Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Google books error "Couldn't retrieve part of the book from server. Try again later."

If you are using this to troubleshoot your Google Books issue, proceed at your own risk. I'm not responsible to any damages. This is what worked for me.

This morning I tried to buy a book on my Android phone and after the purchase I tried to open the book. Shortly after I got an error saying:

"Couldn't retrieve part of book from server. Try again later."

How annoying right? So I tried again later. Same error. So I started poking around. Maybe I can download a sample of a random book... nope same error. Well I felt a little bit better knowing it wouldn't download a sample and my purchased book.

That leads to an issue with either Google, my phone, my connection on my phone, or the Google Books app. I then opened http://books.google.com/ and found my book that I purchased and I was able to open it and read it. So that leaves my phone, my connection on my phone, or the Google Books app. Then I verified I could browse the Internet on my phone and I could. Also tried wifi on and off. Still the same error. Well, I then started with the Google Books app. I "force stop" the app, "clear data", then tried to open the app. That was a complete fail and all my offline books where gone, as I expected from clearing the data.

The last thing to do was to "uninstall updates". Uninstall updates was located where the uninstall button should be. I think my Google books version was 2.x.x ( I think 2.3.5 but not sure ). So I uninstalled updates. The version of Google Books is now 1.3.5 and that did the trick. I was able to view all my books, purchased and sampled, and re-download all my books offline including the new book I just purchased. Hope this helps someone...


20 comments:

  1. Thanks! Worked like a charm.

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  2. Great, glad to hear that Arlen! I checked my Motorola Xoom last night and it didn't have any issues showing my new books.

    Also today my Google books app updated on my phone automatically to 1.5.2. I didn't have any problems opening my existing books and downloading a free sample.

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  3. I never got the update, so am still on 1.5.2, and still get get my books. But thanks so much for sharing your fix!!
    Jet Phoenix

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  4. oops! ** can't get my books. LOL
    JET

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  5. Hi Jet, do you have the option to uninstall the Gooble Books app?

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  6. Your fix worked great for me. I was using v.1.5.2 and just uninstalled the whole thing. Then just installed it again and all my books were there. Awesome.
    --
    Kirk

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  7. Glad you got it working Kirk, thanks for the heads up

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  8. Uninstalling updates worked for me as well. Thanks!

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  9. I have been having this issue on two different devices since the update. All attempts to get free samples from the market gave the error. What solved it for me was opening the Google Books app directly, after I clicked on a book within the app everything I had tried to download over the past weeks downloaded and is accessible.

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  10. U need to turn the sync on in the google books app. That connects your phone to the online library. I turned it on and it worked.

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    Replies
    1. Hi catsrfavs thanks for posting! Are you talking about under settings > accounts > my gmail account sync with gmail, contacts and such? The sync books is enabled, even when I had this issue. Are you getting this error when you uncheck sync books?

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  11. II think at one point i disabled it. Then i started having issues as mentioned above couldn't retrieve etc. I was messing around in Google books trying to find anything that would help and a window popped up and said i needed to turn sync on to allow the online library sync and download to my phone. I looked and couldn't find where to turn that on and off then dawned on me to Check my phone settings and found accounts@ sync like you mentioned under settings. I ran the test turned off and couldn't retrieve then turned sync back on and it worked. So yes it is looked under settings then accounts@sync. Hope this works for everyone.

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  12. Thanks Chris,
    Uninstalling updates worked for me.

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  13. Thanks for this blog post, Chris, and thanks, Kirk for your post -- I had the same issue. Couldn't find the "uninstall updates" option so I also uninstalled the whole app and downloaded it again from Market. Not only was my old library there, but so were the three free books/samples I was trying to download! -Kristina

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  14. I switched my Droid Bionic to internal storage instead of USB. It redownloaded my books and now works fine. I haven't tried switching it back because I don't have that many books where it matters.

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