Qobuz Issue

Thanks for the update. I suspect they're having major problems and working to get them fixed.

I don't know. Am pursuing this with Sébastien.

I have just got an answer, @2020matters; from Sébastien.

He confirmed that they are aware of some users' difficulties with Safari. I pointed out that it remains the browser of choice for many Mac users.

I am now able consistently to use FireFox for download purchases, though.

One worry, I'd have thought, is that - dedicated and extremely knowledgeable though the Mozilla developers are - if Qobuz fails on Safari, perhaps because of some minor incompatibility, a version of FireFox could perhaps be released (given the frequency with which it is updated) which also prevents it (FireFox) from working with Qobuz.

I would still be uncomfortable compromising my otherwise 'clean' machine with all the apparently irremovable modifications and extras which Chrome installs.

As for payment, Sébastien says that they are in negotiation with their payment agents to get credit cards working again. Currently not possible. I'd like to think that  this is a priority for 2022 since it must surely represent loss of income.

Happy to share what I've learnt - and to be corrected if I've mis-stated anything here… Don't think so. Happy Christmas to one and all!

Sorry I wasn't clearer, @2020matters  :-(

As I've discovered, purchases of download albums (in my case all classical - by composer then work then performer) are all initiated at/from the Qobuz website.

FireFox allows this process to work. I can select what I want, pay for it and download it.

(For me) Safari does not: it puts me into the loop of my steps 8 to 14 above. I can only select an album, which appears to go into my basket. But using Safari (my preferred browser), I can do nothing else.

Once selected, paid for - though only with PayPal - I can download it using FireFox.

The listen to it as I want - usually Roon.

Happy to elaborate if I've confused things further :-)

I do hope you can do that on Windows (which I don't know very much about): initiate in FireFox, pay with PayPal and download at your pleasure again in FireFox. Do message me if you think I can help :-)

More progress - in the hope that it will help anyone still interested!

I can now get FireFox (but not (yet) Safari) to work with a credit card.

It seems necessary, though, to be logged in before attempting a purchase; which is to say that pasting a URL into FireFox causes the transaction to fail.

If I mistakenly do that, I have to log out, clear the cookie(s) and log back in.

Otherwise I get into the loop described in my steps 7 to 14 from an earlier post.

(New here… hope this is helpful)

I did a lot of research before subscribing to Qobuz after Apple swallowed PrimePhonic. The way in which everything else - except purchasing - works on Qobuz seems exemplary.

But I was pretty upset when I tried to make my first ('Sublime' discounted… $29.99 to $19.99) high-res download.

The 'progress' from (in my case macOS) app to website is counter-intuitive. But (I assume) that's how it's implemented? The app can't be used for purchases, can it?

I've sometimes been getting 'Finalise your purchase'; sometimes not. Sometimes it shows one purchased item in my cart - but it also says 'nothing found' on the same page; sometimes not. Nor does that very consistently lead to any obvious place/page where I can actually complete the purchase.

Qobuz's own FAQ on the procedure doesn't match the actual (names of the) tabs.

Those few times when I have managed to get past 'Finalise', there's no indication of where to go next actually to complete the purchase. Then I noticed 'Retrieve my purchases' but this just loops back to the main page.

I invariably get a message that I should check with my bank because the transaction was declined. Each time I do so, the bank has no record of such a failure and tells me to check with the merchant.

I've tried about 30 times - admittedly with the same album, but on both Safari and Firefox and after reboots etc.

And after making sure that I have all VPNs, content- and ad-blockers etc disabled. And popups enabled. As well as trying to get my Qobuz account name etc strings as close to those on the several credit cards as possible (including the one I subscribed in the first place with - which went through perfectly a week or so ago).

I heard back from Sébastien this morning (does anyone know, please: does he work US or French hours; is he the only tech?) asking for details of my credit card to take it up with their third party fulfillment agency.

I confess to being a little thrown by all of this. Is it normal, new? is it likely to be fixed? Should I be worried?

TIA!

Yes, I do have a PayPal account. But having hitched my wagon - after masses of research - to the Qobuz star, I'd like to know why credit cards don't work with it.

Still puzzled. I cannot use PayPal either. This is what happens:

1. I log into the Qobuz website
2. single-click on the (web) 'Download Store’ tab and am taken here
3. search for the album I want - e.g. ‘Fabio Biondi Bach’ in the search bar at the top right of the Qobuz store which is also here
4. see the album I want to download under ’Sublime’ here
5. single click on it here (URL arguments will make this page unviewable now, I understand)
6. single-click on the ‘Buy the album (starting at $19.99)’ button - white and orange text on black background
7. get the popup to continue
8. single-click on the ‘Finalize my order’ button, white text on black background
9. but nothing happens; I am taken back to the home page here
10. so I scroll down to 'Retrieve my purchases > ’ under the Download area/section of that page
11. But - again:
12. I am then taken to this page
13. At the top it says 'You have 1 item(s) in your cart’ and there is another ‘Finalize my order’ white text on blue background button; and in the centre underneath it says ’Nothing found’
14. Single-clicking on either of these just takes me back to this page

If anyone can see at what stage I am going wrong in getting to the Cart for PayPal, Id very much appreciate their help! Thanks :-)

Thanks for supporting this rather odd situation, @2020matters!

I have made some progress:

I was able to complete a transaction as intended (but only with PayPal, which is OK) by using a VPN set to France.

Sébastien explained in no uncertain terms that Qobuz forbids the use of VPNs and that, if one is detected again, my account would be closed and they would not consider any kind of appeal!

Message understood.

I still feel as though this is a network issue. Something in their (third party) merchant setup is defeating transactions as such.

But of almost equal concern is the loop which I (at least - as in my post above) encounter when trying to get a purchase into the cart and pay for it (albeit with PayPal).

Yesterday, however, I tried to do the whole thing from scratch. Restart. FireFox (and of course no VPN).

It worked flawlessly. I was able to complete the purchase and initiate the download of eight tracks on a high-res CD and have the FLAC files in the right directory to import into Roon in about 15 minutes.

This makes me think that - even though I deleted cookies and disabled all other trackers, blockers etc - perhaps once you've started a purchase trying to use Visa etc, misconfigurations or bugs in the Qobuz system shut you out and result in the loop I described above.

I'm waiting for Sébastien's response to what for me seems like good news.

But if I'm honest, like you, I still don't really know where I satin or what to expect.

Hello, @2020matters,

In essence your six (or so) steps aren't too dissimilar from mine.

I had found no documentation of the fact that the central point of buying is not the (dedicated, desktop) Qobuz app - but always their site in a browser.

I cannot always reliably get to your step 4.

But when I can, I always see the same results at (your) steps 5 and 6.

However…

If I can mange to get past your step 5 - but only by using PayPal - I almost always get taken back to the 'Discover' or 'Download' page with no way to complete the purchase.

I have to think that this is a bug intimately connected to the credit card failure and that cookies and variables are getting improperly set when anyone tries to use a credit card which confounds the rest of the session and removes any chance of success!

If I ever can (who knows that obscure combination of circumstances I either encounter or engineer myself!) I can see a 'Retrieve my downloads >'. That always fails.

Or I go to My account (top right) > My Purchases (left sidebar) and see both items in my account and 'Nothing found'.

I suspect that those times when I have been successful have always been:

1. when starting afresh after say 24 hours have passed
2. when using FireFox
3. and when not 'polluting'/'interfering with' the expected process by not trying to use a credit card, and selecting PayPal first

I don't believe this is satisfactory; nor that it's good for Qobuz - not least because they must definitely be losing sales.

Sébastien tries to be helpful. But many of his responses are templated and I can't seem to get to a source at Qobuz whose primary responsibility it is to take careful note of what's happening, investigate it and offer some sort of estimate as to when it'll be fixed - aside from the fact that we know that credit cards no longer work, and that we absolutely should not try to get around it by using a VPN.

Thanks again; good luck - and please do post updates here :-)