- Average user rating: 1.5 stars out of 54 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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6 out of 6 people found this review helpful
1.0 stars
"WARNING: Do Not "Upgrade" to Rhapsody 4.0! (So buggy as to be useless.)"
Pros: None (It is difficult to think about features when confronted with so many errors while attempting to use an application.)
Cons: Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy
Summary: I know better than to upgrade to X.0 of anything; but I was lulled into complacency by the stability of Rhapsody 3.x that I upgraded from. Rhapsody 4.0 is way too buggy to have been released by an entity with as much market power as Real Networks. The development managers should be ashamed of themselves, and upper management should have serious career-continuity discussions with them.
(1) The upgrade install is not smart enough to determine whether correct-version DRM components are present on the PC, and simply runs to completion without errors with incorrect-version components installed. Proceeding to install with incompatible OS components is a real no-no with modern software, and caused the following problem. I right-clicked and selected ?authorize? to authorize and license my portable player; this routine ran to completion without errors. But then, when I attempted to transfer tracks to the device, I got the error message ?computer not authorized.? This message left a maddening ambiguity as to whether the problem was associated with the Rhapsody-based computer or with the portable player. Several cycles of de-authorization and re-authorization of both computer and player finally determined that the problem had to do with the player. Indicating that an operation has completed without errors when it has not is also a no-no with modern software. Hours later, after executing a list of possible fixes related to ?DRM problems? found on the Rhapsody support page, the problem resolved by implementing the item last on the list, ?updating Helix components.? A software services company that forces users to this level of minutia to obtain a working product writes a dissertation thereby titled ?How to Lose Customers.?
(2) Dragging a track multiple times to a playlist creates duplicates of that track in the playlist.
(3) Selecting 400 tracks from My Library, right-clicking and choosing ?Download Tracks? resulted in a four-hour download of useless files in ?.rax? format that could not be copied locally to the portable player. I had to repeat the download completely to get transferable .wma files.
(4) When performing simultaneous downloading of tracks and loading tracks already downloaded to the portable player, the progress bar flakes out and stops reporting the track download operation.
(5) Level 1 technical support apparently has a series of buttons on their support consoles to generate canned messages such as ?I can surely help you with that issue.? However they have repeatedly proven incapable of answering even one question complicated enough to necessitate chatting with them. And they have wasted massive amounts of my time.
- 2 replies to this review
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I once loved Rhapsody. I *really* detest Rhapsody 4.0. I go to sync the music on my player only to discover that all the playlists have disappeared or it refuses to sync yet tells me it's complete when it hasn't done anything. I've spent more time starting over again... Half the time when I want to download music so I can transfer it onto the player it simply does nothing.
Gee whiz guys, haven't you ever heard saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"? -
This is exactly what happened to me! I bought the San Disk player specifically to work with Rhapsody and it was an absolute nightmare. Rhapsody tech support is the biggest joke around. I have since completely uninstalled junk from my PC, put the player up for sale and have begun the search for my next MP3 player.
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