I think you and I have the same AM/FM Single Play CD unit that is in my
2004 Silverado, which I bought in February. I use only burned CDs in the truck and I have never used any commercially produced CDs in the player. Some of my CDs are direct copies of CDs and others are compilations of several different CDs. For the first 3 months, there was no problem playing any burned CDs. The CDs were quickly recognized by the player and the played flawlessly -- no skipping, no tracking errors and no track access problems.
So far, I haven't had the "dead radio" problem, but about 2 months ago the unit did this:
The player has an icon on the player display which lights up when there is a CD in the player. You can remove a CD from the unit by pressing the eject CD button even when the unit is off. From here on, I will be trying to recall the exact sequence of events that led to the CD player problems so that I will never repeat them.
With the engine running in Park and the player turned off, I ejected the CD. With the player still turned off, I inserted a different CD and the unit turned itself on and the CD began to play. Then, after about 10 seconds, the playback stopped, then there was some skipping and there was an error message which said something like "invalid media" and the CD was ejected. I tried this CD again and the same thing happened again. I tried several other CDs and the same thing happened to all of them. I turned the player off and back on, but all of the CDs would play for about 10 seconds before they were ejected.
With no CD in the player I turned off the player and the ignition and waited for a few minutes and then turned the key to the accessory position and tried the CD player again. Again, all of the CDs played for around 10 seconds, started skipping and then were ejected. After this, I drove to Costco with the FM radio playing, turned off the radio and shut off the ignition. An hour later, I started the truck and put another CD in the player. This time, there were no playback problems. I tried another CD and then another CD. All of them worked perfectly and 3 months later, the problems have never repeated themselves. I guess that something in the player reset itself during the hour that the truck was parked.
According to the owner's manual, inserting a CD into the player when it is turned off is not the proper procedure for activating the auto play mechanism. Here is what the manual says on page 3-85:
"If you want to insert a CD with the ignition off, first press the eject button or the DISPL knob." Apparently, my mistake was not first pressing the eject button or the DISPL knob. Pressing the eject button or the DISPL knob must initialize the system so that it will execute the series of commands which will allow it to accept a CD when the unit is turned off. This initialization procedure must already be activated when the player is turned on. On page 3-87, there is a list of CD messages which tells why a CD might be rejected by the player. A message not listed should probably read, "You have inserted a CD into the player when it was turned off without first pressing the eject button or the DISPL knob."
However, after the above experience, I still occasionally eject CDs from the player when the player is off, but I NEVER insert CDs into the player when it is turned off. My theory is that something in the CD mechanism got confused during the automatic start function which is initiated when a CD is inserted into the player when it is off. In the OFF position, the player is supposed to sense the presence of a CD in the slot, activate the CD motor which accepts the CD, turn on the player and play the CD.