Hi Robin, I've never seen the problem where pressing the five key results in a lot of waiting before you get anything from the Book Courier. Firmwear errors, on the other hand, have certainly been a problem on occasion. As others have suggested, make sure you have the latest versions of transfer tool and firmwear. If you still get the long pause problem, I'd be tempted to contact the vendor from whom you got the device and see about an exchange. It doesn't seem right that you should be experiencing intermittant operation like that. Mary