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Sony Reader - Adobe Digital Editions DRMed books causing crashes

New Here ,
Sep 14, 2008 Sep 14, 2008

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Hi,

Hopefully someone has seen this behaviour before and knows how to solve it.

I'm in the UK with the UK version of the Sony PRS-505 eBook Reader which runs software version 1.2.00.18050. I've installed the Sony eBook Library and the Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) software on Windows XP and they both worked perfectly. The 'free' books that came with the Reader install just fine as do free books from places like feedbooks.com.

However, when I want to buy a book, things go badly wrong. ADE sees the Reader and I can register it. I then tried to download a book from the Waterstones online store (Waterstones are the UK partner for Sony). The file transferred and looks fine inside ADE.

However, when I copied the file to the Reader's internal memory and unplugged it from the computer, things began to go wrong. The spinning refresh icon appeared and the Reader reset, rebooted, up came the refresh icon, reset, reboot - and so on and on and on...

I performed a hard reset on the Reader, re-registered it with ADE and tried installing the DRMed book on the SD card. After unplugging the Reader, it began to endlessly reboot just as before. Removing the card stopped the rebooting and the Reader behaved as normal. Delete the book from the card, plug it back in and the Reader is happy - so it's definitely something to do with the book or the DRM on the book. I've tried a couple of titles and each of them do the same thing.

After pleading for help on a mobileread forum, another UK user has had exactly the same problem. He has had his Reader exchanged for another one but that too is crashing when he tries to use DRMed content.

So has anyone here seen this problem? I'm completely stuck as Waterstones, from whom I've bought it are passing the buck to Sony and they are almost certainly going to pass it on to Adobe.

Any help would be HUGELY appreciated.

Thanks,

Mike.

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New Here ,
Sep 14, 2008 Sep 14, 2008

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I have exactly the same problem - I am in the UK, I bought a PRS-505 today, and while the free ebooks work as expected, when I load an ebook purchased from waterstones.com the device goes into an endless rebooting cycle.

Removing the purchased book stops the rebooting, but reloading it just causes the rebooting to start again. I am using Windows XP, and the purchased book is viewable from ADE, which I assume means that there was no problem with authorization.

I have also contacted Sony and Waterstones about this (awaiting reply) - if they come up with anything I will post it here.

cheers,
James

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New Here ,
Sep 14, 2008 Sep 14, 2008

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Hi James,

I started a forum here:

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=252589#post252589

There's at least one more person going through the same problem as you and me. As you'll see from our discussion, we've tried a whole lot of things, so perhaps that will save you some time.

I'm calling Sony in the morning to see if I can get any help.

Mike.

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New Here ,
Sep 14, 2008 Sep 14, 2008

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Mike,

can you tell us which book did you purchase? It sounds that this particular book exposed some sort of a bug in Reader software. Most likely that book will need to be regenerated to work around that, but we'd also like to pin down the bug that causes this.

Peter

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New Here ,
Sep 15, 2008 Sep 15, 2008

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Peter,

The problem is it's not just one book. I have bought three different books from two different vendors (waterstones & ebooks.com).

I've even tried different adobe ID's as well as hard resetting the device and I even got it replaced by sony but I still can't copy any DRM books from ADE to the reader without it constantly rebooting.

I can however read the book in ADE on my PC. It seems to be the physical act of transferring a DRM book that breaks it.

Dave

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New Here ,
Sep 15, 2008 Sep 15, 2008

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Hi Peter,

Like Dave I can confirm that the problem is caused by more than one book. I've only bought from the Waterstones store; but the titles in question are 'One Red Paperclip' by Kyle MacDonald, 'Song of Kali' by Dan Simmons and 'Tales of Terror and Mystery' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

In each case the titles are readable in the Adobe Digital Editions software on a Mac and on a PC, BUT they cause the Reader to crash.

Hope that helps, please let me know if you need more information. Thanks for posting a quick reply.

Mike.

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New Here ,
Sep 15, 2008 Sep 15, 2008

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Mike and Dave,

Thank you for the info, it will help us to track it down. I'll see if we can get these books and figure out what's going on with them. It is highly unlikely that this is a transfer problem. DRM system is now designed in such a way that no re-encoding is required for the transfer: as long as your device is activated with the same AdobeID, your books should be readable on it. And in any case, even if the file is corrupted, it should not cause reboots. I suspect that there is something in these files (even before DRM is applied) that is exposing a problem in the reading software.

One more question: if you look at the "Item Info" for these books in Digital Editions, do you see any error/warning messages?

Thanks!

Peter

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New Here ,
Sep 15, 2008 Sep 15, 2008

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Hi Peter,

Thanks for the hands-on attitude - it's a real comfort to know that someone is on the case.

I've checked Item Info... on 'Tales of Terror and Mystery' and 'One Red Paperclip' (they're the only ones I have on the machine in front of me at the moment); no sign of any errors in either the Mac or Windows version of ADE. Just:

One Red Paperclip
Kyle MacDonald
Ebury Press
Last Page: 21/201 Pages
Last Read: Sep 15, 2008, 7:18PM
Date Added: Sep 08, 2008, 7.26PM

File path:
C:\Documents and Settings\mr42\My Documents\My Digital Edi...

Permissions set by the publisher
Print Permissions: Not allowed
Copy to Clipboard Permissions: Not allowed
Document Expiration: Unlimited

If I mailed you a copy of the file would that be of any use to you?

Many thanks again,

Mike.

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New Here ,
Sep 15, 2008 Sep 15, 2008

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Hi Peter,

Can I say thanks for taking an interest as well! This is driving my rather mad!

No, no problems when I look at the books in ADE,. Incidentally the books I have downloaded are "The confederation handbook" by Peter F Hamilton (from www.ebooks.com) and "Battlecruiser" by Douglas Reeman and "Use of weapons" by Iain M. Banks(from waterstones.com).

I've use two different adobe & waterstones id's to download these to see if that helps and I've tried this on two different computers and two different readers with exactly the same problem.

Regards

Dave

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New Here ,
Sep 15, 2008 Sep 15, 2008

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Hi Peter,

The book I'm having trouble with is "Nothing to lose" by Lee Child. It opens in ADE with no errors or warnings shown in the item info. I don't have any other DRM titles to test this with yet.

thanks,

James

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New Here ,
Sep 16, 2008 Sep 16, 2008

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Folks,

I got access to some of the books that you mentioned and I do not see a problem in the books themselves.

Mike, it would help me if I could get access to your copy of 'One Red Paperclip'. Can you give me an email address? Also, just to double check: simply copying that single book to the device or memory card causes Reader to start rebooting in a cycle, without you even trying to open it - right?

Also, if anyone of you could try to activate another computer (or just a different account) with the same AdobeID and copy these crashing books there to see if they work in ADE, that would help me as well.

Thank you!

Peter

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New Here ,
Sep 16, 2008 Sep 16, 2008

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Peter,

Just copying the book to eithier the internal memory or a SD card causes the reboot cycle as soon as you unplug it from the PC. I've also not been able to switch it off when it gets into the cycle eithier.

I have activated another computer with the same account and had the problem and also created a second account on the same computer under a different user profile and had the same problem. I even got the sony store to swap the reader and as soon as I put the old memory card in the reader it started rebooting and this was with a fresh unactivated reader - I was expecting at least a this book it not activated message?

It happens as soon as the reader reads the contents of the memory. for instance if it's on the SD card you see the reader show the number of books on the internal memory and then as it indexes the SD it pauses and just reboots.

The books always work in ADE prefectly so I'm guessing this means all the authorisation has worked correctly?

Regards

Dave

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New Here ,
Sep 16, 2008 Sep 16, 2008

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Hello Peter,

You can reach me on mike_richards ('AT' SYMBOL) mac.com and I can mail you the file directly.

I've tried accessing the same document using Bootcamp and Windows XP on my MacBook, but I still had the same problem.

You're correct about the crashing process. The Reader is stable whilst the USB cable is connected. As soon as the device is ejected from Windows and unplugged, the Reader shows the spinning circular update icon to show it is refreshing its content lists. After a few seconds, my Reader resets and begins to reboot only to crash when it tries to refresh its contents - ad infinitum.

At the moment I can't do any further authorisations as I've used up all six of my ADE authorisations. I raised this with Adobe a week ago, and beyond sending the request to technical support, I've heard nothing.

Hope this helps, let me know what else you need, and many, many thanks for your assistance.

Mike.

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Enthusiast ,
Sep 17, 2008 Sep 17, 2008

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Mike, we reset your activations (I think i did it as part of a case, but I can't remember. Peter may also have done it.) Proceed to keep testing with Peter. :)

Regards,

Bentley Wolfe
Senior Support Engineer, Flash/Flash Player/Digital Editions
Adobe

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New Here ,
Sep 17, 2008 Sep 17, 2008

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Hi Bentley,

Many thanks.

I'm ready for almost anything now ;)

Mike.

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New Here ,
Sep 17, 2008 Sep 17, 2008

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Hi Peter,

Just to let you know. I've just updated to the new ADE 1.6 and transferred 'One Red Paperclip' on to a freshly-formatted SD card in the Reader then unplugged. Sorry to say it crashed just as it has done in the past.

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New Here ,
Sep 17, 2008 Sep 17, 2008

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Peter/Bentley:
I'm having EXACTLY the same symptoms. I downloaded some books from my library and everything was fine for a while, then I started to get the "endless refresh" or "refresh/crash" problem when I disconnected the Reader from my computer.

I reformatted (and eventually replaced) the memory card thinking it was the problem, since, as noted above, if I removed it the refresh cycle (circling arrows) would eventually stop. (Note that the DE content is ON the Reader, not the card, but FYI DE was creating a directory on the card for some reason.)

I formatted a Memory Stick (trying another media) Yet Again, then recopied all the (non-DE) books back to it via the Sony desktop software. Everything worked fine as long as I *didn't* have any interaction from the desktop to the Reader with DE. I could update non DE content and unplug the Reader and it would finish the update process in about thirty seconds. I've got about 150 books on the MS and 60 in the Reader so this is normal.

I could read the DE content fine on the Reader and reading it didn't cause any problems but, if I add or delete any DE content, using DE on the desktop, the Reader book "delete" function or the Sony desktop software, I get immediately sucked back into the "endless refresh/crash" tar pit the next time I disconnect it from the computer.

As I said, it was working wonderfully right after I loaded the first protected books, but as soon as I started to manage them the wheels came off. Now I'm cautious of even connecting the Reader to the computer.

Please let me know if you need any more information or have any suggestions. I was going to zorch the internal memory on the Reader and re-authorize it to see what happens, but I didn't want to start burning up my authorizations on a wild goose chase.

Thanks for your time on this issue!

Regards,
Bob

UPDATE: I just did an experiment. I deleted the DRM'ed DE file from the Reader and re-did the files on the memory stick. I could connect and fiddle with it with the Sony software without a problem. I then started ADE on my desktop and just clicked to display the contents of the Reader within ADE. I didn't add or remove any books. I then exited ADE and disconnected the Reader which immediately froze during the content refresh cycle. I had to pull the card, let it finish with just the empty reader (taking about five minutes) then re-insert the memory card and wait another twenty minutes for it to re-read/refresh that. So it appears that whatever the problem is in my case, it's caused by something that ADE is doing to the Reader even if it's NOT changing the content on it.

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New Here ,
Sep 17, 2008 Sep 17, 2008

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Update Two:
I zorched the Reader, then reloaded ALL content to a Memory Stick. Once this had completed it's initial scan, it would refresh in a couple of minutes when accessed with Sony's software, then detached from the computer.

I next re-authorized the Reader and added a single protected book via ADE to the internal memory of the Reader, with the MS removed. This book was the only thing in the Reader. It loaded, but the Reader took a relatively long time to refresh after disconnect (like 25 seconds, with only one book). I can access the book without a problem.

Next I installed the MS. It took about six or seven minutes, but it came up OK (about 200 books on there). After that I connected the Reader to the computer for a minute or two and then detached it. It completed the two refresh cycles in about 30 seconds (internal memory then the MS).

Next I plugged it into the computer and accessed it with the Sony software. I then ejected it via the software and unplugged it and it's been stuck in a refresh cycle ever since. I expect it to crash if I wait long enough, but I'll probably pull the card after finishing this post.

Something is happening to the Reader that is causing it to be VERY slow about scanning external memory after it's authorized by ADE.

Next experiment is to see if what happens with just a dozen or so books only on the internal memory.

UPDATE 3:
So I put about a dozen books in the internal memory, no external cards. That refreshed in about 5 seconds after detaching from the Sony software. I then added four more protected books via ADE. Detaching from the computer after that the Reader took about two minutes to refresh the content (now only 16 books, 5 protected by ADE).

Adding a few more books from the Sony software caused about a two minute refresh cycle. Next detach with Sony software was very fast (no changes, just listing the contents) as was one where I added a single file.

I'll keep adding stuff to the internal memory to see what happens.

Finally, I'd note that when the Reader hangs the spinning arrows are frozen, or only move once a minute or so, as opposed to spinning rapidly but for a long time.

I think you can recreate this problem if you just load up an external memory device with a 150 or so books from your favorite public domain source, then start adding a few protected by ADE. Users with 650+ books have reported that it only takes their readers about three minutes to refresh the contents after unhooking the from the computer, so I'm pretty sure something is amiss here.

Thanks again for looking at this. I can keep swapping stuff around manually, but I really liked having all my books on the Reader so I can pick and choose while on trips. Not being able to use the memory expansion is a significant drawback.

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Enthusiast ,
Sep 18, 2008 Sep 18, 2008

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Mike,

In case you haven't seen it, Adobe Engineering is investigating, and will coordinate with Sony. When I have futher info we'll post it here.

Regards,

Bentley Wolfe
Senior Support Engineer, Flash/Flash Player/Digital Editions
Adobe

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New Here ,
Sep 18, 2008 Sep 18, 2008

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Many thanks Bentley. I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say thank-you for taking this so seriously.

Peter has been in contact by email and I have sent him a copy of one of the DRMed books which cause my Reader to crash. Hopefully the problem is well on the way to being solved.

Mike.

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New Here ,
Sep 18, 2008 Sep 18, 2008

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You guys rock!

Regards,

Bob

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New Here ,
Sep 20, 2008 Sep 20, 2008

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i have exactly the same problem with two Waterstones purchased books. My original support case was closed saying ti was a Sony problem but i have just reopened having seen here that it is not unique to me. i would appreciate any advice you can share.

Alan

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New Here ,
Sep 21, 2008 Sep 21, 2008

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Peter/Bentley:

After reading some posts from Mike on another forum, I suspect that the problem I'm seeing with my US Reader has similar symptoms but a differing underlying cause. The problem with my Reader seems to be confined to using ADE with an external memory card installed (regardless where the ADE content is installed) as described above.

I'm certainly not qualified to diagnose the cause, so please accept this as just another way of describing the problem: After installing ADE and putting protected content on the Reader it then starts to act as if either EVERY file is marked as changed every time it gets accessed by either ADE or the Sony desktop software. Alternatively i could be that some cache data that relates to what files have and have not changed is getting destroyed or corrupted. Consequently EVERY disconnect forces the Reader to rescan/index/format EVERY file on both internal and external memory.

Should I start a new thread or support request?

Thanks,
Bob

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Enthusiast ,
Sep 23, 2008 Sep 23, 2008

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Bob,

I think Peter is watching this thread. Let's wait for him to see if he can figure this all out and see if it effects your issue (I'm not sure how long that will take though)

Regards,

Bentley Wolfe
Senior Support Engineer, Flash/Flash Player/Digital Editions
Adobe

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New Here ,
Sep 23, 2008 Sep 23, 2008

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Bentley:

Thanks, will do.

An update: I just checked in / deleted a single protected file and checked out two protected files and transferred them to the reader via ADE. The Reader crashed when I disconnected it (no memory cards installed/used). After rebooting it took about 15 minutes to index the two new books and de-zombify itself.

I then reconnected the Reader to the computer to just move the two protected books into a collection on the Reader. It's still stuck on the spinning (or not) arrows after 20 minutes.

Files look/work fine in ADE on my computer.

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