peterjf

No, still no luck. I have tried re-installing my Windows Security, re-installing SonicStage and have made specific Windows Firewall exceptions for SonicStage. My Internet connection is as it should be (hence my being able to post here) and still I get the error message. What version do you use? Searching Minidisc for SonicStage gives versions 3.4 and 4.0. Thanks!

Thanks for your reply. I have certainly got the option of re-importing the ATRAC files as a last resort, but I was hoping to avoid having to do this as the library is about 95% compilations and I really do not want to have to go through 12,000 tracks one at a time to re-tick the 'compilation' box for every one. Good to know the server is still active - perhaps it is my internet connection. Thanks again!

Evening all, During many years of trouble with SonicStage, the one program in the suite that has always worked well and with no issues is the Backup tool. Until tonight that is... After a system crash last night, I had to perform a Windows System restore. As a precaution, I tried to restore my meticulously backed-up SonicStage library tonight. However, I cannot get the necessary online authentication of the database that enables the restore to take place. All I get is an error message: "Failed to restore the rights information. (Code: %x)" And before anyone asks, there is no copy protection on any of my files. My PC is running Windows XP with SonicStage version 4.2. Now I know that Sony have stopped supporting SonicStage anywhere outside Japan. However, since they pulled the plug on SonicStage, I have managed to use the restore tool successfully. Has anyone else had this issue? Is it just a case of the authentication server being down or have Sony got rid of it completely? (I would be surprised if that were the case, given that they still support the software in Japan.) Thanks in advance.

The first question that comes to mind is: What version of Windows are you using? If you are using XP, it may be worth trying to install an earlier version of SonicStage (version 4.0 is available as a full download from this site, version 4.2 may also be available elsewhere). Otherwise it may well be an issue with your PC - SS does seem to be very fussy about the PC it is on.

I agree with both replies - the only way to transfer the music is to use the SS backup tool. Don't even think about copying the music files across any other way, otherwise you will have to re-import each album individually (and this can be a real pain if you have any compilation albums). I have used the backup tool successfully on a number of occasions with a library of about 20,000 tracks. It is user-friendly and I have never known anyone report trouble using it. The only glitch is that you need to authenticate the database online when restoring, and the server at the other end can be slow.

True enough that all HD machines are slower than flash memory ones. However, I have always found the A3000 takes twice as long to start up as my HD1 and HD5. It also takes the A3000 longer to respond to any button presses than the other two machines. It has also been slower since I started using SS version 4.2 than when I used version 3.4, so I can only presume that this version produces a differently structured database on the A3000. On the other hand, I have had none of the file corruption issues on the machine that I used to have when I used version 3.4, so the extra slowness is not all bad.

After re-initialising the player and re-connecting it to SonicStage, you should get a pop-up window to the effect that SonicStage is checking the tracks that have been deleted from the player. (At least - you do with SS version 4.2 - earlier versions may just do this check without telling you what is going on. By the way, which version of SS do you use?) As I remember from the last time I did this, the process is quite resource-hungry, takes a few hours (as I have a large number of tracks in my library) and has to be carried out three or four times as SS seems to be unable to do the whole lot in one go. The first run of this takes a lot longer than the rest - it gets quicker each time. After this is done, all music can be re-transferred. It sounds as though this may be the problem you have had - from time to time, the database within the player does get corrupted (especially if you are often putting music on and taking music off the player). I have this problem every few months with my HD1 and HD5. Although annoying and time-consuming, I can usually get the players back up and running properly in a day or two. (Incidentally, I have had my HD1 since it first came out - which I think is about 3 years ago now. Hardware-wise, it still performs as well as it did on day one - even the battery is still in tip-top condition.) Try this (leaving the player connected to the PC overnight if necessary) - there is no point in spending your hard-earned on a new player if you do not need to. Good luck!

The trouble is that there have been rumours on here for many months now (from people who claim to be in the know) that Sony are producing something revolutionary. Nothing has ever emerged to give any credibility to these rumours. For a long time, I was prepared to give Sony the benefit of the doubt. After all, following the disappointment of the A1000/1200/3000 series and the troubles with Connect, Sony would obviously want to make sure that they get the next product right. However, with nothing but flash players coming out and with no definite news for many many months, even I am getting sceptical. Having said that, I hope that something with a high capacity is on its way as I have had enough of having to carry two players round with me. That may well soon be three as both my HD5H and A3000 are nearly full...

The backlight is a major drain on the battery. I also think that extra power is used decoding any format other than ATRAC (but I do not know this for sure). The other thing that runs the battery down quickly is repeatedly switching between tracks, as the player needs to access the disk more than it would otherwise do. If the player is just left to play tracks in its predetermined order (ie playing one album, then another and so on instead of repeatedly jumping about), the player caches 25 minutes of music at a time and therefore minimises the amount the disk is accessed. All this shortens the battery life. One final word is that I have had my HD5 since it was first released, which is nearly two years ago. Despite fairly heavy use most days, I still get about its stated 35 hours between charges.

I haven't done this myself, but others on here have said that if you connect your existing drive to your new PC, you can import your existing files to SonicStage, as long as there is no copy-protection on the files. (If any of your tracks are copy-protected, they will probably still import, but will then be unplayable and will not transfer to your player - in which case, the only option is to re-rip the original CDs.) The music on your player should not be affected as you can use the device with more than one PC. My SonicStage library is on a slave disk which I transferred to my new PC recently. However, I put the music into SonicStage by restoring a SS backup I had previously made. Only one word of caution - if you put SS4.2 (or possibly 4.3) onto the new PC, and the music on your device was put on by an earlier version, I would not connect the device to the PC until the entire music library is ready to transfer, otherwise the track listings on the device get scrambled. The only way round this is to re-initialise the player and re-transfer the music. Good luck!

Navsimpson - you are quite right in that all versions of SonicStage CP (ie 4.0 and later) do feature full support for the NW-A series of players. Savage Hamster - If you have a player with music transferred by any version of SonicStage before (I think) version 4.2, the database on the player does get messed up when you connect to a PC with SS 4.2 installed. While this does not mean that the music becomes unplayable, it certainly does mess up the listings on the player screen. This is because the later versions of SS structure the database in a different way on the player (and if my A3000 is anything to go by, it now takes a fraction of the time to create its database after disconnecting from my PC). The only way round this is to re-initialise the player and re-transfer your music.

I have had the same trouble with SS3.4. I could not find any way round the problem without re-initialising my HD5. However, you may want to do a complete clean uninstall of your current version of SS (there are complete instructions for this somewhere on this site) and either reinstall the same version or upgrade to the latest version (currently 4.2) before you initialise and re-transfer your music. I had the same trouble and had to do two or three re-initialisations before I decided to bite the bullet and do a re-install. If you do this, however, you do need to make sure you use the SS backup tool to make a backup of your library before you start. Sorry I cannot be any more help, but (touch wood and tempt fate), I have not had any trouble since I did this re-install (I am now using SS4.2). I suspect that there was a gremlin somewhere in the SS registry settings that was corrupting the HD5 database. Good luck if you decide to do this.

As long as you transfer the music from the laptop to the new PC using the SonicStage backup tool, you should not have any trouble. The backup tool is easy enough to use - just make sure you have an external HDD to make the transfer and you will need an Internet connection to restore the music to the new PC. Good luck!

Thanks!

I am thinking of buying one of these players (I am sure you all wanted to know that...) What I would like to know is this: When you get to the end of an album, does this player continue with the next album (like the NW-HD1/HD5/A308 etc) or does it stop playing (like the A3000)? Thanks in advance.

It might be worth checking your firmware (go to Home Menu-Settings-Unit Information) - version 3.0 is recommended for using the A3000 with SonicStage. If you have an older version, you can download version 3.0 from the Sony site or from elsewhere on this site and install it yourself. You may find you have to re-transfer all your music after upgrading it (I would do this anyway to be on the safe side), but this should not take too long for 400 songs. Another common cause of problems is using SonicStage in a PC account that does not have Administrator status.

I have been using various versions of SonicStage together with three HD Walkmans (HD1, HD5H and now A3000) and one Flash Walkman (A608). I am currently using SS3.4 and my system runs Windows XP SP2 with all the latest patches. Each one of the HD machines has gradually developed issues in the same order. At first SS works and does what it is supposed to. Problems start creeping in when SS crashes in mid-transfer. No problem yet, as I can simply start it again and re-start the transfer. The next stage of problems is when SS suddenly seems to think that there is no space on the Walkman and stops in mid-transfer. Again no real problem, as I can simply exit SS, start it again and re-start the transfer. The third stage is when SS dies in mid-transfer and simply vanishes from the PC screen, usually needing the Task Manager to kill it before I can restart it. The real problems start appearing soon after this. On occasion, SS transfers the tracks OK. However, upon disconnection and making up the unit's database, some or all of the tracks refuse to play and show the 'CANNOT PLAY TRACK ERROR' message on screen. This means that I need to re-connect the Walkman, delete the tracks affected and re-transfer - sometimes the tracks play second time, sometimes not and this means another reconnect-delete-retransfer cycle. The real problem is the next one to crop up. SS transfers tracks OK, the database is created upon disconnection and the transferred tracks (usually) play OK, but the tracks previously on the unit all refuse to play, again showing the 'CANNOT PLAY TRACK ERROR' message on screen. The only way I have found of getting round this is completely re-initialising the player and re-transferring all the music, which takes a couple of days (all three HD machines are usually near capacity - a GB or so free on each). (I then usually find issues with re-transferred tracks that will not play - I have to check every transferred group - and this usually adds a day or two to the re-initialise and re-transfer process.) I have had no issues at all with the A608, which would suggest that SS has a problem with dealing with large amounts of music. The only change I have made to SS is to put in the XML files to enable the PC screen to show the Walkmans' contents by group. I have since then gone back to using the 'Albums by Artist' view with no luck. I have seen on here that people have had similar issues with SS4.0, which is the main reason I have not bothered upgrading to it. The question I have is this: Has anyone had any similar experiences with SS4.2? Thanks for taking the time to read this message, apologies for its length and I look forward to hearing about anyone's experiences. Thanks in advance.

The early version of SonicStage should not make a difference. The only way to get your music across is to use the SonicStage backup utility to make a copy of your music and then restore this to your new laptop. You can access this either through the 'Start-Programs-SonicStage menu' or through the tools menu on SonicStage itself. Just follow the instructions - it is quite user-friendly and it does work. The only possible fly in the ointment is that you need to connect to the Internet to get authentication on the database before you can restore the backup. Incidentally, I would strongly recommend that you use this utility on a regular basis to keep a backup, as you can get round most of SS's foibles if you have got a backup that is readily restorable.

Has anyone who uses SS4.1 noticed if this version has any effect on the player it is used with? What I mean by this is that SS4.0 changed the order in which albums appeared on the screen of my players, and there was no apparent logic behind this order (not alphabetical order, not in order of transfer from PC to player, etc). I raised this on here as soon as SS4.0 was released, and this is why I still use SS3.4 - at least now everything appears on the player in alphabetical order. The players concerned were my old HD1 (now sadly departed to the great hi-fi shop in the sky), and the HD5H and A608 that I still use. (My new A3000 has never been connected to SS4.0 - I have always used SS3.4 with it.) The PC concerned has Windows XP SP2 and is up to date with all the latest patches. Does anyone know if this issue has been resolved with SS4.1?

Has anyone actually managed to get hold of a higher-capacity drive than the 30GB one in the HD5H? The biggest 5mm Toshiba drive seems to be the 40GB MK4009GAL, and the only site that I have found that sells these drives is span.com. Even this site lists them as 'coming soon'.

Thanks!

When I play an album on my HD1 or HD5, it plays the next album straight after the current one finishes. However, I cannot find any way of doing this on the A3000 - it gets to the end of an album and then stops. Does anyone know if there is a way of playing one album after another on the A3000?

I have always found that compilation albums and their tracks are handled better if the initial of the album artist is set to 'Others' as opposed to 'V' (making sure that the compilation box is ticked...)

Agree with all of these (especially the capacity - there cannot be any reason for not providing at least a 60GB option in this day and age). The thing I would add is a utility within its PC software to repair files with damaged or corrupted DRM, and to clean up and remove any bugs or gremlins that creep into a SonicStage database.

Has anyone else had adverse experiences of trying to get a database authenticated online to restore a SonicStage backup? In the past, I have usually got authentication within about five or so minutes. Tonight I have been waiting for about 75 minutes (and as I type this, I have just received the verification). Is this some sort of record? Has anyone ever had an experience of not being able to get verification (due to a server going down or whatever) and what did you do about it?