Sony eRecovery

The other day I had my first problem with my out-of-warranty Sony PRS 300 (I think) Pocket 5" eReader, unfortunately it looked serious enough that it would also be the last. The screen froze in the on position, where none of the buttons worked, it refused to even be recognised when connected via USB, let alone mount. In short, it died. Not being in a position to buy a new device, I had a digital heart attack.

I put an EPUB ebook on and started to read it. I wasn't keen on the formatting, so I converted the epub to Sony's native LTF with Calibre and put that on to try it. Since the EPUB version was the current novel, referenced in the history, cache etc, and there was now a second ebook with all the same metadata added but a different file extension, the eReader got confused and locked up. At least that's the best explanation I can find after trawling several forums and blog posts.

The Sony eReaders come with a USB cable to both load / unload the device, and charge it. When you connect it to the PC it mounts and the screen changes so you can't use the device for anything while it's connected. When disconnecting the screen refreshes as the database rescans the changes and updates where required. A mains charger is an optional chargeable extra.

I did find a few others complain of similar lockups to the state my device was in, and their suggestions on how to fix it. One suggestion was to use the mains charger as it does things slightly differently and can reset the device; it might do, but I don't have one. Someone suggested switching off and back on but none of the buttons worked, including the power slider so I couldn't, and because it's eInk it only draws power when pages are turned, it'd stay on that menu screen forever while the battery corrodes away many years from now. It's a typical consumer gadget with a non-replaceable battery so I couldn't even remove the battery to kill the power.

Another suggestion was to do a soft reset, which didn't seem to work as even the reset button was included along with the power on / off slider in the "not working" list. Since connecting it to the PC triggers a change in the status and screen I tried this various times in Linux and Windows to no avail, it steadfastly refused to even recognised there was anything connected, both at the PC end and on the reader's display. Someone suggested rebooting with the device already plugged in, that didn't work either.

A few suggested issues with the history and cache being corrupted as the reason, so if you can remove the latest books and references to the latest books that caused it, it should be fine. They showed paths, filenames etc which I recognised albeit I had to convert the C:\\ into *nix paths /media/READER/ etc but at last I had a target to aim at. This solution required the PC to recognise it and mount it, which was not happening for me.

Someone suggested a hard restart which wipes the device back to factory state, including deleting all your content. I keep copies of my ebooks on my PC anyway, so the only thing I'd really lose would be my bookmarks of where I was in a couple of books, but I know more or less where I was by chapter name so it'd not be all that bad. Unfortunately I couldn't work out how to do a hard reset. I did eventually find a solution.

Solution

1. Stick a pin in the reset hole at the top of the device next to the power slider, and hold for about 4 seconds. It will reset to the default menu.
2. If you try to open the book that caused the freeze it will freeze again. If you connect to a PC with the same "currently reading" it may also freeze again. So choose a different book than the latest one that triggered it, so it becomes the "currently reading" one.
3. Connect to the PC, let it mount.
4. Delete the latest added books.
5. Find the history and cache .xml files and open in a plain text editor.
6. Carefully delete the containers about the latest offending book, and save.
7. Safely unmount and disconnect to let it refresh it's contents.

I don't know if this is of any help to anyone but it took me from being very disconsolate to having a newly revived eReader. It is the first problem I've had with it. I'm not even sure if the dual format thing actually caused it, all I have to go on is what I did directly before it happens, and assume it's the cause. I have put the same novels in various formats to check before but they weren't set to the "currently reading" at the time a new one arrived, so maybe that was the issue. Either way, the device is back to new, the reset didn't delete my settings or my content as I expected it to.

The problem with an ebook reader is that if you read for pleasure and have bought one, you very quickly come to treat it as something you'll always have. I love my eReader, it's not a Sony preference, my device happens to be a Sony. I do know that I'll always want to have and use an ereader of some description or brand. The screen freezing coupled with the fact that I have no money to buy a new device had me facing the prospect of losing a valued part of my life until I could figure something out; however long that took. In that sense it's an addiction, complete with withdrawals.

For people researching buying an ereader reading this thinking "oooh, maybe I won't buy a Sony" I say this; it's a solid device in terms of build quality, it does ePub natively, it connects like removable storage to your Linux or Windows PC and other than this one minor (as it turned out since I managed to recover it) issue, I love mine. Admittedly that may be me sending some relieved vibes at it in a kinda "make up" way after an argument to mollify it and encourage it not to freeze on me again.

And they say people personify their gadgets? I don't buy it. Now if you'll excuse me, me and my Sony eReader have some making up to do. This whole post is a logical reasoning to deflect from the clear cause; I upset her somehow and she chose to let me know.