Classic Nook does not like series... Another problem with ebooks!!!

[howdoin]

Still happily living with 2 Nooks at home and spending most of my free time with BN customer service... is the Nook a Lemon? Between the "not ready for release" software, eBook that are just not opening (white pages) and now... eBooks that will erase previously purchased books, I am starting to think so!

Here is another weird occurrence that BN forgot to test before releasing the Nook, just spent 45mn on the phone with tech support and they cannot find a solution:

I purchased 2 books:
- The Bourne Betrayal
- The Bourne Sanction

In their great wisdom BN names each book "Eric_Robert_Ludlum_s_The_B.epub" - as you can see it is the author's name followed by the book name, which is in this case it too long so it is truncated right after the author's name and you end up with 2 books on your device with the same name.

So can you guess what happens? The latest downloaded book takes precedence and even tough both books appears in the library on the Nook, it does not matter which one you chose as the Nook just gets schizophrenia and opens the latest downloaded one (The Bourne Sanction in my case). It is now impossible for me to go back and read/open "the Bourne Betrayal" unless I want to permanently delete the other book (as in permanently, forvever, just throw in the trash delete - archiving does not fix the problem).

Buy 2 books, get one (only one)! great marketing gimmick!

In any case please be careful when you purchase books from a serie as the 45mn spent on the phone with BN tech support showed me that they totally did not expect one to purchase 2 books from the same author/serie so they do not know how to handle the problem as of yet and have no way to fix it or offer any kind of compensation.

Merry Christmas!

[ahintz]

A suggestion:

You should be able to download the ebooks from bn.com on your computer, change the names, and sideload them onto your Nook. I agree this is a problem BN needs to fix, but this should be a simple workaround.

[howdoin]

It would be nice if that worked but that is what BN tech support tried to do. Unfortunately after you change the name of the file and try to open it in your Nook it asks you to download it again... and re-downloads the file with the original name thus re-creating the problem.

If found a work-around on my own.

- Copy the file on your computer
- Rename the file
- Upload the new file in "My Documents" folder of your Nook
- Archive the file from your main library

In the end it works but it is a shame to see the Nook has so many problem. I went from a Sony Reader to a Kindle to Nook and I must say that the Nook is one of the most unpolished platform I have ever had.
The hardware itself is good (and thanks to the firmware update finally works more like it should have out of the box), but most of the problem seem to be coming from the platform itself, i.e. the BN.com bookstore, which has a lot of books that are not uploaded correctly on their servers.
I purchased 5 books total in 2 weeks, 3 of them had problems (blank screen, filename problem), this is just a little frustrating.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by howdoin

In any case please be careful when you purchase books from a serie as the 45mn spent on the phone with BN tech support showed me that they totally did not expect one to purchase 2 books from the same author/serie so they do not know how to handle the problem as of yet and have no way to fix it or offer any kind of compensation.

Merry Christmas!

By not offering any kind of compensation, is B&N telling you they won't take either or both eBooks back?

[howdoin]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

By not offering any kind of compensation, is B&N telling you they won't take either or both eBooks back?

That is what I have been told because they consider that you can still read the books on your computer via the BN software or on your phone.

I know that with a little more discussion they would have ended up refunding me one or even the two books but they said that they wanted to work and fix the issue. I am going to give them benefit of the doubt, wait a week or two and if nothing has happened then ask for my money back.

[stangri]

Seems to be the limitation of the B&N online store tho, so it could be fixable without a software/firmware update.

I cannot believe B&N is not issuing refunds in these cases -- how greedy are they?

Originally Posted by howdoin

That is what I have been told because they consider that you can still read the books on your computer via the BN software or on your phone.

It is a major inconvenience tho and kind of invalidates your purchase of the device. I've seen companies totally rolling over to please customers with less issues. They need to own up to the screw-ups.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by howdoin

That is what I have been told because they consider that you can still read the books on your computer via the BN software or on your phone.

I know that with a little more discussion they would have ended up refunding me one or even the two books but they said that they wanted to work and fix the issue. I am going to give them benefit of the doubt, wait a week or two and if nothing has happened then ask for my money back.

But you bought a nook to read your eBooks with. So this is their fault and B&N needs to own up to it and offer to give you your money back if this issue cannot be fixed soon enough. Just because you can read these eBooks on you computer doesn't mean you want to. B&N needs to own up and give you the support you should be getting.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by stangri

Seems to be the limitation of the B&N online store tho, so it could be fixable without a software/firmware update.

I cannot believe B&N is not issuing refunds in these cases -- how greedy are they?


It is a major inconvenience tho and kind of invalidates your purchase of the device. I've seen companies totally rolling over to please customers with less issues. They need to own up to the screw-ups.

This issue is one that never should have happened. If B&N had just done what most companies do and used the title of the book for the filename then there would not be a problem.

[stangri]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

This issue is one that never should have happened. If B&N had just done what most companies do and used the title of the book for the filename then there would not be a problem.

I know for a fact that in movies, the title is not the unique ID, I bet it would also be a case for the books. While I agreed that B&N should own up to their fault in this, what other companies do is irrelevant as they do not have to support the variety of readers as B&N does. What other company makes a hardware reader and the software readers for Windows, Mac, iPhone (and Blackberry if I'm not mistaken)?

[JSWolf]

The thread title is not quite correct. This is not another problem with eBooks. This is a problem with the nook and some eBooks from B&N when used with the nook.

[LessPaul]

I would sent them a link to this thread, and let them know how much great publicity they are generating by their unacceptable answer.

[howdoin]

It seems they fixed this issue as I had to redownload my ebooks and now the title includes a uniqque ID number.

On the annoying side I am now travelling outside of the US and my Nook crashed entirely. I updated to latest firmware before my trip, took the plane and when I opened my Nook the next day I am asked to register it again - lost all my ebooks and cannot register or redownload (i am outside the US and no access to wifi)... not the best thing to happen while travelling - now I am stuck with a paperweight until I come back to the US.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by howdoin

...

I purchased 2 books:
- The Bourne Betrayal
- The Bourne Sanction

In their great wisdom BN names each book "Eric_Robert_Ludlum_s_The_B.epub" - as you can see it is the author's name followed by the book name, which is in this case it too long so it is truncated right after the author's name and you end up with 2 books on your device with the same name.
...
Merry Christmas!

Oh my! That's terrible!

[stangri]

Originally Posted by howdoin

It seems they fixed this issue as I had to redownload my ebooks and now the title includes a unique ID number.

Yeah, adding ISBN number would have been a quick fix on their server. No idea why JSWolf blames everything on nook, when the root of the problem is the B&N server.

Originally Posted by howdoin

... and my Nook crashed entirely.

How did that happen? The only sure way to inadvertly reset the nook is to put the 1.0.0 update file on it, but even then my WiFi settings remained intact.