CONNECT store is the PITS!

[KlondikeGeoff]

In 25 years of using computers I have never, ever encountered such a stupid, aggravating and unusable site s the Sony bookstore.

Despite all it's well-known problems, I've managed to buy quite a few books, but absolutely, positively, NEVER AGAIN! I'm inclined to sell the Reader on eBay and forget all about Sony.

I just ordered seven books, totaling $59.60. I then tried to download them, and the stupid Status icon just kept revolving for 15 minutes. When I clicked on Status, the progress bar had only a tiny black bar at the beginning.

So, I hit "cancel" and all I got was a message, "canceling" but the damn icon kept revolving and never stopped, so finally just closed the website.

Went back, logged in, and tried to download them one at a time. Only two actually downloaded. Each of the other five had the same problem, the icon kept revolving, but there was no progress.

Kept logging off and back on, but that made no difference.

It's too late to call them, so sent an email, but don't expect any sensible response from them. Will grit my teeth tomorrow and call them, but doubt whether they have anybody with an IQ higher than their age.

I did get an confirming email that my books were purchased and I'd be charged the $59.60. Of course, Sony won't let me Reply to that email. My goodness, if they did they might actually have to interact with a customer.

OK, the rant is over. Does anybody have a clue as to what I can do to get the books I've paid for? If not, will just file a dispute and refuse to pay the bill on my credit card.

Anybody want to buy a Reader?

[Khisanthus]

While I feel your pain with regards to the Connect store, I have to wonder why you tried to use it in the first place? It is pretty well documented here that the thing feels like some undergraduate's homework for a webdesign class...feature check boxes with no coherence and limited real useability.

Personally, I highly recommend getting your content from someone else. The single greatest feature on the reader besides the screen is the fact that they support .txt and .pdf files. For instance, if you like what they publish, Baen.com is able to supply a reasonable variety of material at good prices in many formats including unencrypted .txt files I will grant that their website looks a touch cheesy, but consider it an inverted form of the Connect store. It is all functionality and ease of use with a background image that comes across as amateur... as opposed to the pro look of Connect and the nightmare of actually finding what you want.


Maybe in the future, Sony will repair the cess pit they have attached to the book, but I don't care and don't intend to go back. Classics, Sci-fi, fantasy

[grimo1re]

I had a problem with the connect store when I wanted to redeem my voucher but I contacted customer service and they were prompt, courtious and polite. While I totally agree that Connect sucks so hard it blows I must admit the customer service people were great. (Are you listening Sony? Give those people a nice bonus will ya?)

[Leaping Gnome]

KG, mind posting what five books you're still having a problem with?

[KlondikeGeoff]

Originally Posted by Khisanthus

Personally, I highly recommend getting your content from someone else. The single greatest feature on the reader besides the screen is the fact that they support .txt and .pdf files. For instance, if you like what they publish, Baen.com is able to supply a reasonable variety of material at good prices in many formats including unencrypted .txt files nnect and the nightmare of actually finding what you want.

Well, thanks, but I don't care for Si-Fi, and all the other sites mostly have Gutenberg books. I've download them for years to my old Rocket eBook, and if that was all I wanted, I'd just keep using that.

As bad as the Sony site is, I have had no problem in the past downloading purchased books, albeit it is a slow and tedious process. I called them this morning, and indeed, the techie was polite, took me all through the process, and admitted he had no idea. However, he promised to look into it and get back to me.

The reason I got the Reader is that I want to read some current books, and unfortunately, the Rocket eBook people abandoned the process. You used to be able to buy books for that on Amazon and Barnes & Noble at decent prices.
There are a lot of books on the Sony store I'd like to get, but obviously not until they get their act together. I won't hold my breath.

LG, the books I ordered are:

Black Swan Green David Mitchell
The March E. L. Doctorow

These two downloaded very quickly, and are in the Reader.

These will not download at all:
The Road Cormac McCarthy
Thirteen Moons Charles Frazier
The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini
Concrete Blond Michael Connelly
S Is for Silence Sue Grafton

All I can hope for now is for Sony to solve my problem.

Thanks for the input, folks.

KG

[Turtle Woman]

I've had the same problem with trying to download books. But I've gone back a day or two later and they downloaded fine. Not a great comfort when you want your books right away, but keep trying.

But the Connect store is definitely the weakest part of the Reader, as everyone agrees. Does anyone see any sign that Sony is trying to improve it?

[KlondikeGeoff]

Originally Posted by Turtle Woman

I've had the same problem with trying to download books. But I've gone back a day or two later and they downloaded fine.

Thanks, Turtle, you are probably right. Unfortunately, I'm compulsive about getting anything wrong with a computer fixed right away, alas.

Anyway, for everybody's edification, I got an email back telling me to delete two folders called Kinoma and one called Marlin, then to open the program and it will register it as a new computer.

This I did, and when I logged in, it said it was registering and to be patient, as it might take "a few moments" to complete. I don't know what Sony considers a moment, but 20 minutes later the ol' Status icon was still a-twirling, and no progress. I went and ate lunch, but after an hour, just gave up and closed that down.

Rebooted, tried it again, and still it would not register the computer. As I still had the deleted folders in the Recycle Bin, figured could restore them if necessary, but at this point not only could not download books, but could not even log into the program.

So, decided to call them again, and got a very patient guy, who had me try a whole mess of things, none of which worked.

He finally suggested doing a "Run:msconfig" and unchecking the "load programs when starting" button and rebooting. When this was done, went back to the program, and tried to download a book, no joy.

Oddly, a couple of antispyware and my antivirus program were still in the system tray, so closed those, tried again, viola, the first book download, followed by the rest of them, one by one.

Adjusted the msconfig and rebooted, and everytthing was there, and transferred the books to the Reader.

If it was just the antivirus program, I asked the techie, why could I download two books, but not the rest. He had no idea, and I can't blame him, as neither do I.

In any case, next time, if there ever is one, will try this, as it certainly won't hurt to close those programs first.

Loads of fun, eh?

[igorsk]

My wild guess is the following: your antivirus is set to scan every new file, and probably the first two downloads finished very fast so it didn't interfere with Connect, but the next ones took a bit longer and when the it started to scan them in the middle of download, Connect got an unexpected error from the OS and couldn't handle that properly.
BTW, you mention "a couple" of programs; it's generally a bad idea to run several antivirus programs at the same time. Maybe you could also mention their names so we could know which programs can have compatibility problems with Connect?

[KlondikeGeoff]

Originally Posted by igorsk

My wild guess is the following: your antivirus is set to scan every new file, and probably the first two downloads finished very fast so it didn't interfere with Connect, but the next ones took a bit longer and when the it started to scan them in the middle of download, Connect got an unexpected error from the OS and couldn't handle that properly.
BTW, you mention "a couple" of programs; it's generally a bad idea to run several antivirus programs at the same time. Maybe you could also mention their names so we could know which programs can have compatibility problems with Connect?

Makes sense, igorsk!

I only run one antivirus, Trend Micro's PC-Cillin. As to spyware: CounterSpy, SpySweeper, Spyware Terminator and Ad-Aware.

Somehow, I never seem to get any spyware.

[grimo1re]

What worked for me in the end was making a new user account in Windows and run Connect from there. Can't explain why but it totally worked....

[NatCh]

That's clever, grimo1re, bizarre that it worked, but really clever.

[grimo1re]

Actually, wasn't my idea. After the support person went through all the standard solutions and nothing worked he suggested this. I was sceptical but did try. Glad it worked. Once I had my Reader authorized I never had any other problems any more.

[NatCh]

I assume you do have to switch to that 'other' profile to use the ConnStore?

[texag]

It truly is amazing that a company like Sony can't seem to get e-commerce down. It also seems ( I used to be a big Sony fan) that they do everything they can to not interact directly with a customer.

The value of the reader to me is the ability to buy a modern fiction book, a best seller, from the comfort of my home and start reading it in just a few minutes. Unfortunately, the Connect store is the only place to get those modern best sellers.

If Amazon gets the ecommerce side right...and I'm betting they will...the proprietary Reader with it's connect store will probably wither away. Too many new ereaders and competition coming out.

Come on Sony!

---A Mac User patiently waiting for the Kindle.

[HarryT]

In fairness, they can do it right. They have a pretty good e-commerce web site for buying physical products from them - computers, TVs, etc. It just seems to be "Connect" which is the weak link.