CONNECT Player Update Version 1.0.03.13130
A new software update for CONNECT Player is now available for download for ALL REGION. The update is of version 1.0.03.13130 and amount to approximately 24.3MB for the manual download and 19MB for the Auto Update route. (*actual installer size may vary regionally)
Problems fixed with this update Ver.1.0.03.13130
- CONNECT Player’s operating status; almost incomprehensible when problem occurs
- Edited music track information occasionally not reflected in CONNECT Player
- Music files of a certain bit rate not converted when transferred over to a WALKMAN A Series
- CONNECT Player may not start due to database related issue
- Search function (character string that includes the space) cannot be used until CONNECT Player is restarted
- Playback issue on the WALKMAN A series; for music files converted from Mp3 and WMA to ATRAC using CONNECT Player
- Tag information such as Album Jacket/Cover and Lyrics of music purchased from Mora not reflected in CONNECT Player
- A track’s rating may no longer be reflected when “Group By” is changed
- A ripped track may contain some noise if is was ripped after a previous rip of the track had been canceled
- Unable to rip a CD to a drive designated with a lowercase letter
- A track’s rating may no longer be reflected when “Group By” is changed
- The Connect Player program freezes if a file that is currently playing is deleted from the library or device.
DOWNLOAD LINKS: Sony Japan | Sony Europe | Sony Asia-Pacific | Sony Canada - via Auto Feature Update
Well this is a let down, I was expecting a bit more updates than this.
Good on ya sony, release updates concerning minor issues and leave the larger problems still there. I never thought I would say this, but I am looking forward to going back to sonicstage once sony upgrades it to full 100% compatability with the A series, whenver that will be.
This news was passed on to me by a contact at Sony.
Sony UK has set up a dedicated support line for Connect Player related problems. The number is 0800 169 5263 and is currently manned from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.
All Sony dealers are being informed of this helpline by letter (in the post tonight) and the Sony UK website will be updated to include the hotline number.
A further update on the timeline for software updates and a clarification of the development tracks for both SonicStage and Sony Connect Player will be available soon.
What about us Canadians that need help, thers still nothing mentioned on the Canadian site.
maybe they are still working on to fix major problems. Just give them more time.
I’m so disapointed once again by the so called fixes of this version. What would be cool is some “daily” updates next week, and a V2 at the end of it! to be honest I don’t beleive it for one second.
I wonder when the euro version is available. There sure is some jetlag between japan and europe…
It would be great if sony published a list of real known problems submited by consumers, and the ones they are working on, with possible dates of updates releases. Also, there could be a questionnaire, that users could read anytime and complete (as what we’re all doing in this forum), with answers from sony softs . It would be really nice and easier to wait for the updates, and they could also do better job around fixes and features…
wilykyu -
I think the daily update scenario you want is unrealistic.
I have contact with some people ‘in the know’ at Sony and I know that all efforts are being made to resolve the software issues.
From what I understand the causes of speed problems are complex to fix and so a decision was made to make this interim release that lets the user know that the software is doing something when it appears to have crashed. Euro version is scheduled ‘by end of January’.
Another Connect release is in preparation but it will be weeks rather than days before it is ready. I don’t know the fixes/features of this release but I am trying to get details from my contacts - as soon as I know I will pass the information on.
Publishing an official list of the known problems (and fixes or workarounds) is a great idea and I hope it will be adopted by Sony.
I know that the Connect developers and Sony CIC staff monitor this site and others to assist in identifing software problems and new feature requests.
[quote]Music files of a certain bit rate not converted when transferred over to a WALKMAN A Series[/quote]
What would be nicer is better support for MP3s on the player itself.
Silva Bokis said: “I have contact with some people ‘in the know’ at Sony and I know that all efforts are being made to resolve the software issues.”
You mean Sony is working with Microsoft or Real to make WMP and RealPlayer compatible with newer Sony products?
Lol .. it’s pathetic, that some people trieing to defend sony at this. You have to admit it, connect [player] sucks. at a very high order of magnitude. it’s the worst program _ever_ .. slow, big, crashing, needs restart, writes itself into a lots of places, has a dozen of memory resistent sub-programs, runs that awful tinyhttp.exe [100% cpu usage, thank you so much..]
and these few thing aren’t the worst part. the worst part is that they’re doing this since .. hm years? SonicStage ? any one? does any one remember how terrible the v1 was? And now .. they’ve made it again. A lots of people.. I mean the whole internet, demanded that they could use their sony mp3 players with windows in the plug-and-copy way. no fancy software.. make connect to be an option.. and the response from sony? nothing. not even a “fxxk you” :C
but god damn it … very much ironically , they still make the best mp3 players on the market .. so i’ve got one too :]
UPDATE: The update is now available for Canadian users via the Auto Update feature. In addition, the “problems fixed with this update Ver. 1.0.03″ list has a few updates – additional unreported enhancement.
The updates in 1.03 are not enough, they do nothing to address the REAL problems with Connect.
It seems Sony are fixing the easy to fix problems, NOT the real problems…
Mark - How else would you want them to go about it?
If the root cause of Connect performance problems is going to take longer to fix then surely it helps to have interim fixes for other bugs?
On the one hand they get criticised (rightly so) for inaction and then when the action starts they get criticised for that too.
Silva Bokis of Sony I take it?
The software should never have been released in its current condition, I have five years software development experience and if at any time in my short carear I had released an abomination such as this I would have lost my job the following day, and received a good kicking !!!
UPDATE: The update is now available for European users.
And Sonicstage 3.4 is also available on Euro download site…
There is a problem with the current English UK download, it’s not been regionalised. Selecting the Connect Store, takes you to the Japanese site. Because of this, you also may get a Inernet Explorer Japanese language dialog on startup to install the Japan language pack.
Like everybody else could not get Connect Player software to operate on several high spec machines, ended up resorting to Sonic Stage with reasonable success.
I am extremely suspicious of the underlying reasons why Connect Player software is not performing in the manner one would expect, especially given the excellent hardware in the NW-A3000 etc. The stakes are just too high to make such a blunder but at the same time the software is just too blatantly faulty for someone at Sony to have not noticed they have a serious problem on their hands before they launched the software.
Looking into the library section of the Connect Software folders, it appears that each music file is proprietarily encoded in terms of file name and file contents, suggesting a high level of Sony unique encrypting going on. This perhaps suggests why, if one has a large music library, the software eventually grinds memory and CPU usage to a hault, as the level of individual file encrypting, encoding and reading consumes system resources. I successfuly loaded Connect Player onto my computer, but problems ensued as soon as I attempted to load my library into software, eventually hanging machine. After numerous attempts to trace the problem on several computers, I decided to pace the software with a fresh install and 20 file batches, observing resource usage. No question, that the software is involved in some kind of sophisticated encodong of files, the bigger the library got, the larger demand on resources until machine hanged. The question then begs why such a level of sophisticated encoding? Copyright control? Sony has a track record of defying consumer satisfaction by insisting upon insidious copyright controls? Is this why the software was allowed to circulate, as the price to pay for control, but as we are all writing here, it has seriously backfired on Sony? I notice that the USA market has been held back from these woes? Are we the guinea pigs?
I also find it very suspicious that certain users are stating that they have complete success with the software, not understanding other’s complaints! I have now tested the Connect Software over 12 MACHINES, several of them high end Sony Computers - OK, some did perform better than others but eventually the software ground each machine to a hault! I speculate that, those success stories are none other than disinformation moles working to diffuse an utterly useless piece of software, buying time until the magic fix is available.
I also find it unbelievable that Sony have not responded with a clear message on their web site that they are dealing with this problem as a matter of urgency. I certainly would find comfort in such announcement as I am sure others would. The NW-A3000 player and sister products deserve such clear support! What are Sony doing? It just does not make business sense to go underground on this or not give it maximum decisive and clear support. There are plenty of examples, where large name software companies have got a release seriously wrong but they gain consumer tolerance and forgiveness by providing clear and informative support! Senior Sony executives should be sacked for such a complete lack of customer care and support - smacks of arrogance and a cover up - I wonder how much the man at the top of Sony knows of this problem? I hazard a guess that a lot of senior Sony executives are scrambling around to protect their hides!
Anyway, just to say that Sonic Stage 3.3 got files onto NW-a3000 with reasonable success. Do not try to load large batches on though as this causes this software to get stuck at a 99% transfer message! Also before I used Sonic Stage I organised all my library with i-tunes (great piece of software!), coverting where appropriate into MP3 format, into one folder. Sonic Stage picked up this folder and brought files in with out time lags.
Surely someone will come up with Media Player plugin for NW-A3000? Sony wake up, we are hanging on by the saving grace of a great piece of hardware!
I posted the above comment on Jan ‘09. OK since my post, we now have 4 weeks later, belatedly some clear communication where things are going!
I stick by the heart of my comments that this should be a simple piece of software engineering to bring back in line, but there is something far more complex in the engine of Connect that is causing the delays. My suspicions copyright control!
It is utterly indefensible, to defend these so called updates, when thousands of users have been so bitterly dissappointed and let down! Their expectations deserve far more than this!
lol, Max, I can truly tell you now I am not working for Sony, if I was, well I wouldn’t have to go to uni, would I?
anyways, I posted my comments about the new update in one tread that mark made, so you can check out my views there. I should mention I am running CP, on this machine:
Pentium 3 600MHZ EB
512 ram
256 video card, nvidia
20 gig internal drive, but all my music is on a seperate 80gig western digital usb drive
usb2.0 of course.
windows XP SP2 with the latest updates
the 20 gig drive only has 10 gigs of free space now
and I so far have not had problems that have made me give up and go to SS3.3, I have successfully used both the A1000 and A3000 on one machine, transferring songs to both units, with the A3000 song count now at 878 and 9 gigs free space lol. i like my high bitrates. playlists work no problem as well, transfer is no problem, although when I moved over a lot of files, the PC crashed lol, but that is due to the slow pc I have. other than that, normal moving of files onto the device has had no problems.
Do tell me why people with higher end pc’s are having more problems than my 6 year old pc? just doesn’t make sense does it? meaning it can’t be the hardware, it has to be the software, and I don’t mean CP, XP is to blame too. I will be switching over to a faster pc next week or 2 weeks from now, so I am curious how that will work lol. If I am able to have no problems on a 2.4 gig P4, 512 ram, same video card, 80 gig internal drive and same ext WD 80gig, then truly, I will be surprised why it works for me and not for other people.
crazy world.
I would let you know how i got on but the download is running at 1KB/sec and will take over 5 hours!! (and yes I am using Broadband) … even the updates don’t work properly
I’ve got just 1.2 KB/s. This is just f***!! 4:01 h
I think Connect isn’t even the worst program i ever used but these problems/slow times are really annoying! I just use WMP 10 like i did before. But I love my A1000!!!
ATTACK!!
Ascariss
The mind boggles!
At the moment to quote another forum post -
Sony has released Placebo updates!
Are you sure you are not uploading at the same time with auto upload, look at the connect played icon in the tray, is it moving? then you are updating
I am not lying Max, the program does work fine for me and the updates did help in truth.
when it was high CPU usage before the update and mem usage around 100megs, and not low CPU usage and mem usage of 15 or megs, isn’t that an improvement? it sure was for me.
took me 2-3 hours to download the thing, it still takes an age to start up, but it has had some benefits, the display at the bottom right tells you alot more about whats going on and the transfer of tracks is really quick, but after a track/album is transfered, it can take it 1-2 minutes to become active again which is what slows transfers in the end, if they can sort this issue out in the next update(Quickly) then we might have a usable software on are hands!
ok here is the post from the forums for people who missed it:
Then, I hooked up the A3000 and let it sync, thinking this would take a while and well seriously slow down CP, and even make it hang 2-3 times, nothing of this sort happened what so ever. I was puzzled.
Once I connected the unit, it said connecting at the bottom, and then if I recall correctly, stated found A3000 or connected A3000, one of those 2. then the updating of the unit library began, it took a while, 750 songs, and was removing some songs I deleted on it as well. But suprisingly, no hanging up of the program and I could use it(the program) as well when it was updating the library on the unit.
When transferring files, it actually shows the count of files that are left to go before transfer is finished, counting down from the top to the bottom. Also seemed to be faster with no hang ups for me like before.
playlist transfer is no problem either, and interesting enough, I had one song on the playlist that wasn’t in the library so the program went ahead and imported it into CP, nice touch.
Finally the best part for me, and a surprise, CPU usage is down dramatically for me, and the memory usage seems to be now in the 6-16meg range, at least when I was using it.
the problem is, this could all be working for me, since initially CP installed without any hitches and has worked 90% of the time since first install.
I’ve had a few issues with Connect Player, the only major issue at the moment is not being able to rip enhanced CDs. I initially imported a couple of hundred MP3s from iTunes (some of which still remain) and after a few days all the Artist Link data was present. It can be a little bit annoying at times, not adding the data, but eventually it gets there. When first playing a track, there is a couple of seconds delay, but after that its fine. Start-up time is comparable to other software on my machine.
I’ve only had it crash a few times. No-reinstalls, no deleting of library, just out of the box Connect Player. CPlayer.exe consumes 8,548K on idle, tinyhttp.exe 98,672K. TinyHTTP doesn’t bother me to much about its memory usage. Even with only 384MB RAM, Connect Player + Firefox (45536K), CodeBlocks, Shareaza and general Winbloat leaves me with 70MB of RAM free.
I think some of you are looking at this new build in the wrong way. By adding the extra status information about what the application is doing they are not only adding a safeguard about not disconnecting the player whilst its being accessed, they are also helping solve further issues. It will allow both the end-user and Sony to diagnose problems easier by allowing the issue to be tracked down to a more exact process. For instance, you can now see what part of the start-up sequence takes the longest. That step can then be optimized. I know this can be done even better using a debugger, but not all end-users have the software/skill to be able to do this.
My PC is completely custom built and triple-boots. In all honesty, every machine is a custom build, there is no stock specifications for a PC like there is for a Playstation or GBA.
17″ LG Studioworks 700S Monitor
AMD Duron 1.1Ghz
384MB PC-133 SDRAM (256+128)
8GB, 120GB, 160GB HDDs
52x/16x CDRW/DVD Combi
64MB Nvidia Geforce 2 MX400
Belkin 5 port hi-speed USB2 PCI card
XP SP2
Gentoo Linux
Slackware Linux
XP installed on one of three partition on 160GB disk
Connect library installed first of 4 partitions on 120GB disk.
Has no problems using either in built USB1.1 or Belkin USB2 ports, just much faster on the later.
> Silva Bokis of Sony I take it?
I resemble that remark
Seriously, if you’ve checked out my blog or numerous postings I have made on this site and elsewhere you will see that I am very open about the fact that I have business dealings with Sony. I’m not an employee but my firm does a lot of work for them.
That isn’t to say I’m a fanboy or some sort of fifth columnist. I bought an NW-A3000 with my own money on the day it came out in the UK. I had nightmares with Connect v1.0 that weren’t resolved until the second update. Since the update before last my setup is very stable but I do sympathise with those who are still having problems.
I agree that the software should not have been released in the state it was for v1.0.
However, given that this has happened my original point was that Sony are now ‘damned if they do, damned if they don’t’. The original criticism was that they did nothing now it is that they haven’t fixed all problems in a single update. What would you rather they do - wait until all bugs are resolved and wait to do a single update or make releases that are intended to improve the situation for some users while still working to resolve the biggest problem?
FWIW
My impression of CONNECT Player up to the last (pre 1.03) update is that its entire infrastructure is fundamentally flawed. I won’t be going anywhere near 1.03 because, while informative status messages are helpful, they’re only helpful when something goes wrong, and that’s what I want to avoid.
So I’m worried that the proposed ‘proper’ update in a few weeks time still won’t address these fundamental problems. Some minor optimisation and more helpful status info?
When every two-bit korean manufacturer can implement USB mass storage on their devices, what is holding Sony back? Supporting ‘Artist Link’ can’t be that complicated?
I bought my A1000 because it looks cool, way better than the iPod and Creative ever will, and it has great functionality too.
BUT, why oh why oh why would a giant such as Sony misunderstand the reason people love MP3 players? Easy and pain free transer of music and tinkering with playlists. I love Windows Media Player and use this at home. As a last resort I use Sonic Stage and Connect to drive my walkman but I hate it every time.
Seriously. Is there any hint of compatibility with Windows or will we be stuck with rubish Sony Software for ever?
v.poor.like.no.other
very suprised any company can get away with beta testing its products on paying customers.If a car maunfacturer said your car had antilock brakes and then it didnt you would be very very annoyed or worse..Shame on sony for thinking it was bigger than its customers on this occasion.I agree what we need is software for the product that works as good as the unit looks nwa300.Make it work with media player or something after all most of us have already paid for our music at least let us hear it as we want…
oh and artist link is worthless as it fails to work most times and if it does it refers you to something totally unconnected to what your listening to..
If these players are faulty regardless whether the fault lies with the hardware or the software customers are entitled to a full refund
The sale of goods act 2003
‘Fit for purpose’ covers not only the obvious purpose of an item but any purpose you queried and were given assurances about by the trader.
If something you buy from a trader does not meet these conditions, you are entitled to a full refund if you return the goods soon after purchase HOWEVER You only have a relatively short period to get a full refund. After this time, you will be deemed to have ‘accepted’ the item.
Return the players and if or when the problems are rectified then repurchase.
I just found out that RealPlayer supports some Walkmans! My hope raised slightly - anything’s got to be better than Connect. But, sadly, it doesn’t seem to work with the newer HDD Walkmans.
Sony ought to be ashamed at producing software called Connect, i used the recent update and now i have no GUI, in taskmanager it shows all the processes running ie, connect player.exe and tinyhttp.exe and grman.exe but still i cannot see anything to do with connect player on my screen.
I payed good money to put files onto my mp3 player 4 times in the last 3 months, i cannot install music or remove music now and that is even with deleting and reinstalling the software many times and trying updates,
i am seriously fed up with Sony’s Connect software, it must now be the worlds worst software ever.