Failure to open empty dvd drive by pressing eject button or using eject menu

This bug may be related to #217900 and #203574 .

On Ubuntu 9.04 , 32 bit Intel platform, French i18n, all updates applied.

I'm experiencing this problem on two distinct computers that were running Ubuntu 8.10 and were upgraded to 9.04. Upon upgrade, the "eject" button in front of the DVD drive was disabled, even when there is no DVD in the drive. There was no such issue with 8.10 as far as I know.

Also, when I try to use the "eject" command from the right-click menu atop the DVD icon, it refuses to act and displays the following message : "Impossible de monter le média. Il n'y a probablement aucun média dans le lecteur" (in English it would translate to "Impossible to mount media. There is probably no media in the drive").

Expected behaviour:
A) Pressing "eject" button of the DVD drive should open the drive if there is no disk in it.
B) Pressing "eject" command in the right-click menu atop the DVD icon should open the drive if there is no disk in it.

Current behaviour:
A) Nothing happens.
B) An error message is displayed: "Impossible de monter le média. Il n'y a probablement aucun média dans le lecteur"

If there is a fix I can apply that does not involve typing commands every time the drive needs to be opened, I'd love to hear about it since I would like to give one of my computers to people who have actually never used a PC before...