PRS-600 protected page error

[ejm]

Reading through this thread above, isn't it remarkable how much time and energy so many of us spent trying to FIGURE OUT what our problem with "Protected Page" errors were all about?

Wouldn't it have been much more respectful for SONY to have made it clear that it has a firmware problem that other manufacturers do not have and that they are working on a fix?

Wouldn't that simple direct message have made us happy to have purchased a SONY product - demonstrating that SONY respects our valuable time and energy - and to alert us that they're doing their best to address it?

For a major company like SONY to miss the mark so widely in customer relations is a sadly missed opportunity. Instead of turn a bad situation around ... they've made it worse, and now almost beyond reputational repair.

[gwen17]

Originally Posted by ejm

Wouldn't it have been much more respectful for SONY to have made it clear that it has a firmware problem that other manufacturers do not have and that they are working on a fix?

I completely agree. I've had my reader for a few months and have felt nothing but totally thrilled with it -- I've checked out both PDFs and ePUBs from the library with no problems whatsoever (except some PDF formatting issues that I understand are the publisher's fault and not Sony's or Overdrive's).

Until tonight, when I tried to check out both a PDF and an ePUB at the same time, and I got that evil "page protected!" error. It's a ridiculous bug to be sure, but not insurmountable; if Sony had simply said, "we recognize it's a problem, we're working on it," I would have respected that.

But the so-called help page just saying "you can't do this" -- this totally normal thing that one would expect to be able to do -- is insulting to customers, and I feel like kind of an idiot for telling someone just an hour ago why she should choose this device over a Nook or a Kobo or anything else that you can get library books on. Bad form, Sony.

[gwen17]

Wow, if I was annoyed when I posted that message, now I'm furious...

Just downloaded two new ePUB books from the library, and was in the middle of reading a third. I wanted to do a little housekeeping, so I returned every library book I was finished with (including 2 PDFs that I never could read since I also had ePUB books on there) and went to get back into my third book.

Now I can't open ANY of the library books on my ereader. All of them are ePUB, no PDFs in sight. I did some troubleshooting, deleted all the library books from my device and my Reader Library, restarted, loaded them back on, nothing. Deleted EVERYTHING (including my notes, which I'm now really upset to find were not backed up on my computer) and tried again, with absolutely nothing on the entire device on the reader except the single ePUB library book I was reading before, and... nothing.

I did a hard restart, which deleted everything on the reader, reauthorized my account through the Sony eReader Store. Re-downloaded the library book, tried to put it on the reader again. Still the protected page error, despite the message that my DRM settings were being reset.

Has this ever happened to anyone? Any words of wisdom?

(Also, Sony reps, if you're reading this -- you MUST fix this problem. The fact that I now can't read library books in any format is totally unacceptable; it's the whole reason I purchased your product in the first place. If I knew this was going to happen, I'd buy a Nook instead.)

[ejm]

Originally Posted by gwen17

Has this ever happened to anyone? Any words of wisdom?

I'm so sorry to hear you're going through such frustration. Yes, we've been there too. I'll offer some painful "wisdom" but you won't enjoy hearing it ...

Like you, we spent much precious time trying to overcome this defect - countless hours installing/uninstalling/googling forums/emails/phonecalls to SONY support. Yes, you've tried all the reasonable solutions.

Our conclusion is that SONY is well aware of the problem, they fully understand it, and apparently believe it's not worth their time and effort to fix it - nor to even forthrightly own it. Their solution: no solution.

To my knowledge, SONY is the only reader brand with a defective treatment of DRM that results in the dreaded "Protected Page" error with pdf and epub formats simultaneously.

Sadly, we resolved our problem by looking to another product. My wife and I now own nooks - we enjoy library books without any glitches, and we couldn't be happier with our reading experience.

Having always preferred SONY brand products, I'm now sorry to say, given SONY's mishandling of this issue (i.e., not handling it), the only "wisdom" I can offer you is to look to another brand reader.

- with empathy and best wishes!