Qobuz Issue

Mark, with credit card being my only access to Qobuz high res, I'm really wanting to find an answer also. I continue to get generic email from Sebastien saying Qobuz has new music. Which is like a kick in the nads. Kinda makes me angry. I emailed the "customer service" in a check out page because I wanted to make sure everyone that could, knew I was having problems paying and just like I suspected, the next day I receive a reply to that email from... Sebastien.

The amount of time it takes to solve this CC issue, is time from my yearly subscription. When all gets straitened, I hope that's also in the Qobuz mind. Mark, I'll go through the check out process and compare, tomorrow. I think your getting closer than I am to making music yours.

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.

Hey Mark, My process

1. Qobuz desktop app, I then empty cart and fill it up with two Sublime titles. I click the first title and Qobuz opens browser.

2. Then I minimize the browser to add second title.

3. FireFox opens to log in Qobuz. My Email/pass is stored so I click empty space and select email/pass.

4. I’m at the Qobuz cart with both selections

5. Check the "Hereby I consent..." message. Click "access payment" button.

6. "Enter payment details" Click the blue pay button and it reads "The payment was refused. Verify your bank details before proceeding with a payment again"

I was considering using a VPN. I see that wouldn’t have lasted long, so much for that idea. Thanks Mark It’s worth a lot to know now I’m not the only one. I guess I’ll have to keep being kicked until Qobuz works everything out. I hope to post soon, everything is fine with the year subscription.

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 :-)

No news yet, same old story. I did receive a second customer service email asking, was I satisfied. I didn't understand how they couldn't already know the answer, I deleted the first one. Replied to the second one. Tomorrow I'll get mail from Sebastien, I predict.