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Old 09-08-2008, 04:39 PM   #1
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Help! DRMed books crashing the UK PRS-505 on a Mac

Hi,

My Windows laptop has gone to the big recycling heap in the sky, so I'm using VMWare Fusion to run Windows XP on an Intel MacBook. Everything else I've thrown at VMWare has worked perfectly, so I was hoping the Sony PRS-505 would be happy with this set-up, but alas things are rocky.

I'm in the UK with the UK version of the Reader which runs software version 1.2.00.18050. I've installed the Sony eBook Library and the Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) software on 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 can't download the book again, Waterstones have restricted users to one download per title - which kind of sucks. I *could* email them and ask them to unlock the DRM so I can make a second download, but I'm not impressed with their support).

I've also installed the Mac version of ADE, but doesn't seem to see the Reader, so I can't try copying the DRMed files using Mac ADE.

So - and this is a long shot - has anyone in the UK found a way of getting the Reader to work on a Mac using books bought from the Waterstones store??? If you have, please post some step-by-step instructions.

Many thanks, hopefully you can get me using this beautiful machine as intended!

Mike.

Last edited by iCowboy; 09-08-2008 at 04:41 PM.
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Old 09-08-2008, 05:18 PM   #2
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Alternative

I Don't have a PRS-505, I have the 500, but I thought that the USB didn't quite communicate right with stuff under VMware. But you could always just boot natively into windows with Boot Camp or whatever Leopard is calling it now that it's out of beta. It should work fine that way.

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Old 09-08-2008, 05:29 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by iCowboy View Post
I've also installed the Mac version of ADE, but doesn't seem to see the Reader, so I can't try copying the DRMed files using Mac ADE.
Correct. Adobe says they need a driver from Sony for Mac in order for DE to recognize the reader. But, you should just be able to copy the book file using Finder.

Also, rather than using the VM, did you use boot camp to create a partition? If so you may want to try it that way.

BOb
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Old 09-08-2008, 05:38 PM   #4
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PRS-505 and ADE on a mac

The linked post below should help.
Woked fine for me - I'm currently reading "The Book Thief" downloaded from Waterstones to Adobe Digital Editions on a mac and transferred from ADE to my Sony reader using the Finder.

Note that you 1st need to authorise the PRS-505 on a windows box using ADE.

Once the PRS-505 is authorised, you no longer need to use Windows (unless you do a hard reset, in which case you will probably need to re-activate the Sony using windows).

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28883
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Old 09-08-2008, 05:45 PM   #5
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Hmmm that might work

Quote:
Originally Posted by deedward9 View Post
I Don't have a PRS-505, I have the 500, but I thought that the USB didn't quite communicate right with stuff under VMware. But you could always just boot natively into windows with Boot Camp or whatever Leopard is calling it now that it's out of beta. It should work fine that way.

Devin
I've checked, Leopard has Boot Camp pre-installed. So if I can find a Windows XP disk it might just work. Oh good - installing Windows, that's always fun

I'll post back if I have any success. Many thanks for the suggestion and extra thanks for the quick response!

In the meantime, if anyone knows of a Mac-native way, please let me know!

Mike.
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Old 09-09-2008, 06:19 PM   #6
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Hi Devin, Hi Bob,

I tried everything now. I created a Boot Camp partition, installed XP, brought it up to date, installed the Sony software and ADE. Plugged in the Reader, registered it with the system. Bought another book - crash after crash after crash.

I then tried a forcible reset, re-registered it, downloaded another book into Mac ADE and then tried copying the ePub file via Finder as suggested in Bob's link, but with the same result.

I'm suspecting I have a faulty Reader, so I've emailed Waterstones' never-knowingly-helpful customer services to see if I can take it in to a store and get a replacement.

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Old 09-14-2008, 07:30 AM   #7
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Did you manage to fix this? I'm using Vista and having the same problem I've downloaded a DRM ebook from waterstones and it looks fine in ADE - I can see the PRS in ADE without a problem but when I copy the book over to eithier the internal or the SD memory it constantly reboots until I plug it back into the PC and remove the file?
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Old 09-14-2008, 08:08 AM   #8
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Hi,

Sorry to hear that someone else is in the same boat. You seem to be having exactly the same problem as me. Just as a matter of interest, has your Reader ever been used with a Mac? If not, that would suggest the problem affects versions of Windows that Sony supposedly supports.

I haven't fixed it as yet. At the moment I can't even authorise the Reader as ADE tells me I've used up all my authorisations - and so far it's taken 5 days for Adobe not to clear the previous authorisations. As soon as that happens I will try once more to see if the machine will authorise and work with the books from Watestones.

If that doesn't work, I'll try creating a new AdobeID, getting another book and see if that ID will work - it is possible my AdobeID has been corrupted, although it doesn't seem likely.

I went into a Waterstones store this week and they have promised to exchange the Reader for a new one. At the moment they're on back-order with a wait of about 2 weeks. It might be worth going in to your nearest Waterstones and asking for a replacement - you never know they might even have one.

Let us know if you make progress.
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Old 09-14-2008, 08:14 AM   #9
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Hi,

No - It's never been connected to a Mac - I only bought it from the Sony Store in oxford yesterday so I might take it back there. The only similarity between us might be the fact that last night I used safari to download the book.

To see if it was the waterstones store I bought another cheap book this morning from ebooks.com and had the same problem. So I might try another one using IE or firefox and see what happens. Otherwise I'm going to dump one on the internal memory and take it back to the sony store and claim ignorance I think! If they swap it out and it then works at least we'll know it's some sort of DRM issue on the device?
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Old 09-14-2008, 08:42 AM   #10
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Thanks for the quick reply. I can help you in one respect, it's not Safari - I've only ever used Firefox under Windows XP to download books and they haven't worked either.

I'd rush back to the store if I were you - Sony are REALLY short of devices in the UK and restocking times are being quoted in terms of weeks. What I did to persuade Waterstones there was a problem was put the eBook on an SD card and show them the machine running happily without the card, then crash, crash, crash with the card inserted.

Let me know if you a new machine that works!

Argh! Literally while I've been writing, Waterstones have called to say I need to send my Reader back to Sony to see if they can find a fault. They are saying I would be without one for several *weeks*.

Hope you get more satisfaction.
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Old 09-14-2008, 02:20 PM   #11
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Just been into oxford and back - they swapped it out without a problem. However I took a SD card with one of the ebooks on it with me and put it in in the car park and the same thing happened - it just constantly reboots!

So returning yours might not be the answer. It looks more like a software issue with the DRM. Do you have any idea how it works?

I presumed putting a file on the SD card and putting it in a reader that had not been authorised with ADE would come up with a message about the file not being DRM'd for this device? Instead it just reboots? I'd like to try a file that someone else had working and authorised on their reader and see what it says?

I've also just authenticated my reader with ADE and copied the file over and the same thing has happened.. reboot city!

Any ideas what else I could try?
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Old 09-14-2008, 04:04 PM   #12
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Damn! I was hoping it was nothing more than a software/hardware bug inside the Reader itself.

I’ve tried putting one of my DRMed books into an unauthorised Reader and the book is there (no crashing!), but it is listed as having just one page and can’t be opened.

The first thing to check is if your Waterstone’s book is readable inside Adobe Digital Editions on your computer. Double-click the book in the Library, it should open and give you a contents page and show the first page of the book. In my case the book opens and I can read it on the computer. The corruption is something to do with the Reader and its connection to the computer.

I don’t know if you’ll have any luck calling Sony and explaining your problem. I haven’t used Sony’s UK support, so I can’t tell you if they are at all useful in these matters. If you do get anywhere, let me know.

My other suggestion is to see if it anything to do with your AdobeID and Adobe Digital Editions. If it something about our AdobeIDs then another AdobeID shouldn't do the same thing and you could open DRMed books assigned to that ID.

If you know someone else who owns a working Reader you could always temporarily assign your Reader to their ID (see instructions below) and see if their books can be opened on your Reader. You’ll need to perform a hard reset on your Reader which erases all the data on the machine and resets any DRM on the Reader itself. The next time it is plugged into a PC running ADE, the PC will detect the Reader and authenticate it to that user’s AdobeID. Obviously, save any data you want to keep before resetting your Reader.

HUGE WARNING APPROACHING
For reasons best known to themselves Adobe have limited the number of times you can activate your Reader to six. If you try a seventh time your Reader cannot be authenticated and you’ll need to plead with Adobe Technical Support to undo the previous activations. They’re on:

http://www.adobe.com/support/digitaleditions/

But they don’t respond quickly, I’ve been waiting four days for my account to be unlocked.

RESETTING A READER
(Remember this is going to wipe your machine’s memory). If the Reader is on, slide the "Power" so that it turns off. Look for a small pinhole on the back panel and press the reset button on the back using a bent paper clip (do not use anything sharp like a pin).

Slide the "Power" button to turn it on. While the screen displays "Starting up ...", you will see the light above the "Power" button flash in yellow. Hold down the "MARK" and "VOL +" buttons.

Keep these 2 buttons pressed until the screen will show a "Reset All" message, and ask to delete all content. Press button '5' to clean up content, this could take several minutes if you have many files on the Reader. When the deletion completes, the Reader will turn off.

If the Reader can read someone else’s files then you can be fairly sure that the problem lies with the AdobeID you’ve been using to get books. If you don’t know anyone with a working Reader then the only way I can think of doing it is really quite involved. It starts by getting a new AdobeID from the Adobe site at:

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/member...nl=1&loc=en_us

You’ll need a second email address to do this. You’ll then need to:

1) uninstall Adobe Digital Editions from your PC (or create a new user account on the PC);
2) reinstall with your new AdobeID;
3) hard reset your Reader and authenticate it using the new AdobeID;
4) create a new account at Waterstones using your alternative email address;
5) buy a book from Waterstones using your new account;
6) download it on to your Reader.
7) unplug the reader and not have it crash!

The problem here is of course that any books assigned to your old AdobeID won’t be readable on your new machine because they are assigned to different email addresses.

Hopefully, Waterstones will understand when you explain your problem and allow you to transfer books to your new account.

I’m waiting to do this just as soon as Adobe unlock my ID, but goodness knows how long this will take.

I really wish someone would tell us what is wrong with this. The problem is that we have three organisations – Sony, Adobe and Waterstones; all of whom will point the finger at someone else. Only one thing is clear – the DRM on this product is killing it as far as I’m concerned; I’ve paid a lot of money, followed all the rules and the product simply doesn’t work as advertised. Sony and Adobe have screwed up.

I’ve posted a request for help on the Adobe Digital Editions support forums, so hopefully someone there knows what to do. I’ll pass on any info I have here.

In the meantime, good luck!

Mike.
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Old 09-14-2008, 05:50 PM   #13
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Mike,

the books do open in ADE on my PC. I also bought a book from www.ebooks.com and I can read that on my PC but have the same crashing problem with it as the book I bought from waterstones. I guess this at least rules out waterstones?

I think my next step is I'll install ADE on my laptop and try transferring the books from there to see if that works?

I'm kind of in the same position as you - if I can't get it to work with DRM books it really limits what you can use it for.

Dave
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Old 09-14-2008, 06:44 PM   #14
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OK - quick update before I go to bed!

I've created a new profile on my PC - I've even changed the USB port I'm connected to and it's new cable as I got another when I swapped the PRS today. Then I did the hard reset on the PRS. I created a new adobe account, I then ran up ADE and authorized with this account - all OK to this point.

I then plugged in the PRS and activated/authenticated that as well all perfect.

I created a new waterstones account with a new email address (the same as the new adobe account as well). I then bought a new book from waterstones all downloaded OK and appears in ADE - I can open it look at it etc on the PC perfectly.

However once copied to either the internal memory or a SD card it reboots constantly again! Well peed off now!

So what's left the PC/installation as a whole I guess?

All I can think of doing now is installing it all on my laptop and trying that? Fortunatly www.ebooks.com allows you to download multiple times so I'll use that adobe account for testing.

If I get anywhere with this tomorrow I'll let you know. - I know someone else has replied to your post on the ADE forum already with the same problem.

Dave
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Old 09-14-2008, 07:01 PM   #15
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Hi Dave,

To save your time, I've done a clean install on a machine and still had the same trouble. By the sounds of it this is an issue beyond any of our control. I guess we'd all better start asking Sony serious questions about how such a product got released.

I've started a thread on the Adobe Digital Editions forum and there's already a third person in the same situation as you and me.

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/?13@...Ds@.59b67ba8/0

I'll give Sony a call tomorrow as well, if enough of us make contact perhaps they will take it seriously.

Good luck,

Mike.
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