Comments on: My Nightmare With Sony’s eBook Library

By: Garrett

Garrett — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:43:00 +0000

I’m experiencing the same ‘freeze’ problems – Reader Library will simply not work on my Windows XP machine. Furthermore the support function on the Sony website sucks – I called into a Sony Store but they can only help with the unit itself – said I need to contact the Sony tech support desk but they’re only available between 9am and 6pm Mon-Fr so if I rush home from work some evening I might succeed in contacting them in from of my PC. Very disappointed with this product as a whole.

By: John

John — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 09:14:03 +0000

I too have not been able to get the Sony estore SW to work. It did initially but once it stopped, I cannot get it to work again. I uninstalled it and now when I try to reinstall it, it tells me I have a newer version already installed and aborts. How can I have a newer version that the one I just downloaded from the Sony site? Crap, crap, crap.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:36:54 +0000

And I thought I was the only one! I’ve used the software only for a while. It was murder trying to connect to the Sony eBook store so I gave up. In the end, I bought most of my books from Books on Board, which has ePub books in abundance, by the way.

Before discovering Calibre, I would upload most of my books to my SD Card and just insert it in my PR505, completely bypassing the need for using any kind of program. Now that I have a Pocket Reader (I do miss my dearly departed 505, dead after a deadly fall) I use Calibre, which is an utter dream to use.

By: Laura

Laura — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:45:58 +0000

I had all the same problems with the reader library locking up and not loading. I never tried to contact sony because I am a stubborn little thing. After I bought a pocket edition, I tried to load the books onto it and it froze.(Never had a prob with my PRS600) I ended up going through the back door (going into my computer)to open the individual files for each book. The reader library opened up once I double clicked on a book file and I was able to transfer it to my new pocket edition. I really think they need to completely redo the estore and library and on top of it, if it is needed that we switch to a new format for the books, THEY SHOULD TAKE THE LOSS!!! I have already spent too much money with them on the 2 readers I bought and the 52 books purchased from their store.

By: Daniel Greene

Daniel Greene — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:26:30 +0000

Hi. Just wanted to add that the renamed “Sony Reader Library” software, version 3.1, does work on Mac.

By: Kate H.

Kate H. — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:58:10 +0000

Thanks a lot for the information. I can’t believe that people are having this problem since Jan, 2009. It’s more than a year and Sony still has got the problem fixed. I am using Windows 7 and just downloaded Calibre. It’s wonderful. Again, thanks a lot.

By: Ron

Ron — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:20:10 +0000

I absolutely agree with this article. The software was designed by an idiot.

I purchased possibly 20 books from Sony in the last year. They went right into the reader (505) no problem but then I added more books though calibi, Adobe reader etc and went to sync. It won’t sync the books I bought from SONY!!! The software just sits there. One night I left it on for 9 hours… no joy. To sync I need to delete all the purchased content and then it will sync. Next, re-download the content from Sony and it goes in. Of course each time I put a book in the reader from another source, same thing.

I just switched to the 900 and that just made it worse since now the books are EPUB and not the old LRF or whatever. The reader just sits there with the software spinning away and doing nothing. I also have the “latest” version of the software (3.0) and it is just junk. I want to be able to control the layout of the books, create collections, move things around and all that but sony simply doesn’t understand.

The reader however, is great!

By: Donald

Donald — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:33:06 +0000

I have had a big problem with the PRS-600 1st I could not open the Reader Library and still can’t. Adobe Digital Editions works OK. I managed to load two books OK.
I use the security lock and the battery went compleatly flat and now I can’t charge the e-book because the lock is on and there is not enough power in the battery to switch off the lock. when I plug it into the computer it says locked, the red light goes on and then goes off again and it does not charge.
Any Ideas.

By: victory1

victory1 — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 09:01:53 +0000

There’s a new Sony Reader Forum that was started exclusively by Sony reader owners. They have seen it all. Most of them owns multiple Sony readers. You can find the forum here: http://sonyreader.proboards.com/

By: Nico Vreeland

Nico Vreeland — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:01:33 +0000

It sounds to me like the switch to ePub support might be the big culprit here. The problem is that I’m not sure the 3.0 version will be able to read ePub books.

So, for new users without libraries of Sony-proprietary ebooks (and without 3.0 on their system), 3.1 should be OK, more or less.

For old users, updating to 3.1 doesn’t seem to be worth the risk. See if you can get ePubs from Sony onto your Reader, and if so, consider opting out of the update until a more stable release comes along.