Google Play Books - .acsm contains wrong book

[jdege]

I've been rereading Raymond Feist's Midkemia books, and I've found he's written a fair number since the last time I did this.

The last time I bought an ebook from Amazon I couldn't get the file downloaded. My old PC version of the Kindle app wouldn't register. So I bought them from Google Play.

Google Play lets me download a xxx_epub.acsm, which I can then open in Adobe Digital Editions,which then downloads the .epub.

And that worked fine, except that three of the dozen books I'd bought downloaded the wrong book.

My steps:

1. I bought the three books of a trilogy on the website, Book A, Book B, and Book C.
2. I go to the "My Library" page, find my books, and for each I select "Export ACSM".
3. I find three files in my Downloads folder: Book1_epub.acsm, Book2_epub.acsm, and Book3_epub.acsm.
4. I double-click Book1_epub.acsm. Adobe Digital Editions opens, displaying a "Fulfilling Book 1" message, then opens Book 1.
5. At this point I can see Book1.epub in My Digital Editions folder, and if I go to the My Library page in the Digital Editions app I see Book 1.
6. So I double-click Book2_epub.acsm. Digital editions displays "Fulfilling Book 2", then opens Book 2.
7. I see Book2.epub in my Digital Editions folder, and in My Library in the Digital Editions app I see Book 2.
8. I double-click on Book3_epub.acsm.
9. Adobe Digital Editions displays "Fulfilling Book 2", and then opens Book 2.
10. I see two copies of Book 2 in My Library in the Digital Editions app, and Book2(1).epub in my Digital Editions folder.
11. If I open up the downloaded .acsm files, I see in the .xml of each a url that contains the title of the book and what looks like a UID.
12. Each of the three .acsm files has the correct title, but Book2_epub.acsm and Book3_epub.acsm have the same UID.

Clearly someone messed up when they created these listings.

But who do I contact to get this fixed?

Google?

The author?

The publisher?

I'm out $20 or so for the three books I can't download, and now have three series I won't start, because I don't have the complete series. Which isn't that big a deal.

But the author may well be losing sales because of this, and not know it. And I'm sure that anyone who's complained to Google has gotten nowhere.

[DNSB]

For what it's may be worth, I would complain to Google first. Though you should be able to download the .acsm file again so it may be worth retrying first. After you download the .acsm file, I would suggest opening it with a text editor and see what it says. There should be a metadata section which should have the title, author, publisher, etc. See sample below.

<metadata>
<dc:title xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">Buying Power: A History of Consumer Activism in America</dc:title>
<dc:creator xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">Lawrence B. Glickman</dc:creator>
<dc:publisher xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">University of Chicago Press</dc:publisher>

[Quoth]

It's also probably best, especially on KOBO, to download an acsm and 'full-fill' it before downloading the next. They also have an expiration which can be as short as two hours.

[Tsantzi]

Did you manage to fix it?

I have the exact same issue, also with a series (Dune, 6 books) where instead of the 2nd book ADE gets the 6th.

I suspect that the issue is not that someone messed up with the metadata, but rather Google's acsm generation is broken. After trying to download the acsm files dozens of times, at some point another book's acsm started pointing to a wrong book in the series, even though I still have the original set of acsms where only one book is broken!

I contacted Google support about this, and after an hour of inane chat, I got the stereotypical response that it must be an issue with ADE and that I should contact Adobe. That's obviously not the case since it's obvious from the contents of the acsm files that the wrong uuid is used.

Cherry on the cake, a request for refund was rejected for "reasons".

Lesson learned, don't buy series from Google books.

Curious whether the problem went away on its own in your case.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Tsantzi

...

I contacted Google support about this, and after an hour of inane chat, I got the stereotypical response that it must be an issue with ADE and that I should contact Adobe. ...

This should go in the Technology Vent & Rant thread; technology/technical support finger pointing.

Google, you sold the book, you solve the problem or refund the money. Seems like there is very simple solution:give them a DRM free copy.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by John F

Google, you sold the book, you solve the problem or refund the money. Seems like there is very simple solution:give them a DRM free copy.

The Publisher, not Google, decides if DRM free or not.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The Publisher, not Google, decides if DRM free or not.

More finger pointing.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by John F

This should go in the Technology Vent & Rant thread; technology/technical support finger pointing.

Google, you sold the book, you solve the problem or refund the money. Seems like there is very simple solution:give them a DRM free copy.

I think it should be in the Reading Vent & Rant thread as it's to do with a book.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by John F

More finger pointing.

No, a fact. The exception is Amazon. The publisher decides of DRM free or not for ALL retail and wholesale, but if delivered as KFX by Amazon there is always DRM, but if the Publisher asked for DRM free then it works on any Kindle App or eink Kindle, but nothing else without DRM removal.

The Publishers are using their copyright to decide on DRM or not. Google can't change that.

I'd wonder why anyone gets other than free ebooks / comics from Google Playstore Playbooks. Actually maybe few do.
See Kobo, ebooks.com, Smashwords/D2D and many others for epub, and the only complication with Amazon Kindle format as epub is the initial setting up.

Amazon is the only retailer with significant exclusive content and the only retailer with exclusive content by contract (KDP Select).

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by jdege

But who do I contact to get this fixed?

Google?

Google. Your their customer. If someone screwed it up, up the line, it's Google's job to get it straightened out.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Google. Your their customer. If someone screwed it up, up the line, it's Google's job to get it straightened out.

Yes. The seller is responsible (legally) in most countries.