I've never had a shiny pearl ball just flat out stop hooking before. I haven't really used my Nuts Pearl that much lately since it wasn't reading my sport patterns very well. It wasn't until I threw it on a short pattern that I noticed it was competing for a spot as my spare ball. It literally hooked a little less than my XXXL. It had to either be dead or in need of a de-oiling. Fortunately it was the latter.
Sanded it to 500 abralon, tossed it in the dishwasher (my favorite oil remover) without the dry cycle, brought it back to 2000 abralon, and hit it with Valentino's Snake Oil. Seems good as new again. Used it on Shark last week with good success. This ball always worked really well on longer patterns for me.
I'm used to de-oiling my duller equipment and the stuff at 2000-4000 abralon that gets used a lot, but apparently even shiny pearls need similar maintenance. At least the newer stuff anyway - my old school pearls have 10-20 times as many games on then and still behave normally.