Activation /authorisation problems please help distraught daughter

[mary_baltic]

I hope someone can help me.

I bought my daughter a Sony Touch ereader for her birthday because she was envious of mine which I have had for a year and love.  I had to go to work on her birthday so she was on her own when she set it up and I'm not entirely sure what she has done.  As far as I can make out she installed Adobe Digital Editions about a month ago knowing that she was going to get an ereader and downloaded some ebooks to start with thinking she could transfer them to the ereader when she got it.  I think she got herself an Adobe ID at the time but as far as ADE goes I suspect she did not authorise her computer with that ID at the time.

When she installed her ereader, ADE prompted her to authorise her computer which she did using the Adobe ID.  She also bought some more ebooks which she transferred to her ereader no problem. However she still couldn't open any of the ebooks she bought before authorising.  She has only ever used the one laptop for all of this so the issue with two separate accounts on two different computers should not apply.

I had a look at all the troubleshooting sites I could find and it suggested deauthorising and reauthorising the computer.  That's when it all went pearshaped.  She now can't open ANY of the purchased ebooks even the ones she could open previously.  The ereader properties said it was authorised for Adobe DRM content and it had the right Adobe ID address.  But when she tries to open them it says she is not authorised to preview the book.  I have checked she used the same adobe ID and password for everything so it's not that

One of the things one always tries is uninstalling and reinstalling problem software.  So I tried reinstalling ADE to make sure we had the most up to date version. But then it didn't recognise the ereader.  WHSmith ebooks customer support said to download ADE yet again. I have now hit the too many activations problem.  She has submitted a case through the web based support portal case number #0181349188 to get her permitted number of activations reset because we can't do anything until that is sorted out.

However I don't think that will solve the problem because as far as I could tell the computer was authorised properly but it would not recognise the ebooks downloaded before it was deauthorised and reauthorised.  I don't know why it's an issue because it's not as if she has tried to transfer content from or to different computers or devices, she only has the one laptop.

Please can anyone help me sort this out.  She is absolutely distraught as she has spent all her birthday money on ebooks she can't now open and as she is a student she can't just afford to write off the loss. And I feel sick about it because I thought she'd be thrilled with her new toy

I'm reasonably computer literate and I have never had any problem with my own Sony ereader (but then I tend to read the ...manual).  I use my own ereader with a different computer by the way so I don't think it's a conflict. But I am stumped by this.  Her laptop is about a year old a Sony Vaio running Vista Home edition.  The registry may be a bit cluttered but although I can reinstall Windows if I have to I have never attempted a registry edit

[Guest]

The support case is new enough that I can't see the details, but given what you've described here, after you get the activation reset you have two choices with the books she bought before she authorized:

1. Contact the seller of the book and ask for a re-download
2. Open a seperate support case, and have a second AdobeID associated with the old content.  This is sub-opitmal for several reasons:
   • The software and hardware are all geared to support one AdobeID - you'll run out of activation quickly if you are switching
   • This will not be a quick fix, since this will escalate to the engineering team and we are all on vaction until Jan 4th

[mary_baltic]

I am so grateful to you for taking the time to send me an email on this, I hope you have a VERY happy Christmas break.

I should have said that we tried redownloading - both WHSmith and Waterstones allow you to download three times (and after that they will reactivate if you contact them). However it still wasn't viewable. I think from what you are saying the only way to do it will be to set up a brand new Adobe ID. I could try getting her to ask the seller for a refund and repurchase the books and then we'd be OK for the future as long as she used that Adobe ID going forward. Can she have a separate Adobe ID with the same email address? (I would like to limit the potential for things to go wrong by entering the wrong email address/wrong Adobe ID). Also the seller is only likely to give a refund and allow a repurchase if it is the same email address on the retailer ecommerce account.

I'm also concerned about what would happen if she replaces her laptop - it might quite easily be stolen while she is away at university. She would then have to authorise a new computer but would not be able to deauthorise the old one (unless it is in a couple of years when she upgrades) and would she have the same trouble?

Thank you again for your help, I am so very grateful

[Guest]

hmmm finally got to read your support case along with your response up above, and I'm getting confused now.

Here's how it's supposed to work (and does)

1.) Authorize ADE with an AdobeID

2.) Attach Sony Reader (or other supported device) and authorize it with your AdobeID (up to 6 devices)

3.) Buy books

4.) transfer books to Sony Reader.

(*5 Authorize ADE with an AdobeID on a seperate computer - up to 6, and be able to transfer and read content)

It sounds like you've tried that but have had various places where it's broken.

So the first thing to do would be to get you to the point where you can read all of your books using ADE on the same computer.  My understanding is that the problem with this is that for the AdobeID that the books are tied to you've run out of computer authorization for, unfortunately from what I can see of your support case, you haven't told them the AdobeID that you are using here.  If you send me a private message on the forums with that AdobeID I'll reset the activations.

After you have ADE up and running so you can read all of your books, we can work on getting the Sony Reader correctly authorized, but you should take this one step at a time to prevent confusion.

[mary_baltic]

I'm posting this in case it helps anyone else with a similar problem. Someone on another forum where I asked for help on this problem said I might need to authorise the Sony ereader separately and also suggested that if you install the Sony software on a computer which is not authorised for Adobe ID it sets up another Adobe ID in the background using the same password that you set up for your Sony account.  This would mean you would have the two Adobe IDs problem

Here in the UK we don't have access to the Sony store (we have to go through retailing partners) so you can't set up a Sony account in the Sony estore and authorise the ereader separately that way.  You don't seem to need to do this step in the UK. However she did register the ereader as a new product with Sony.

As I said, I am not sure what she has done.  It is possible that she set originally up ADE anonymously (she can't remember) but when she registered her Sony (which is possibly not the same as authorising it) she used the same email and password as she used for the Adobe ID she  then used to authorise the computer for ADE.  So it should not have resulted in her having two separate Adobe IDs.  However this might be the answer for someone else if they got an Adobe ID through Sony with a different password.  Hope it helps

[Guest]

I got your PM and responded and have reset the activations for your daughter.  Please have her try to get ADE up and running with the AdobeID you sent me and make sure she can access all of her books.  If she can't read all of her books in ADE, let's get that fixed up before trying to get things working on the Sony Reader.

[mary_baltic]

Thank you soooo much. We have now got all but two of the books opening in ADE and I am sure I can get the other two back, it's just that we need to activate another download which I can't do till tomorrow. I am confident this can be fixed as we can read one of the three she bought prior to getting the ereader so it ought to be possible to get the other two back as well

Having got this far I really don't want to get things wrong now. Please, what do I do next to get the Sony Reader up and running?

Caroline sends her grateful thanks as well

[Guest]

With ADE running on Windows and now authorized to the correct AdobeID plug in the reader

If the Device Authorizitaion dialog show up,  Authorize the device and skip the next step.

If it doesn't ask you to Authorize, but shows up in ADE:

•      press "Ctrl+Shift+E", this will bring up the "Device Deactivation" dialog
•      select your Sony Reader and deactivate it.
•      Unplug and replug your Sony Reader
•      The Device Authorization dialog should show up, and you can Authorize to the correct AdobeID.
  

Once you are sure you have the Reader authorized to the correct AdobeID, transfer one of the books in ADE, and verify that when you unplug the Reader, that you can read the book on the reader.

Report any problems and we'll go from there.

[mary_baltic]

I am a very happy woman!! (And I have a very happy daughter)

Thank you so much for your help.  I still don't know what she did but it seems to be fixed

I  got an error message when I connected the ereader saying a problem occurred while installing the Ereader software on your computer and I still couldn't open some of the ebooks even though I could open them in ADE so my heart sank.  However I deleted the problem titles from the ereader and reimported them  and then they were fine. I don't know what the error in installing the software was as it seems to be fully functional albeit rather slow to import large titles

She has been given strict instructions not to muck around with anything

Happy Christmas!!

[AMCarrie]

Hi,

Just want to say...not sure what happened but unplugged everything and plugged it all back in for the 4th time and the authorisation window popped up...givingme the option to change the authorisation of my eReader.

I have now done this and all is OK

Thank you

Anne Marie

[423756780445119]

Hi                                                                                                                    

    please u will help me to do in Adobe ID and password.

cuz it's these wont to open my email?

how? for adobephotoshop. How I can answer to open, I do not understanding.............................