New Nook Simple Touch will not connect to B&N

[Banjo]

Hello,

I just registered on this forum so this is my first post. My new Nook ST will not connect to B&N so that I can register it. I have searched the forum and did not see any threads describing my problem. Sorry if I have duplicated a post.

Today I bought a Nook Simple Touch and attempted to register it. I bought it new from the MIT COOP. It is not a second hand unit. It has not been dropped or damaged.

While registering, I got through the first steps and to the WiFi screen where there was a strong signal to my wifi router. I entered the WEP key, clicked on "Connect" and the message under the SID cycled through:

"Obtaining address..."

twice and then settled down with the message

"Remembered, secured with WEP".

At that point, the "Continue with Setup" button was grayed out and did nothing. I am stuck there. Nothing I do will unstick the button.

Here is what I have tried to get this to work.

I told it to "Forget" the WEP and re-entered it. No go.
I entered the WEP in both upper case & lower case. No go.
I turned the device completely off and back on. No go.
I reconnected multiple times. No go.
I unplugged the Nook from the charger and moved it farther from the Wifi ( in case of signal overload). No go.
I had somebody else re-accomplish the entire setup. No go.

I called B&N tech support. All they could do was to read me the same instructions that had not worked. They were totally useless. They told me to call my ISP and have the Nook MAC address entered into the router. I told her that MAC filtering is turned off. I got the repeated instructions to call the ISP to have the Nook enabled in the router. After 15 minutes of that loop I gave up and hung up. Totally useless.

As instructed on the Nook, I went to nook.com/wifi and found the FAQ for the Nook ST. The online support instructions told me to go to Settings and then Wireless to toggle the Wifi off and on. The 'n' button does nothing, so there is no menu at the bottom to go to Settings. Does that only work after the Nook has been registered? What am I missing?

I logged into the router to confirm that MAC filtering is off. It is OFF. We have three computers and one smart phone currently talking to the same router through the Wifi using the same SID and WEP key without entering any MAC addresses. I could see that the Nook was connected with its own IP address and the correct MAC address that was reported from the device. So the Wifi connection is there, but the "Continue with Setup" button is still grayed out.

I pinged the Nook from the router, and the router said that it was successful, so there is a Wifi connection to the router.

So we are connected to the Wifi router, but apparently there is no internet connection or something. All the other devices on my network are working just fine. There are no error messages.

Am I doing something that is obviously wrong, or did I buy a brick?

Sorry for the long posting, but I thought that I would post all the things I have already tried to see if I left out any tricks. This is really frustrating.

My next step is to take the Nook to an open Wifi to see if it is our system ( I doubt it).

After that, I will take the Nook back to the MIT COOP, turn it in and try to find a Kobo.

Thanks in advance for any help with this.
Banjo
(_)=='=~

[afv011]

Originally Posted by Banjo

My next step is to take the Nook to an open Wifi to see if it is our system ( I doubt it).

Hi, welcome to the forum.

That'd be my suggestion, try a different router first. I've read that some users have had issues with some models of routers. You could also try to change the authentication to WPA for a test (or permanently, WEP is not secure enough). Good luck.

[pwnn]

I had no problem registering my Nook at home when I first got it. But when I had to do it again several months later after a factory reset it wouldn't work. The set up was exactly the same as the first successful time and I quadruple checked and reset everything but no dice.

Others this has happened to have said they were successful using another wi-fi source. So I wound up registering while standing outside a McDonalds using their free wi-fi. It took about 10 seconds. Strangely after I registered I was able to connect at home.

[RAH]

As others have said, it seems to me that you should try another WiFi connection.

You are trying to do TWO things at the same time here - it sounds like you don't even have a reliably-working WiFi connection, and you are trying to use it to register your Nook. Well, the first thing to do is to find a reliable connection. Then register your Nook.

Afterwards, you can worry about getting your own WiFi connection setup and working. It would probably be easier to use a laptop computer to diagnose your router problems, but I don't see how you could use an unregistered Nook for such a task.

[Banjo]

Thanks for the input. Our library has an open Wifi so I will try that later.

My home Wifi is working great. I have three computers and one smart phone already using it. This morning I connected two different laptops to the home Wifi with no problems. It is only the Nook that can't get through.

Last night, when I logged into the router from one of the computers, the Nook showed up as connected to Wifi. I could ping it from the router. But it was still not getting any farther than that. I am not running any firewalls that I know of. Anybody know what port it is talking on? Maybe it is using an odd port number and that is being blocked by the router.

Next stop is the local Library to see what they can do. I will update the forum with the results.

Thanks,
Banjo
(_)=='=~

[RAH]

Originally Posted by Banjo

My home Wifi is working great. I have three computers and one smart phone already using it. This morning I connected two different laptops to the home Wifi with no problems. It is only the Nook that can't get through.

Oh, I didn't realize that. It sounded like you didn't have a working wifi (or I incorrectly heard that ). Anyway, it would be a good idea to just register with an easy to access spot like the library would have.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by Banjo

Anybody know what port it is talking on? Maybe it is using an odd port number and that is being blocked by the router.

It's using HTTP(S) requests on standard ports (80, 443). You can always run WireShark on one of your PCs and monitor the traffic, but I wouldn't bother, just try a public WiFi and you'll probably be fine. If that fails, then you have a faulty unit.

[Banjo]

I am back from the library. It worked.

The library Wifi is totally open, and the Nook got through and registered. So at least the thing is alive.

Support your local library. They have far more to offer than just books for your eReader.

After I got home, I tried the home Wifi, and it still fails. So there is something amiss on my home network that is only affecting the Nook and nothing else. That is strange because last night we definitely saw that it had a connection with the router. It cannot get to the internet.

Thanks to everyone for the information. I will go look for ports 80 and 443 to see if the router is somehow blocking them. Meanwhile, I will sideload some PD books to read. If I want to purchase a book I can always do it at the library.

This is a really great forum.


Banjo
(_)=='=~
P.S. I just looked up 80 and 443 and found they are HTTP and HTTPS. So I guess if they are blocked nothing would work. Still a puzzle.

[geertm]

If your NST is not running software 1.2.1 update the software. The software updates improved Wifi.

Is there a reason why you are using WEP? WEP is not secure anymore. If you can, try WPA2.

Some router things to check:
- Do not use spaces or other special characters in your SSID.
- Use only lower case letters for the SSID, no upper case.
- In case of an N speed router set speed to G, not G/N mixed.
- Check if router is running the latest firmware, otherwise update.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by Banjo

I am back from the library. It worked.

The library Wifi is totally open, and the Nook got through and registered. So at least the thing is alive.

Support your local library. They have far more to offer than just books for your eReader.

After I got home, I tried the home Wifi, and it still fails. So there is something amiss on my home network that is only affecting the Nook and nothing else. That is strange because last night we definitely saw that it had a connection with the router. It cannot get to the internet.

Thanks to everyone for the information. I will go look for ports 80 and 443 to see if the router is somehow blocking them. Meanwhile, I will sideload some PD books to read. If I want to purchase a book I can always do it at the library.

This is a really great forum.


Banjo
(_)=='=~
P.S. I just looked up 80 and 443 and found they are HTTP and HTTPS. So I guess if they are blocked nothing would work. Still a puzzle.

If you want to diagnose the problem, try WireShark, it's a network sniffer and you will see where the nook is trying to send its packets, and how far they go. You can then ping the server the nook is trying to reach and see what you get.

[Banjo]

Thanks for the tips. I will take a look.

Banjo
(_)=='=~

[Banjo]

IT WORKS!

I searched the net again, and someone said that they had the same issue (i..e. the Nook won't connect on FIOS) and that they had fixed it with a software upgrade to the Nook.

According to my Nook, it had software version 1.1.0, and the latest upgrade, as of December 20th, is 1.1.2. The upgrade is supposed to be automatically installed by the Nook via the Wifi.... but since the Wifi is not working... it can't get the upgrade to install the fix to connect to the Mother Ship to get the upgrade.... and so on.

So I followed the instructions on the B&N site to download and install the 1.1.2 upgrade manually, and now the Nook connects.

So, it was a problem in the Nook after all. I am somewhat miffed that the B&N support staff did not know about the problem and the fix. Instead they just told me (over and over) to call my ISP and have them put the MAC address into the router... even though I told them that MAC filtering is OFF. This should have been a 10 minute fix over the phone, not an entire weekend of internet searches. Not very good support in my book.

Anyway, now I can connect, and that is all water under the bridge.

Thanks to everyone on this forum for helping me with this. Now that my Nook ST is working, I really do like it a lot.

Banjo
(_)=='=~

[RAH]

Glad you got it working. One thing however - the latest version of the Simple Touch software is 1.2.1 (not 1.1.2), as shown here:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/Soft...ouch/379003175

[Banjo]

Oops. I guess I transposed a couple of the numbers. I installed the version that was out on the support page, 1.2.1.

The upgrade was easy to do.

1. Download the zip file to the computer
2. Plug in the NOOK
3. Drag the zip file to the "NOOK" drive
4. Unmount the NOOK and unplug it.
5. Wait for a few minutes.

The technology is pretty easy to use. Finding out what needed to be done was difficult.

Banjo
(_)=='=~

[Banjo]

I thought that I had put this issue to bed, but it got weird again today.

<rant>

I checked out and downloaded an eBook from our library to see how that would go. It was a disaster.

I installed Adobe Digital Editions as required in order to manage the book. I went through all the steps, checked out the book from OverDrive, created an Adobe ID, downloaded the book, registered the computer and the NOOK, and copied the book over to the NOOK. When I tried to read the book, I got an error:

"Error Dialog: User not activated"

I could not read the book. After a couple of hours with Google (again) I ran into the following explanation on the Adobe forums.

Just FYI, according to Barnes & Noble's own "KnowledgBase" they are aware of this problem. At the bottom of a page discussing this problem, in a SMALL Note, is the following (word for word):

"Note: You may be required to re-authorize the NOOK after any software update has occurred (i.e. updating NOOK Color from version 1.4.1 to version 1.4.2). Any previously side loaded libary books will provide the "User Not Authorized" message when attempting to open after a software update."

I had just upgraded the software on my NOOK from 1.1.0 to 1.2.1 to get the WiFi connection to work, so I assumed that this was the problem. It was. Here is what I had to do to make the book readable:

1 Reset the NOOK to factory settings. That erased everything on it.
2. Go through the setup procedure again from scratch. Fortunately I could connect at home this time.
3. After resetting the NOOK, ADE would not see it. I guess you only get one try at it.
4. Uninstall ADE and remove all of the folders it created.
5. Reinstall ADE.
6. Download my library book onto ADE again.
7. Hook up the NOOK to the ADE and copy the book over to it.

What a pain. I am glad I had only one DRM book on this thing. I had to start over again from scratch because B&N screwed up their software update. Some people on the forum said that they had lost access to all their books and had to reload all of them after the reset. Unacceptable!

So now I have seen two show-stopper bugs in their software that cost me hours of frustration. There is no excuse for making a customer go through all of that because B&N did a lousy job of upgrading their software.

The B&N software is crap. The ADE software is crap.

Fortunately, I had put most of my public domain books on the SD card, and the reset did not delete those books. So they were still there.

So here is an interesting contrast. I had assumed that I would lose my PD books as well, so I ran Calibre and added them to the Calibre library. When I booted up Calibre and connected the NOOK, Calibre found the books on the card and updated its library status automatically, even though I had added some of those books under the table with file copies. Calibre knew that the books had been added to the card. Kewl.

Also, with Calibre I can mount and unmount the NOOK without restarting the program. Not so with ADE. Every time I want to mount the NOOK I have to shut down the ADE, plug in the NOOK, and then run ADE again. Crap.

The NOOK is working fine again, and I can read my library book... but only after another half day of trouble shooting B&N bugs.

</rant>

Banjo
(_)=='=~