Troubleshooting--> Firmware? User error? gah.

[the grue]

Hello! I posted yesterday in the happy firmware wishlist and I mentioned my (ahem) issues with .LIT.

So, here I am today, at my wit's end. "Why?" You say, "You have an Astak EZReader in the ever-so darling 5" size, how O how can you run out of wits? If anything, you have room for more on that SD card"

While I have plenty of space on my SD card, it is filling up with frustration.

I am using the latest lbook firmware. I find that the firmware is slow. Slow to turn on, slow to turn pages, and we are talking 6-10 seconds each turn, which is enough to make me wish to pitch it across the room. Now its suddenly locking up on me as well. Constantly.

I have cleared the cache and the crengine stuff. Turned on, turned off, turned on in quick succession.

Its hanging on PDF PDB and those oh so evil LIT.Especially LIT oh and RTF.

As for the LIT, I have only found one converter, which works on one file, maybe, sometimes, if its feeling good, at a time. (ABC amber lit converter) which when it works, does wonderfully. Makes a nice pdf.

So, after endless resets today, I am looking for suggestions.

Anything i can do to make this work? Got a nice easy-peasy free LIT converter idea? Should I try and find the December Astak firmware?

How can my reading life go back to the effortless bliss it once was?

Much thanks everyone!

[Blossom]

I use Calibre to convert LIT to EPUB or MOBI. You can convert in batch as well.
It does really good on lit files. LIT just isn't a good format to use for the Pocket Pro with either firmware.
EPUB works best it seems and Calibre makes it a snap to convert to EPUB which uses Cool Reader 3 or ADE


I'm no expert but It almost sounds like something is corrupted in the file system.
I would try reflashing the firmware first then try a book on the reader's internal memory to rule out the SD Card causing it.

[the grue]

Thanks for the quick response, Blossom!

I've flashed the firmware several times. This one started out okay, but then got tired. Maybe I make it work too hard. I will try again, though.

Just 'found' calibre and and trying a file convert. its been 8 minutes.. can I expect it to take this long per file? If so, I may be well into my dotage before I get just the LIT files on my SD card converter. Just curious.

Thanks again

[Blossom]

8 minutes is a very long time for conversation. Is a big file? Most take under a minute, batch conversation takes a few minutes for me.

You may need to reformat the PP or the card I'll leave the experts on how to do that because I've yet to even have to reset my PP yet.

Only reflashed on a full and near full battery. At least that what RobertB always said.

[the grue]

Okay, it took 28 minutes to convert one 348k LIT file to a 701k PDF. Just now trying to convert the same file to EPUB... we'll see how long that takes.

Did another flash using v5-20100716. Seems to be okay, much better at page turns (at least at this point) 2-3 seconds rather than 6-10.

Still has LIT issues. Takes about 20-30 seconds to load.(when it loads, sometimes it just hangs). When the file opens it shows 1/2 pages. If I wait a little bit and then page forward, it will load some random number of pages and I will see 2/12 then 3/146 and then most of the time it wont load further, when I know there are 453 pages. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. I can go to a couple of pages before the 'end' and it will just sit there and tell me there are no more pages. This, I am certain is an EZreader joke of some kind.

As of right now, my file conversion in calibre is at 9 minutes for a LIT to EPUB.

I have a couple hundred LIT files. Maybe a bit more, but, you can see where trying to convert these might take a long while. I am using my Linux box in this particular case. Maybe it would be better if I tried it on Windows.

I have not tried to reformat the card and it's possible to reformat the PP? How does one do this?

Oh, and the script I saw for clearing that silly cache and all : Does one load that on the card like a book?

(now @ 13 min for conversion. gah.)

Thanks for your replies, Blossom.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by the grue

Okay, it took 28 minutes to convert one 348k LIT file to a 701k PDF. Just now trying to convert the same file to EPUB... we'll see how long that takes.



As of right now, my file conversion in calibre is at 9 minutes for a LIT to EPUB.

I have a couple hundred LIT files. Maybe a bit more, but, you can see where trying to convert these might take a long while. I am using my Linux box in this particular case. Maybe it would be better if I tried it on Windows.

I have not tried to reformat the card and it's possible to reformat the PP? How does one do this?

Oh, and the script I saw for clearing that silly cache and all : Does one load that on the card like a book?

(now @ 13 min for conversion. gah.)

Thanks for your replies, Blossom.

You reformat the card, just like any other attached drive in windows.
"My computer", find the drive, "Right click" the drive, Format (FAT 16 or FAT32 should be the suggested format)


Your Anti-Virus may be working too hard (set exclusions for Calibre and Libraryu folder) and slowing Calibre down (or you have very low RAM installed: 512M or more for XP, 1G or more for later)
LIT takes 2-3 Minutes tops for a big book to convert to EPUB and I usually am over here at MR while that happens

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by the grue

Okay, it took 28 minutes to convert one 348k LIT file to a 701k PDF. Just now trying to convert the same file to EPUB... we'll see how long that takes.

Calibre is not the fastest converter around, but the times you are getting are ridiculous, so something must be off in your Calibre setup?

Originally Posted by the grue

Did another flash using v5-20100716. Seems to be okay, much better at page turns (at least at this point) 2-3 seconds rather than 6-10.

You do not mention which reader you are using on the PocketPRO, but the CoolReader page turns are MUCH closer to 1 second than 2-3 seconds on my PocketPRO.

Originally Posted by the grue

Still has LIT issues. Takes about 20-30 seconds to load.(when it loads, sometimes it just hangs). When the file opens it shows 1/2 pages. If I wait a little bit and then page forward, it will load some random number of pages and I will see 2/12 then 3/146 and then most of the time it wont load further, when I know there are 453 pages. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. I can go to a couple of pages before the 'end' and it will just sit there and tell me there are no more pages. This, I am certain is an EZreader joke of some kind.

I do not expect that any company is going to waste much more money on reader software for a seemingly dying format like LIT, so it probably makes more sense for users to convert LIT to a format that has more mainstream support?

Originally Posted by the grue

it's possible to reformat the PP? How does one do this?

I prefer the SDFormater tool from sdcard.org, but you can format the PocketPRO internal book storage memory with any disk formatting tool when the PocketPRO is USB connected to your computer.

Originally Posted by the grue

Oh, and the script I saw for clearing that silly cache and all : Does one load that on the card like a book?

YUP

From what I have recently read, Buggins has automated the cache clearing process in the next version of CoolReader, but he has not released that yet.

[the grue]

Originally Posted by theducks

You reformat the card, just like any other attached drive in windows.
"My computer", find the drive, "Right click" the drive, Format (FAT 16 or FAT32 should be the suggested format)


Your Anti-Virus may be working too hard (set exclusions for Calibre and Libraryu folder) and slowing Calibre down (or you have very low RAM installed: 512M or more for XP, 1G or more for later)
LIT takes 2-3 Minutes tops for a big book to convert to EPUB and I usually am over here at MR while that happens

Wasnt sure if it was FAT16 or FAT32 : some things are cranky when I Do It Wrong.

As for my anti-virus, I never installed it on this particular Linux box. ( ubuntu jaunty jackalope -yes this one is waaay behind). I generally do not install any programs on the jaunty. I have a gig of ram and the cpu is a bit chunky @ 1.75 gHz. Mebbe that is it.

The LIT file I converted to EPUB took just over 17 minutes. This is just with my browser open, nothing else.

[the grue]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

Calibre is not the fastest converter around, but the times you are getting are ridiculous, so something must be off in your Calibre setup?

Must be. Going to try it on a windows box. Personally, I suspect a Plot.

Originally Posted by Dave_S

You do not mention which reader you are using on the PocketPRO, but the CoolReader page turns are MUCH closer to 1 second than 2-3 seconds on my PocketPRO.

I am using the buggins (?) Russian page. Lbook. That one.

Originally Posted by Dave_S

I do not expect that any company is going to waste much more money on reader software for a seemingly dying format like LIT, so it probably makes more sense for users to convert LIT to a format that has more mainstream support?.

I agree. I have a lot, though. More than I initially thought.

Perhaps I will give the whole reformatting thing a try.

Thank you Dave_S for your help (and hopefully my inline quotes will work as nicely as yours - appreciate you showing me that)

Much thanks to you too, theducks and of course Blossom.

I will go muck around and hopefully not break anything too much.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by the grue

Wasnt sure if it was FAT16 or FAT32 : some things are cranky when I Do It Wrong.

As for my anti-virus, I never installed it on this particular Linux box. ( ubuntu jaunty jackalope -yes this one is waaay behind). I generally do not install any programs on the jaunty. I have a gig of ram and the cpu is a bit chunky @ 1.75 gHz. Mebbe that is it.

The LIT file I converted to EPUB took just over 17 minutes. This is just with my browser open, nothing else.

Goodness as Dave and Theducks says that is a very long time to convert a file!
Even on my netbook which is only 1.66ghz with 2GB of ram it only takes a minute or two for a conversion. It has ole XP SP3 on it. My Desktop which I prefer is Vista 64, Quad Core with 6GB of ram so it's much faster but still 17 minutes is way too long. When I do batches I do about 12 to 25 books at time but that's so I can verify each book has converted okay.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by the grue

Wasnt sure if it was FAT16 or FAT32 : some things are cranky when I Do It Wrong.

As for my anti-virus, I never installed it on this particular Linux box. ( ubuntu jaunty jackalope -yes this one is waaay behind). I generally do not install any programs on the jaunty. I have a gig of ram and the cpu is a bit chunky @ 1.75 gHz. Mebbe that is it.

The LIT file I converted to EPUB took just over 17 minutes. This is just with my browser open, nothing else.

Missed the Linux part. A/V not needed that much

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Goodness as Dave and Theducks says that is a very long time to convert a file!
Even on my netbook which is only 1.66ghz with 2GB of ram it only takes a minute or two for a conversion. It has ole XP SP3 on it. My Desktop which I prefer is Vista 64, Quad Core with 6GB of ram so it's much faster but still 17 minutes is way too long. When I do batches I do about 12 to 25 books at time but that's so I can verify each book has converted okay.

It may be that the long time to convert the file in Calibre is for the same reason as the poor performance of the same file on the Pocket Pro. I suspect the file is poorly formatted somehow or doing something really strange. This is not the expected performance on files I have used.

Dale

[eGeezer]

If nothing else, you can find the Dec FW at http://astak.com/downloadcenter.asp

[Fincary]

It sounds like your .LIT files aren't in very good shape internally. Conversion programs usually hang up or take excessive amounts of time when they encounter errors in the source file...could be unrecognized tags, corrupt data, etc.

Your .LIT files may read ok in some other ereader application/hardware due to the way errors are handled and still be corrupted on the inside.

Oh, and stay away from .PDF as much as possible. They usually don't look good on most any ereader. There is no reason to convert from .LIT -> .PDF to get to some other format. The format of your book is going to probably get worse with every conversion that way. Just go .LIT -> .EPUB or whatever.