Can no longer open one textbook

Question

Can no longer open one textbook

My son has been using Pearson's World History textbook on his iPad for the past few weeks with no problems. Last night, he tried to open it and just has the cover page with a spinning progress wheel (what you normally see for about 5 seconds before the book opens to where you last were).

He can open his Chemistry textbook (also Pearson) and a few other books to wherever he left off - just this one textbook is giving a problem.

Connected iPad to my PC (Win7 w/ latest iTunes) and unchecked the book and hit Sync to remove it. Then rechecked and sync'ed - same problem.

Selected and Deleted the book from iBooks bookshelf.

Then I got a notice that iPad needed a system update (8.4.1, maybe? - I'm at work, can't remember exact rev). So the iPad was updated, rebooted, etc and then I added the book back onto the iPad from my PC. Same problem again.

I left the book attempting to open overnight - woke up this morning to the same spinning wheel - it isn't a matter of not being patient!

If the book file had gotten corrupted on iPad that wouldn't have corrupted the copy downloaded on my PC, so I can't see that re-downloading from iTunes store would matter (so I haven't tried that yet - I can try tonight if no better ideas).

So - anyone have a better idea??

iPad Air Wi-Fi, iOS 8.4.1, iBooks

Posted on Sep 16, 2015 8:23 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 17, 2015 5:35 PM in response to 42istheAnswer

In response to Apple iWork Team email received (thanks for following up!)

I opened a case last night (939661960) and worked with an agent over the phone but still haven't solved the problem.

She thought the original download might have been corrupt, so we deleted the textbook from the iPad and my iTunes account and then she re-downloaded a new copy to the iTunes account and then I re-synced my iPad. Same problem -- book cover has the daisy-wheel spinning around and it won't open.

She didn't have any idea what to try next other than to see if iOS 9 would help. It was late, so we left off there.

Afterwards I updated the iPad to iOS 9 (as well as updating to the latest iTunes (12.3.0.44). Once completed, I tried to open the textbook again - still no luck, same problem.

So just now I deleted the textbook from the iPad and then re-synced with iTunes (just in case picking up the textbook from iTunes while running iOS 9 was somehow slightly better than syncing while running iOS 8.4.1 --> it is not - same problem).

Any other thoughts? Apparently about a quarter of the students in my son's class have the same problem.

Could it be because of where he happened to have left off reading (recall the book had been working for a week or two) -- wondering if maybe there is something on that particular page that is not compatible with the new iOS/iBooks combo (audio or some other widget).

> Is there a way to launch the textbook so that is opens at the beginning and not where you left off? (ie - a 'cookie' of sorts to clear out?)

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Answer 2

Jan 5, 2016 7:32 PM in response to 42istheAnswer

I Figure out a way to open the book on iBooks today! Just open multitasking (the split screen feature that came with iOS 9, and open iBooks in it. You should be able to open the book just fine and it should stay usable.

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