Sony PRS600 hung (1fskin:/l/string…)

My new PRS600 reader from Sony was hung and I was getting pretty worried. I was using calibre on Linux and unplugged the device without unmounting. I would reset it and it would boot, but come to a blank version of the menu screen with 1fskin:/l/string… showing at the bottom. I tried a hard reset, but the device would not respond.

Here are the steps I did to resolve the issue.

1. Push in the reset button in the bottom of the reader.
2. Power on the device.
3. Quickly plug the device into the computer (before it hangs again).
4. Rename \database\cache\media.xml to media.xml.bak.
5. Unmount and unplug the device to resume operation.

This may not solve every problem, but it worked for me.