Troubleshoot - Adobe Digital Editions

[shefguk]

Hi - wonder whether anyone can help.

I have Adobe Digital Editions which was working well until a few months ago when I decided to authorize my computer (don't ask me why!). Ever since, I can't read the books I downloaded prior to authorizing the computer - it says authorized to a different license - but given it wasn't authorized before I'm confused!

Is there any way I can solve this problem?

Thanks!

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by shefguk

Hi - wonder whether anyone can help.

I have Adobe Digital Editions which was working well until a few months ago when I decided to authorize my computer (don't ask me why!). Ever since, I can't read the books I downloaded prior to authorizing the computer - it says authorized to a different license - but given it wasn't authorized before I'm confused!

Is there any way I can solve this problem?

Thanks!

I think, unless you have a back-up of your system from before you authorised your copy of ADE, you have lost those ebooks. If you're very lucky, the people you've bought them from will let you re-download if you ask nicely, but it will cost them money to do this, so they may well not do so.

Before you authorised your copy of ADE is was implicitly authorised to that particular installation of ADE on your particular machine. The DRM on the books you bought was linked to that implicit authorisation. You would not have been able to read those books on any other device or any other copy of ADE.

When you explicitly authorised your copy of ADE using an Adobe ID, the DRM key for that copy of ADE changed to be based on your Adobe ID, not on your machine configuration. So your old books could no longer be read.

IMO this is a basic flaw in ADE. It should not allow use without proper authorisation. Doing so is just asking for trouble of the kind you're now having.

If you had become acquainted with Apprentice Alf and used the tools available at his blog before you authorised your copy of ADE, you would have been able to remove the DRM, and so still have access to your old books. Unfortunately, the tools rely on being able to find the correct decoding key on your machine, which is no longer there, now that you've authorised your copy of ADE.

Sorry to have such bad news for you.

[EowynCarter]

Maybe you can try adobe support.

Got the same problem, i didn't authorized ADE when installing, as I didn't need to download book then. Then, some time later, i buy a book, and had forgotten about authorization. Then, second silly mistake, i authorized ADE. And as pdurrant said, that deleted the temporary authorization, preventing from reading the book on PC, and using inept to fix the problem.

Since then, i always check ade is authorized before doing anything.

If you're very lucky, the people you've bought them from will let you re-download if you ask nicely, but it will cost them money to do this, so they may well not do so.

That would requires renewing the license. Or ADE whine about the license being already used by an other user.

[VicLavigne]

As pdurrant points out (and I have said as much in my own posts), you can purchase and view DRM'd ebooks. If you want to keep the ebook, you'd best try to remove the DRM. DRM restricts your access to that ebook. It's that simple.

Vic