Have you had this experience?  About a year ago, I bought a stack of 50 writeable CD-ROMS from Office Max, and I wrote on a few of them.  Lately, I tried to do the same, but the program didn't detect a disk in the drive.  On a lark, I tried some of the disks in the middle of the stack, and they work fine.  It's the ones on top that don't work.  Why should they be defective?  The only hint I have is nasal: when I open the case, I get a whiff of fumes that might be plasticizer, mould release agent, monomers left over from the plastic, or something like that.  Any comments?

   I would think that long exposure to direct sunlight could ruin them even though I do not remember any such warnings.  CDs are written on by the laser in your CD drive burning dots on the photo sensitive surface.  The surface is only sensitive to intense light as in a laser but maybe long exposure to direct sunlight would also affect it.

Ray, I don't think that's the problem.  These disks have been sitting in their original
container, which is plastic and pretty opaque to UV.  It has a paper label around the edge, so light can only enter from the top.  The problem seems to extend down to several CD's below the one on top, and they are shadowed by the ones above them.  Furthermore, the room they are sitting in has the lights off most of the time.  I think the real reason is simpler: these things are not stable and should only be used for short-term storage anyway.

   You could ask the manufacturer.

Now Ray, come on.  The chance of me getting a human at Office Max is 1%.  The chance of that person knowing the manufacturer is 1%.  The chance of finding a phone number or email address of the manufacturer is 1%.  The chance of getting through to the manufacturer is 1%.  The chance of the contact at the manufacturer knowing what the problem could be is 1%.  That's one part in 10 to the 10.  Them's homeopathic odds. The time spent getting through to a person at Office Max would be worth about 5X the cost of the disks.  The time spent going to the next step is worth about 5X the cost of the disks, etc.  At least this cost adds linearly.  But you get the picture: the sensible thing to do is to throw them away and forget about it.

Try returning them to the store for a refund or replacement, next time you are there. It won't cost you anything and you might get lucky
I have a similar stack of CDR's that I bought from Office Depot. They have the same smell. These are at least 2 years old and I haven't had any that weren't useable yet. My bet is that they are made by the same manufacturer as yours.

This media is pretty reliable and while I don't know the maximum life of the storage disks, I have some that I burned 7 years ago that are still readable.

Having been in another life a retail office supply store manager for over 10 years of that life, my advice – return them to the store that you got them from for either a refund or replacement. The discs are defective in their manufacture therefore the store has to return to you your money even a year later.  They cannot prove that you did not store them in accordance with manufacturers specifications unless they are obviously warped, discolored, scratched, etc.  The smell?  All plastics smell, especially when new and it sounds as though these have been closed up all that time.  OK, maybe not airtight – but I just checked a sleeve that initially held 50 bought four months ago from which I’ve used maybe a dozen, and they still have that plastic chemical odor.  

And hey, please give retailers a break.  In another life, as a buyer I dealt with Office-Max, Office-Depot, Staples and on and on.  They just aren’t all that way – believe me.

Someone sent me an email saying that both he and his son has experienced defective CDs just like you with different brands right out of a new package.