[BobVA]

OK, after convincing myself this is the same problem as some UK users were seeing with ADE protected content, I'm now unconvinced.

If anybody from Adobe is reading the mail, here's an example of the problem:

- Load an external memory card with content. Doesn't have to be ADE, public domain stuff is fine. Use about 200 titles.
- Put a few ADE protected books on the Reader using ADE.

Now try removing or adding books on the Reader with either ADE or the Sony desktop software. What happens to me is that when the Reader is detached from the computer it will get the spinning arrows frozen on the screen for a long time, then briefly show the internal Reader memory contents on the screen, then the spinning arrows will reappear as it rescans the external memory card (regardless of whether it was changed or not) then it will freeze up again and usually crash and reboot. After it reboots it will attempt to rescan the card again, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

If I remove the card during the scanning process it will prevent the crash. If I then re-insert the card it will freeze up for about a half hour to an hour, apparently reformatting all the documents on the card, regardless of whether they've been changed or not.

What I think may be happening is that some files are being marked as changed by ADE, or some cache information is being destroyed, causing the Reader to treat every disconnect from the computer like it was just loaded with all new content on both the internal and external memory.

I've tried reformatting the Reader, a variety of MS and SD cards, reformatting the cards and putting differing files on the external and internal memory.

The only consistent observation I've been able to make is that the problem does not seem to occur if I don't use any external media with the Reader OR don't use ADE protected content. The Reader worked fine with external media (with lots of books on it) before I started using ADE and ADE protected content and the same setup worked find on my PRS500.

Regards,
Bob

UPDATE (9/23): I just checked/deleted a protected book (from my library) and added two to the Reader via ADE. The Reader crashed after a couple of minutes of frozen spinning arrows. After it rebooted it took about 15 minutes to re-index everything a return to the menu.

Unfortunately I did two thing at once, as I've also recently added some non-Adobe content, bringing the total number of books on the Reader to 122. Not sure if I went over some magic number, or just the issue of adding/removing the protected PDF's was the problem.

Reconnecting the Reader to the computer and moving the two protected books to a collection netted me another 15 minute re-indexing freeze.

I then tried reconnecting it to the computer and just accessing it with the Sony desktop software (i.e. just looking at the contents). That went OK and the reader was back in action about 10 seconds after disconnecting it from the computer.