now all my (Apple) laptops had one built in. Buying one requires evaluating whether to get one that supports (with the help of non-Apple software) Blu Ray or not, etc. I really hate things that don't work.

Yes, yes, yes, I know that. The recordings of the Berlin Philharmonic often include Blu Ray discs with high definition videos. I can't play them on my present equipment, but if I have to buy an external optical drive, I should perhaps consider one that supports Blu Ray. Yes, no thanks to Apple.

Addendum to my previous response, point 4:

In fact, Remote Disc on my new 2018 MacBook Pro 15" Touch Bar works fine. Remote Disc appears under Devices in the Finder's sidebar, and in the main Finder window both the 13" MBP and the 17" MBP appear, as they are both sharing their built-in optical drives. Clicking on one of them causes the back-and-forth described above, but when an unprotected installation CD was inserted into the shared drive, its contents appeared in the Remote Disc's window in Finder on the driverless machine. I only had a problem ejecting the disc. The control bar had disappeared, so pressed the eject symbol next to Remote Disc. It didn't seem to do anything, so I ejected the disc on the sharing machine.

It wouldn't be software from a hardware manufacturer, just software to play multimedia content on Blu Ray.

Had I known I wouldn't have tried helping.

It's hard to "hear" the tone of voice in "Yes, yes, yes, I know that." Whatever frustration it expresses is directed at Apple, not at you. One can dispute the wisdom of removing optical drives from portable computers, but adamantly refusing to acknowledge Blu Ray by refusing to upgrade the Apple external CD/DVD drive to support Blu Ray is just wrong headed. And since Apple doesn't market a drive that plays Blu Ray, there's no software in their computers to play Blu Ray.

Apple seems not to have realized that clouds and streaming aren't viable solutions where high speed internet is not available. I always get a kick out of Apple product announcements, especially when some ... ahem ... plus sized Apple employee waxes ecstatic about a product's anorexic appearance. I used to be able to throw my MBP 17" into my luggage, confident in the knowledge that I wouldn't need any external devices. For longer trips, I might throw in a mouse, maybe also a LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt if I was being anal about Time Machine backups. Soon I will have to consider dozens of adapters or a dock and/or an external optical drive in addition, maybe even new eyeglasses for the tiny letters on the 15" screen.