The player is designed to be level when it is playing a disc, so it could be skipping because of that. Tilting the player should not affect the home switch, so maybe soemthing else is going on. If you leave the player level, do you hear a tick, tick tick as the disc rotates, like something is rubbing?
Yes, I hear something rubbing -- tick, tick tick constant sound
If so, see if the ticking slows down if you gently put your finger on the cd to slow it down. If so, something is rubbing, possibly the chuck that holds the cd is rubbing against the arm. Sometimes the shock absorbing springs on the mechanism get compressed and the mechanism sags, causing the chuck to rub on the arm. You can stretch the springs out by the distance of about 2 turns.