PRS-600 What am I doing wrong????

[Katti's Cat]

Hey

I was hopping with joy when I received and unpacked my reader yesterday. Plugged it into puter to charge. Installed the eBook Library. While waiting for it all to do it's thing I went wild on downloading my first ever eBooks.

Now I am trying to get them onto the reader!!!!. First i dragged the files (argh i took all of them) to the reader icon and it started doing it's thing. Alas, by 10 am this morning, no file had been transferred.

So I had a look and found the 'synch' function. But again - 4 hours later, nothing on the reader.

What do I have to do? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Patricia]

First import them into ebook library. Open Ebook library. Click on "file" (top left of the screen). Select "import file" (for one book) or "import folder" for a folder-ful.

Once the books show in your ebook library, you may then drag and drop them to the reader icon.

I hope this helps.

[Katti's Cat]

Hi Patricia

thanks for that. I have them all on computer in eBook Library but can't get them onto the reader - the drag and drop I am trying currently with 1 book and it's taking already over 1 hour to load :-(

[Katti's Cat]

Ok, me being me with a new toy I could not wait for all the helpful people out there and I contacted Sony.

First up - they were really helpful and nice to talk on live chat with.

I am not sure that the problem was resolved, but I now have the files on the reader - we just copied them into the reader folder on Explorer.

As the file transfer and the synchronisation took ages when I tried before, I had a chat with the tech about it.

We were able to establish that the files I downloaded from the Sony shop were all transferred, just not the books I got from other sources (MB and Guthenberg). Of course I got the 'we are not responsible for other sources' and 'the files might be protected due to copyright'.

At least I now have a way around the problem. Will try and synch the reader again tonight but am afraid it will take a while. But we'll see.

If anyone of you has come across a similar problem and has a cleaner solution, please let me know.

Cheers - of to the wide world of eBooks again. So many to get and so little time

[poshm]

Sorry you had problems - I read that the Sony software is a bit of a nightmare and I've never actually used it.

I just drag and drop the ebooks straight onto the machine or I use the free software Calibre (available via these forums) to upload books. Maybe you'll have more joy with these routes.

[pikelet]

I also don't use the Sony software - Calibre is wonderful for organising and copying books onto the reader.

I had a similar problem with mine: I had tried to add a bunch of free ebooks, after which the software would not transfer any more files to the reader. Eventually I worked out that it was just one of books that was causing the problem and after I removed it from the reader via the filesystem I could send books to device again without any problems.

[Belanna]

The Sony software IS a nightmare in my opinion. Mine takes forever to recognize the reader (if it does it at all). A wild idea, did you "register" (I don't know how to say that in english) your reader to be able to download DMR protected content on it? If so check under the status icon (the little gary circle under the library). You'll see there what it is doing and maybe it will help understand the problem.

[JanetCinNC]

Katti's Cat said she got the books from Sony loaded up on her reader, but she couldn't get the stuff she got from other sources on her reader. Therefore, it sounds like she has the reader software properly installed and the reader properly registered. It sounds like the files from other sources might be either incorrect formats for the Sony reader, or they haven't been properly installed into the Sony library. One more idea to check: are the files from other sources DRMed pdf files? If so, you'll also need the Adobe DE software and the reader will need to be registered with Adobe to allow those files to be accessed on the reader.

Perhaps I am stating the obvious, but just putting your files downloaded from other sources into the Sony reader folder on your computer doesn't make them available to the Sony software. Patricia tells you how to import them into the software.

Can we have more detail about what you mean when you say it takes over an hour to load? Has the status indicator (a little circle found just above the "eBook Store" in the left frame of the Sony software) frozen up with the arrowheads on the circle? Or does the circle rotate with the arrowheads on it, then does it stop with no arrowheads showing? The reader screen will continue to show that it's connected and shouldn't be disconnected from the reader until you "eject" the reader from the software. And disconnecting the reader from the software without ejecting it first can corrupt the files. I did have the reader software freeze up on me under two circumstances. The first was I had a corrupted file that I was trying to copy over. The second was I already had the file on my reader and tried to copy it over again.

I have used Sony software since I got my Sony PRS-500 in 2006. I have used it in all it's various releases since then, and I have used it on computers running Windows XP, Vista Home Premium (32-bit), and Vista Home Premium (64-bit). I haven't ever had a problem doing anything - not with connecting to the reader (over the years, I've had three 500s, three 505s, and right now I have three 505s plus 2 600s. I've used it with a mixture of files I bought from Sony, plus ePub files, rtf files, and plain text files. It's always worked fine for me, except under the two circumstances I described above.

I hope you can get everything straightened out soon. There's nothing worse than having a new toy and not being able to play with it.

[Katti's Cat]

Thank you all for your replies. All very helpful and very thought through.

After the contact with Sony only gave me a rounabout solution I kept wrecking my brain - and I actually found the problem: ME

As it was my very first voyage into the world of eBooks I couldn't make any sense out of the weird filenames I downloaded. So I renamed them.

After I deleted all the bookfiles (non-Sony Shop) from the eReader and the library and every other place I had put them for save keeping, I downloaded them all over again. Without renaming the files I imported them into the library, connected the reader - and the synch was done in under 10 minutes !!!!

So, it was me after all that.

For all eBook virgins like me out there : DO NOT RENAME THE FILES