I put in a disc recently to find everything had gone dark for no apparent reason. At first I thought it was just a mastering error on the disc and I adjusted my TV settings. Then when the next one had the same issue I checked my player. I also tried different cables. Apparently the first composite port is bad as it either stays dark or cuts in and out with distortion when you change cables or are in the process of plugging in.
Port two works perfectly fine so I am using that now.

Player is an lx-900. What in the world causes this issue and will it spread to port two?

have you taken off the hood and checked the wiring/connections to that port?

If you can press up/down/right/left and get the output to come and go then you just have a cold solder joint. That will not spread, just use the other output as you have to pull all the boards out to get to the bottom of the board to re-solder the connection.

It's just physically worn out. Replace the jack or maybe just reflow the solder joints.

This is exactly what happens. If I leave my regular cable all the way in it remains dark. If I plug in others I get cutting in and out. If I wriggle any cable around I can sometimes get the output to come back perfectly as you said.

Sounds like a big headache to fix the connection so I will do the scientific method of using output two.

Weird for it to just go all of a sudden without warning.

Reading this reminds me I believe my 704 has this issue, never could seem to get signal from video 1.
Same situation I just couldn't bother to remove boards.

Since everything else on the player works fine, I avoid tearing into it and just enjoy the player.

Odd thing is, seller said it was only ever used for cds..

Those jacks last forever with normal use but some of those dumb "audiophile" cables have insane terminal tension on the socket and the massive weight of cartooninsly overshielded cables hanging on them 24/7 doesn't help either.

Audiophile cables make cold solder joints break (a cold solder joint is one that did not reach proper heat level during manufacturing on both the lan and pin so a connection is made but not a proper bond and will eventually cause issues). This is why you re-flow the solder. A proper solder joint will pull the lan off the printed board.