DescentBB

Posted: **Mon Jun 07, 2004 8:22 am**

I tried to purchase 2 songs the other day at Buy.com, but when I went to download them, it gave me a special download program instead of the song itself (the way it worked under BuyMusic.com). The download program has not worked, but keeps giving me a "try again later" message, so I contacted support.....

sgtthorne@sbcglobal.net wrote: I don't know if you'd call it a question--rather a complaint. I bought 2 songs the other day, and have yet been unable to download them. I get a "try again later" on your download program. I am connected to the Internet via DSL through a ******* brand router (I was able to hear the music samples for both pieces). I have found that now and then I am unable to play certain samples, to venture a guess I would say that about half of the ones I have tried have worked.

support@customerservice.buy.com wrote:Hello daniel,

Thank you for calling buy.com.

We are responding to your request for information about songs
that were interrupted while downloading. We apologize for any
inconvenience that a download interruption may have caused.
If your music download is interrupted, check to see which songs
were successfully downloaded and which were not. Download again
only the ones you didn't get the first time. You can download
the files again to the same computer as often as you like.

See License Restrictions on our Help page for information on
downloading to a different machine.

Please follow these steps to download your songs again:
1. Close Windows Media Player.
2. Go to www.Buy.com and log in to your 'My Account' using your
email address and password.
3. Click on the order number you are having problems with. Do
not click on the button that says "View My Downloads". This is
just a visual reference of your download history.
4. Once you are looking at the order you were having problems
with, please click the button that says "Download" next to the
songs that
are not playing.
5. The Save As dialog box should display. Choose the default
(Example: C/Desktop/MyDocuments/MyMusic/Downloads).

If the Save As dialog box does not display, turn off the Media
Bar's display of online media content on the Advanced tab in
the Internet
Options dialog box of Internet Explorer by following these steps:
1. To check your Internet Explorer settings:
2. In the tools menu, select Internet Options.
3. In Internet Options dialog box, click on the Advanced tab.
4. In the Advanced tab, scroll down to Multimedia.
5. Under Multimedia, Select the box next to "Don't display online
media content in the media bar". You will want a checkmark in
that
box.
6. Click the "Apply" button along the bottom of the Internet
Options dialog box, then the "OK" button.

Please note that once you update your Internet Explorer settings,
you have to close all Internet Explorer windows and then relaunch
Internet Explorer in order for the settings to take effect.

If you need to locate your song for future reference, please
note the following:
From inside Windows Media Player, Click on the Media Library
button. If it's your first time, click Yes to search for media.
Under Search Options, in the Look In field, click Browse. If
you downloaded your music to your computer under C:\Desktop\My
Documents\My Music\downloads, then browse to that file and double
click the appropriate music file ending in.wma.

You can also use the Search button in the Windows Explorer navigation
bar. In the Search field, type *.wma since all music files you
download from Buy.com end in the extension wma. If this does
not work, you should also try to search for the artist name or
song title.

We apologize again for the inconvenience and thank you for your
patience in this issue. If you continue to experience difficulties,
please respond to support@customerservice.buy.com.

Sincerely,

Team Buy.com
www.Buy.com

Nothing was different, when I followed their instructions it just gave me the same download client, which still didn't work.....

sgtthorne@sbcglobal.net wrote:Buy.com support:
I am still unable to downloading the music. "If the Save As dialog box
does not display, turn off the Media
Bar's display of online media content...": Your e-mail to me seemed to
suggest that I am to be downloading actual media files when I click the
"download" link on buy.com; this is not the case: what it does give me is a
download manager ("BuyMusicDownloader-20040606-19152219.exe") that still
will not download the music! Either my case is a bizarre exception, or
somebody needs to update (or clarify?) their support files.

support@customerservice.buy.com wrote:Hello daniel,
-
Thank you for contacting buy.com.

we really apologize for the inconvienece. Due to some technical
reasons you may not be able to download the music however you
can try again later
.
Thank you for writing to us.
sincerely
Team buy.com
www.buy.com

Automation is definately the waive of the future. If these songs weren't free (e-mail coupon), I would really be upset.. Meanwhile, iTunes is looking better and better.

Posted: **Mon Jun 07, 2004 12:41 pm**

Firewall?

Posted: **Mon Jun 07, 2004 1:42 pm**

I believe my router has some sort of firewall built in, yeah.

Posted: **Mon Jun 07, 2004 5:48 pm**

Well, I was able to download the music just now.. wierd (the "purchase" took place on Friday). Makes me glad I didn't give in to the temptation to send an unpleasant response. Looks like I will continue to use Buy.com with iTunes to get music.

I will, however, try at all costs to avoid having to turn to their "support" department.

Posted: **Mon Jun 07, 2004 7:09 pm**

Is it in actual MP3's, or did buy.com invent their own cryptic MP4-based format?

Posted: **Mon Jun 07, 2004 7:51 pm**

They are Windows Media Audio (.wma) files (it might be an mp4 encoding, I forget), but it is a protected format. I usually convert the songs to mp3 or wav for my own use.

Posted: **Mon Jun 07, 2004 8:36 pm**

How can you convert protected files?

Posted: **Mon Jun 07, 2004 9:17 pm**

I wonder if anyone has tried the dedrm program yet. It removes the lock but it still keeps your name tied to the file in case you distribute it everywhere. You can get a version of it here:
http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/easy-dr ... 015516.php

It was originally coded by DVDJon, the guy that did decss. Let me know if anyone tries this and it works. You can get different versions of the program including source code if you search for dedrm. I'm out of town for work and don't have any tunes to play with here.

It seems there are some updates here:
http://hymn-project.org/

and here for more info:
http://www.nanocrew.net/blog/

Posted: **Mon Jun 07, 2004 9:50 pm**

This reminds me of when I contacted Interplay Tech Support about the D3 crash in Level 10 problem in version 1.3 (before 1.4 came out). The response was something along the lines to check that I had the latest DirectX installed.

I haven't contacted technical support since that

.

Posted: **Tue Jun 08, 2004 12:52 am**

This is why legal music downloads won't take off.

Posted: **Tue Jun 08, 2004 7:02 am**

No, the biggest thing they have against them, at least from my vantage-point, is a lack of selection. I'm happy to pay for every song I download, but these guys don't have half the songs I'm looking for.. maybe my tastes aren't main-stream enough. If they had some resources dedicated to acquiring requested music (both used to have a request area), it would be great.

DescentBB

BuyMusic @ Buy.com

BuyMusic @ Buy.com