DomLaguna

I've been having a nightmare with the new release of SS (4.0.00.05080, CP). What's worse, once you have downloaded the new version, you can't fall back to the old one (3.3) because of the way that Sony distributes software via the Installer, rather than sending out the distribution itself. The symptoms I've had are simply this: a complete lock up of SS, after one or two simple operations. e.g., playing a track, or clicking "up a level" in the library, etc. The program becomes completely unresponsive and has to be shut down forcibly (End Task). This has happened a couple of dozen times while I've tried to diagnose and fix the problem. Someone on ATRAClife, I think, said they cured their difficulties by deleting the database. I tried that, and it seemed to work. But after a short time, the program hung again. After hanging, SS normally hangs again immediately on being restarted. My laptop is a Lenovo/Thinkpad Z60m, just a couple of months old, and very up to date. Bags of disk space and memory. Finally, looking at the README.txt delivered with the new update, I saw the note saying, "- Do not use SonicStage while logged on to a domain user account under Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Home Edition." I'm not at all sure what this means (I've never really understood Windows domain accounts). But my laptop has a hardware switch at the front that disengages all network links. I switched off the networking (wireless), and presto! SonicStage starts happily, runs rapidly (subjective impression), and doesn't hang. It seems okay to turn the network on again after a few minutes. So far SS doesn't seem to hang as long as the network is off when it starts. This has been a very bad experience. I don't have a lot of spare time, and I do enjoy music. Sony's poorly tested software has cost me many hours of frustration this week, being unable to get music to play, and being unable to fall back to the last version of the player that worked well. > When the debugged version is released, could Sony please give us the option of falling back to earlier versions! DomLaguna