PRS-900 Bug in subscriptions and 3G, battery life, slow boot

[rjpawlak]

Hi all,

The purpose of this thread is to document issues with the PRS-900 that Sony doesn't care about - maybe it will help someone else out there.

Maybe you've noticed that your battery is draining very quickly, that your unit is booting slowly, or that subscriptions are not downloading. These issues can be caused by a couple of issues that I'll document below:

First, I noticed that once the wireless network switch is toggled on and off a few times, the network doesn't always turn off. This can lead to your battery going dead, especially when the reader is an area without a wireless signal. What happens is that the unit turns on, attempts to download, turns off, on, etc. I notice this issue a couple of times when I put the unit in a hotel safe, and pulling it out sometime later to discover that the battery was dead (I'd turned off the wireless network both times). Also, turning off the network switch while the unit is sleeping doesn't always turn off the network either. Best solution here is to reboot, immediately turn off network switch while the unit is on, turn unit off and then put in hotel safe.

Second, if you have a number of books on the device, and have scubscriptions, you may notice that your subscriptions don't download, or that your battery is drawing down very quickly overnight, without the reader being used. This is caused by a timeout issue which is being brought about by having too many books/articles in the unit. In my case, I'd estimate I had 200-300 old newspaper issues and books. The solution is to move some of the old newspapers or books off the unit. I can only speculate that there is some sort of cataloging operation that is taking place when the unit turns on and attempts to download subscriptions. The unit probably waits some time for this to occur, before downloading. When this doesn't happen, the device times out, and turns off. It then turns on again, and attempts to repeat the process, etc etc. The end result is a dead battery and no downloads.

Having too many old newspaper issues was also causing the unit to boot really slowly (it took minutes). That issue was also fixed by removing my old newspaper issues.

Anyway, I spoke to sony support about this, who first told me that I need to reboot my unit (I had many times, and it was SLOOOW). Then they told me that I was undercharging my battery. Then they told me that I was overcharging my battery. Anyway, I discovered the work around myself. Hope this helps someone.

Bob