sony 950 taking 10 minutes to load homescreen

[sovre]

I noticed that as I added more e-books to my reader over time, it slowed down, but now it has reached the point of absurdity. When I turn my reader on or disconnect it from the computer after adding a new e-book in order to load it, I just see the circle with the black arrows, which don't even move, and it just stays like that, as if frozen, for about about 10 minutes, at which point I can access my reader again.

This seems beyond the pale. And I don't have an SD card connected now, by the way. But I am using PRS+, if this could be a factor?

Has anyone ever dealt with this problem before and, if so, is there a solution? Thanks for your help.

[seajewel]

I believe some people posted that replacing the default fonts (not the epub fonts, but the LRF/menu fonts) via flashing resulted in this behavior. I know that my 505 acted like that after a while but it has become quicker. I am not sure of why. I no longer replace the system fonts, only the fonts for epub using the PRS+ method.

If you haven't done that.. well, if you are willing to go to the trouble, you could try factory resetting your device and reloading your books and see if it helps. That's just based on my experience with Windows machines.. a format once a year or so helps so much. But it may be completely unhelpful in this instance.

[vxf]

I have the same problem, both with and without PRS+, on ALL SONY readers I have owned. I spoke to SONY's CS about it - and their solution was NOT to upload 'too many' books. I swear, the CSR questioned why would anyone need more than a dozen books at the time on their device.

I don't really care - I actually don't usually carry many books with me anyhow - but it's truly unsatisfactory, especially given the 'you can carry 2,000 books with you' advertising claim.

You just can't.

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by sovre

Has anyone ever dealt with this problem before and, if so, is there a solution? Thanks for your help.

I had this problem a while ago, posted about it, and found that my solution was to clean up the tags in my book collection. At the time I had around 400 books on the 950, and thanks to the tag clutter, the poor thing had organized my books into over 450 collections!

Removing all tags (through Calibre) and then making sure I do that with all new books form here on, has made the load time after each disconnect considerably faster. I don't use a lot of collections, so I manually manage the, on the 950, and that works well for me.

[seajewel]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

I had this problem a while ago, posted about it, and found that my solution was to clean up the tags in my book collection. At the time I had around 400 books on the 950, and thanks to the tag clutter, the poor thing had organized my books into over 450 collections!

Removing all tags (through Calibre) and then making sure I do that with all new books form here on, has made the load time after each disconnect considerably faster. I don't use a lot of collections, so I manually manage the, on the 950, and that works well for me.

Hmm that is a good tip. I know that my 505 used to be unbearably slow but it has become a lot better, and not because I removed a lot of books. I did, however, at one point delete a lot of the tags, because the collections were just getting ridiculous. Maybe that was it.

[sovre]

Originally Posted by vxf

I have the same problem, both with and without PRS+, on ALL SONY readers I have owned. I spoke to SONY's CS about it - and their solution was NOT to upload 'too many' books. I swear, the CSR questioned why would anyone need more than a dozen books at the time on their device.

I don't really care - I actually don't usually carry many books with me anyhow - but it's truly unsatisfactory, especially given the 'you can carry 2,000 books with you' advertising claim.

You just can't.

That would be good advice, if they were selling us a 12 ebook device, because on a 12 ebook device 13 books would be "too many." But they are selling a 2 GB ebook device, which is expandable to many more GBs with external cards, and if the device does not function properly and smoothly at its highest capacity then there is a design problem Sony needs to address. "Too many" for this device would be more than the capacity of the device. We all know that you can load up a 60 GB iPod to the highest capacity and it functions just as well as if it had only 1 GB worth of data on it. I can't see why one should expect any less from an eReader or from any other product for that matter. It either performs as expected at the advertised capacity or its advertised capacity needs to be revised. Imagine a car company selling you a car with four seats, but you find out that if you use more than one or two of those seats the car's performance is quite appreciably degraded, and when you go to inquire they tell you the problem is you want to use "too many" of the seats and they can't see why anyone would need to have more than two people in the car at one time anyway!

[Purple Lady]

I had a problem with slowness a month or so ago, but not as bad as that. I deleted all my books from the reader using Calibre and then reloaded them and was fine. I have abot 300 books and about 40 collections.

[vxf]

Originally Posted by sovre

That would be good advice, if they were selling us a 12 ebook device, because on a 12 ebook device 13 books would be "too many." But they are selling a 2 GB ebook device, which is expandable to many more GBs with external cards, and if the device does not function properly and smoothly at its highest capacity then there is a design problem Sony needs to address. "Too many" for this device would be more than the capacity of the device. We all know that you can load up a 60 GB iPod to the highest capacity and it functions just as well as if it had only 1 GB worth of data on it. I can't see why one should expect any less from an eReader or from any other product for that matter. It either performs as expected at the advertised capacity or its advertised capacity needs to be revised. Imagine a car company selling you a car with four seats, but you find out that if you use more than one or two of those seats the car's performance is quite appreciably degraded, and when you go to inquire they tell you the problem is you want to use "too many" of the seats and they can't see why anyone would need to have more than two people in the car at one time anyway!

No need to tell me. I have been pissed about it a long time.

I have experimented a bit, and it's not sheer number of books. How many collections you have, how many annotations/highlights, it all matters.

Annotations in particular. 100 annotated PDFs will slow my devices to a crawl, not just on disconnecting, but also every time I have to return to the home screen or take new notes.

[petercreasey]

V, It is beyond comprehension, given your extreme discontent, why you still deal with Sony.

Fortunately, a large majority of the rest of us don't have anywhere near the same level of grievances that you seem to have.

[seajewel]

Originally Posted by petercreasey

V, It is beyond comprehension, given your extreme discontent, why you still deal with Sony.

Fortunately, a large majority of the rest of us don't have anywhere near the same level of grievances that you seem to have.

I love how several people can complain about experiencing the exact same issue, which definitely exists and is frustrating when it happens, and a post like this happens, yet again. The question is why does vxf get singled out so much? the information vxf gave about when he experiences slow downs was useful and pertinent to the thread. Give it a rest.

ETA: I just don't like it when people who are fairly regular members of the forum and post what I feel are helpful posts, and members of the forums jump on them for the sake of a nameless company. I love Sony Readers, I think aesthetically and functionally they were way ahead of the competition for a long time. but I don't think that Sony is a perfect company or that the readers didn't have flaws. I hate when I visit any subforum on here and people band up to get all defensive on behalf of a brand or a company if someone has anything negative to say. It's just strange to me.

[petercreasey]

V has a long history of being harshly critical of Sony.

[seajewel]

Originally Posted by petercreasey

V has a long history of being harshly critical of Sony.

No he doesn't. I've read his posts and they are all reasonable. the posts that aren't reasonable are posts like yours. Look at this thread- how many people are complaining of the same issue. I found it frustrating on my 505 but I chalked it up to an older device. it's good to know other people's experiences and fixes.

[Bookworm_Girl]

When my 950 starts to slow down, I find it helps to power it off and then back on. It seems to be especially sensitive to annotations.

It might also be that somehow the database files have been corrupted and need a refresh.

[vxf]

Originally Posted by seajewel

I love how several people can complain about experiencing the exact same issue, which definitely exists and is frustrating when it happens, and a post like this happens, yet again. The question is why does vxf get singled out so much? the information vxf gave about when he experiences slow downs was useful and pertinent to the thread. Give it a rest.

Thanks, I appreciate it. But no worries. I won't feed the troll, he might go away. He clearly has issues, no point in reasoning. And hopefully a mod will notice his stalking...

Hopefully the thread won't get derailed further.

[vxf]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

When my 950 starts to slow down, I find it helps to power it off and then back on. It seems to be especially sensitive to annotations.

It might also be that somehow the database files have been corrupted and need a refresh.

I will have to try the power on/off method.

For some reason, my 950 seems to also slow down less with books on an SD card, rather than internal memory. It's somehow counter-intuitive, but I remember seeing some posts around making the same claim, so there might be something to it.

The issue is further complicated by the fact that not all SD cards are made equal...