can't download samples

Scanning this forum, it seems that at least a dozen people have experience this problem. I am one of them.

I tried all the usual approaches to fix this: re-installing iBooks, cold restart of the iPad, resetting and restoring the iPad (very time-consuming) and none of this works.

Here is what you need to try: figure out when the problem first starting happening to you, and then delete any App you have installed since before the problem first appeared. I had the problem start about 4 days ago, so I deleted all the apps I had installed in the past week. THAT FIXED THE PROBLEM!

Then I started re-installing the Apps, one by one, until the problem came back. In my case, it was just one App, the mere installation of which causes the problem with iBooks on my iPad. The App in this instance is called OnSong, and I downloaded it on May 15 when it was temporarily free at the App store and had just been released with bug fixes.

My opinion is that the problem is not unique to OnSong. There are probably other Apps that can trigger this bug in the iOS. But I think the strategy of removing Apps that were installed at about the time the problem with iBooks sample downloads occurred, is a good approach for anyone with this issue to pursue.

This is a persistent and aggravating issue. From a developer standpoint, I thought the whole rationale behind a closed system was to ensure that everything on the App Store was compatible with everything else. Having said that, my experience has been that most of the Apps causing the problems are PDF management and annotation Apps. I've had problems with PDF Expert, Remarks, and PDF Converter by Readdle and PDFpen by SmileOnMyMac - all of which generate the same iBooks book store download error message when they're installed. I've spent a small fortune on these types of Apps and the only two that don't seem to cause problems with iBooks are iAnnotate and ConvertMyURL. I sent an email to both Readdle and SmileOnMyMac support tonight. Hopefully, they're aware of the issue and have a fix in the works.

Apparently the problem is in iOS, and how which Apps trigger the problem is idiosyncratic. That is why I suggest removing apps until the problem goes away, and then re-adding one by one until it comes back.

Oddly enough, none of my standard PDF apps cause the issue for me, including PDFpen.

In the case of OnSong, just installing the program triggered the bug. I don't even have to run it. And as soon as the program is deleted, the problem disappeared for me.

OnSong may well be a PDF program, as music sheets are generally pdfs.

As an update to my last post, this iOS bug is truly idiosyncratic: installing OnSong on my iPad1 does not trigger the bug; but installing OnSong on my iPad3 does trigger the bug.