Eject button of DVD ROM on laptop stopped working after upgrade to Hardy Heron: was OK in Gutsy Gibbon

Binary package hint: firefox-3.0

Hardware: Sony Vaio VGN-TX750P that has AV harware control buttons below the screen, with the eject button adjacent to the power button, (not part of keyboard.) I was using only the Eject button of the AV function set available under the screen, not the other controls such as play/pause, stop, ffwd etc. I used to manage the changing of CDs and DVDs in Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 using this button. Last week I upgraded online to 8.05 Hardy Heron. The Eject button is no longer sensitive to the push and does not open the tray, regardless whether there is a DVD in the tray or not.
Using the more complex ejection via software commands: Places, Computer, CD/DVD right click eject also does not comply to the request.
Would it be possible to move the operational function that senses the push from the Gutsy Gibbon interface that worked well, over to Hartdy Heron? Whereas there is possible way to eject the tray with a paper clip, I find that very inelegant and primitive, possibly harming the DVD tray. Suffice it to say that, in summary, it worked well on Gutsy Gibbon, and it does not work on Hardy Heron; that is the crux of the problem. I feel it was a simple oversight to fail to carry this function over from Gutsy Gibbon to Hardy Heron. Please advise any possible fix or solution to the problem.

Regards
Michael Telkes
<email address hidden>

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon May 5 02:57:55 2008
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
Package: firefox-3.0 3.0~b5+nobinonly-0ubuntu3
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox-3.0
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-16-generic i686