PRS-650 Library reader crashes on connection

[meremark]

HI there,
Brand new Reader PSR-650 for Xmas. Using it with a mac, OSX 10.6.5. Worked beautifully for the first few days. Now everytime I connect it via USB, the Reader library software closes immediately (with very lenghty error message attached) It seemed to start happening just after i tried to sync it which I had not done before. Any ideas? I;m a little reluctant to removed the software as i have already bought a few ebooks an don't want to lose them.

Thanks

[Pinecone]

If you bought the books from the Sony store, you can re-download them at any time. Just go to My Account and choose the link to eredownload the books.

[Mark Nord]

two things you can try

1. delete all occurences of "media.xml" on your PRS (connect it via USB and use OS-filebrowser) They will be automaticaly recreated.
2. Delete the "kinoma" configuration folders following this procedure

[Bookworm_Girl]

Hi, meremark. Welcome to MobileRead! It might be helpful if you could post some of the error message. Does Reader Library work ok as long as your 650 isn't connected via USB? Does your 650 work fine, i.e. no reboots or crashes when you try to read any of your books?

Have you already downloaded your books from the Sony Store? If so, then you should be able to find copies of them in the folder Documents/My Books/Reader Library.

I would try to delete the media.xml, as Mark suggests. I'm not sure about deleting the kinoma folders on Mac. I haven't seen anyone recommend this step before. There is an xml file with kinoma in the title in the folder Library/Preferences/fsk/1. I am not sure what the repercussion would be if you delete it. Although, when you reinstall the Reader Library for Mac software, fsk is one of the special folders that you need to delete for the reinstall to work properly.

Here are some other threads to look through that might be similar problems. Have you tried a simple power off and back on? If these recommendations don't work, then I think I would try a soft reset next. Lastly I would try a reformat of the main internal memory of your reader from within Settings on your 650. It will delete your books and reset the various cache files which may have become corrupted. But, it maintains any settings you have customized from defaults.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=110863
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=106499

[Bookworm_Girl]

I found a very old thread with the Mac equivalent of Mark's recommendation for the kinoma folders. I wish I had seen this thread a few weeks ago. I had the disappearing Mac window issue in this link too. To fix it I uninstalled and reinstalled the software, which meant I had to reload my library and create my collections over. Wish I had known there was a simpler fix... However, the issue that you describe is different than the one that I had. You at least can get the software open, and it sounds as if your problem only occurs once the ereader is connected via USB.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59980

[meremark]

Thank you thank you thank you! Problem is solved. So much better than the response I got from the Sony helpline here in Australia ("we've never heard of that problem before...hold on I'll escalate your call and someone will call you back soon"....4 days ago and no call!)
What a great response, especially over the Xmas/New Year period.

I'll definitely be using this site a lot more!
Cheers from Oz

[doreenjoy]

Could you let us know which solution worked for you, in case others have the same problem in the future?

[meremark]

It was the suggestions from Mark regarding the media.xml and kinoma. i followed the instruction on kinoma found in this thread

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59980

as suggested by bookworm girl which was very simple.

Thanks again

I do have a couple of other issues, but I will start a new thread, as I am pretty sure they are unrelated.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Great news! Glad it's working. Thank you, Mark! He deserves all the credit. It was his suggestion that made me do a search on kinoma & Mac to find the 2009 old thread. Now we know that there is another Mac option besides uninstall and reinstall. It's odd that the Mac OS names the folder "fsk" and Windows names the folder "kinoma". I never would have guessed that they were related. I wish I understood what Kinoma does. I noticed their logo is listed on my ereader "About" page, but I can't really tell from their website what their product is in relation to the Sony ereaders.

[Mark Nord]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

... It's odd that the Mac OS names the folder "fsk" and Windows names the folder "kinoma". I never would have guessed that they were related. I wish I understood what Kinoma does. I noticed their logo is listed on my ereader "About" page, but I can't really tell from their website what their product is in relation to the Sony ereaders.

Thanks for the commendation, Bookworm_Girl!

To clarify: Kinoma is the companys name.
They maintain a programming-framework named FSK.
The whole User Interface (UI) of all Sony-eReaders, as well as their Reader-Library-Programm and the Firmware-Updater are based on FSK!

Just check the XML-Script-Files in the Readers-Library installation folder like "main-kBook.xml"

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<document xmlns="http://www.kinoma.com/fskin/1" href="x-id://model">
	<code>

The FSK-framework is available under Windows, Linux (for the readers) and MacOS.

HTH
Mark

PS: my FSK Test-Environment for Autorun Applications under MS-Windows is only possilbe due to this fact.

PPS: there seams to be a development-environment for windows (see here), but this programm isn't out in the "wild", nor is a SDK (Software Developer Kit) available.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by Mark Nord

Thanks for the commendation, Bookworm_Girl!

To clarify: Kinoma is the companys name.
They maintain a programming-framework named FSK.
The whole User Interface (UI) of all Sony-eReaders, as well as their Reader-Library-Programm and the Firmware-Updater are based on FSK!

Just check the XML-Script-Files in the Readers-Library installation folder like "main-kBook.xml"

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<document xmlns="http://www.kinoma.com/fskin/1" href="x-id://model">
	<code>

The FSK-framework is available under Windows, Linux (for the readers) and MacOS.

HTH
Mark

PS: my FSK Test-Environment for Autorun Applications under MS-Windows is only possilbe due to this fact.

PPS: there seams to be a development-environment for windows (see here), but this programm isn't out in the "wild", nor is a SDK (Software Developer Kit) available.

Thank you for the explanation. That does help!

[meremark]

Simply for entertainment value. I thought I might post Sony's ever-so-helpful email regarding this problem. 10 days asfter I contacted them. 9 day after the helpful people on this forum solved it. Go the corporate mindset.

.......

Thank you for contacting Sony Australia and apologies for the delayed response in regards to reference number #####.

If the reader has been hard reset to factory and the software will not respond as soon as the reader is connected, then please try to install the reader software on another computer to see if the same issue arises.

There maybe something on the computer that is currently preventing the device or the software from running correctly.

If you have any further questions, we recommend that you contact our Customer Infoline on 1300 13 7669 (Mon - Fri 8am-6pm. EST), with your CASE #######. This service is designed for certain types of enquiries that can be resolved more effectively and efficiently in conversation with one of our trained specialists.

Thank you for choosing Sony.

Regards,
Tier2 IT Support
Sony Australia
Customer Contact Centre

[Bookworm_Girl]

Glad we helped fix your problem and you can laugh their response. Thanks for the update and Happy New Year!