PRS-300 Stuck in setup cycle after hard reset

[westrikr]

My PRS-300 stuck in the initial language selection cycle, after an adviced hard reset form Sony Support (had issues with authorization of the device).

When I now select a language the unit simply reboots and comes up again with Opening Reader after which I'm back at select your language.

When I redo the hard reset, these is some sort of error message displayed before the hard reset menu comes up. However time is too short to read it.

Sony warranty sucks. Since I live in the Netherlands and have purchased the unit in the US on holiday Sony warranty is useless. They don't provide global warranty only in the country of puchase, this means I either need to pay shipping to the US or accept out of warranty repair charges locally. Both will be quite expensive.

Any suggestions?

I will try the russification firmware (at least hope that this will still support standard language).

Thanks in advance,

Remko

[The-eBook-Reader]

Deleted

[westrikr]

I did try the russification firmware, that loaded fine but them I'm stuck in the same cycle again.

Only when I have the scripts on it I can sort of abort the initialization cycle and then have a least a functional reader for non-DRM books.

Think I need to do further investigations into local repair costs or US exchange shipping. Or try to live without DRM content.

Remko

[dreams]

Welcome to MR, westrikr. I am not very experienced, but maybe having more information will help a more experienced member give advice.

You live in the Netherlands and purchased the Sony 300 in the US.

Do you have the Sony Reader Library 3.1 installed?

Do you have ADE installed?

Do you have Calibre installed?

What operating system are you using? Windows XP / Windows Vista / Windows 7 / Mac ?

What language are the books in that you are trying to load?

Are you trying to change the display language of your 300 from what was on it when you purchased it?

What firmware version is on the 300?

Hopefully the answers to these questions will help a member give you some advice.

(you can use the blue "quote" button on the bottom right of my post to quote the questions and answer them inside the quote to make it easy.)

[westrikr]

Originally Posted by dreams

Welcome to MR, westrikr. I am not very experienced, but maybe having more information will help a more experienced member give advice.

No problem in providing more details.

You live in the Netherlands and purchased the Sony 300 in the US.

Correct.

Do you have the Sony Reader Library 3.1 installed?

Yep.

Do you have ADE installed?

Yes, but not using that.

Do you have Calibre installed?

Nope.

What operating system are you using? Windows XP / Windows Vista / Windows 7 / Mac ?

Windows 7 but also tried it on my old XP box. Same results.

What language are the books in that you are trying to load?

Can't get to that stage anymore. Typically this would be a mixture of Dutch and English.

Are you trying to change the display language of your 300 from what was on it when you purchased it?

Well not really. On advice of Sony Support (because of the Authorization problem) I did a hard reset. So I now should have a fresh system. It starts with a welcome screen after which you need to select a language (English, German, French, Dutch). It does not matter what I select (did try them all), since after the selection and <OK> the reader screen goes blank and restarts. Back to the Welcome screen and then the need to select a language again. So the system is in a loop here.

What firmware version is on the 300?

Standard version and also tried the russification, same result.

Hopefully the answers to these questions will help a member give you some advice.

Looking forward to it. Since shipping it to the US and making use of the Exchange Warranty will set me back at least €70. Going into local out of warranty repair will at least about the same. Not funny for a $ 219 unit only 4 months old.

If it is indeed a hardware issue then I have little options. But I would hate to find out that there would be a software/config resolution on the PRS-300 after I shipped the unit.

Regards Remko

[RonF]

Originally Posted by westrikr

Standard version and also tried the russification, same result.



Looking forward to it. Since shipping it to the US and making use of the Exchange Warranty will set me back at least €70. Going into local out of warranty repair will at least about the same. Not funny for a $ 219 unit only 4 months old.

If it is indeed a hardware issue then I have little options. But I would hate to find out that there would be a software/config resolution on the PRS-300 after I shipped the unit.

Regards Remko

Is the Russification still on it? If not, how did you flash it back (what firmware). If the Russification is still on it, I'm not sure what that will do to the warranty if you should choose to send it back to Sony.

You mention the unit being 4 months old. Were you using it OK for the last few months, and if so do you remember anything that may have triggered the problem (loading a book, pulling the USB early)?

[westrikr]

The russification is still on because I haven't figured out how to revert that. I saved the old image (and copied all the files to my PC) but it's not clear to me how you reflash it to the original firmware. But the issue was already there before the russification. Basically I applied the russification to see if that would resolve the issue without sending it back.

It was working OK, had some minor issues with Windows stating it wants to check the drive for issues. But that never came up with anything.

Things went wrong when I wanted to reauthorize it. I had authorized it on my account before but since I figured it would be more practical to have only 1 account in my household to allow sharing of purchased and lended books. I wanted to autorize it on my wife's account.

During the authorization process with Sony Reader Library the unit restarts before it is authorized. This is not supposed to happen according to Sony. Did reset, no change. Then they suggested a hard reset. Then it got stuck in the langauge selection, when selecting a language it restarts and again we go to the welcome and language selection.

So since storing authorizations and storing the language doesn't work, I would say there is something going wrong when writing these settings to it's memory.

I can disrupt the cycle by plugging it into my computer and then loading the russificiation scripts. Then when I exit the script, I am able to use it (in English menu language only) with non DRM content. However changing the language or trying to authorize it puts me back to square 1 again.

How Sony will deal with the russification firmware I don't know, that might be a chance I have to take. Maybe they won't notice, since they have an exchange warranty they might not figure it out (hopefully).

So I'm now trying to figure out:
- if there might be other solutions.
- how to revert to the original firmware.
- if I'm going to keep the unit as it and only read non DRM content or invest in the exchange warranty.

It's a real pitty that Sony doesn't have global warranty as many other computerfirms do have.

Remko

[dreams]

I'm sorry the problem hasn't been resolved yet. Like I said I don't have a lot of experience, but I can look for ideas.

Have you tried the "Restore Default Settings" (page 72 of the 300 manual)?

You said you have ADE installed. Are you able to transfer a DRM'd file (from ADE) to the Sony Reader Library and view it on the computer?

Did you mean that that same file you can read on the Reader Library can be transferred to the Reader but can't be (opened) read on the Reader? -- This may be that you don't have your Reader authorized on ADE. You need to use the same one that you use on the Reader Library.

I came across this on page 84...

• The ability to display the languages on your eBook Library will depend on the OS installed on your computer. For better results, please ensure that the installed OS is compatible with the desired language you want to display.
− We do not guarantee all the languages will be able to be
displayed properly on your eBook Library.
− User-created characters and some special characters may not
be displayed.

I think I read on MR that you have to have the special language fonts installed on the Reader in order to read (or have the Reader) display other language characters.

I hoped this helped give some other options or ideas. Please keep us updated and good luck.