Thinking about Kobo Touch freeze-ups and possible work arounds

[AbPho]

My USED Kobo touch occasionally, and sometimes quite frequently, freezes on me. Upon using the touch screen to turn the page or call up the menu the unit does not respond. Multiple taps cause nothing to happen. Even pressing the home button does nothing at this time. Once I tried to forced shut down by holding the power button. This did nothing as well. After a short while (1-2 minutes) the unit un-freezes and runs all the commands that I had given it while it was frozen. ie: it would turn 3 pages and then bring up the home screen because I tapped the screen 3 times and pressed the home button once.

A number of Kobo Touch owners are experiencing this issue. Starting from when the unit first came out to now.

There are various articles on the net that tell you to perform a hard power down, a soft reset, a factory reset, ensure a fully charged battery, etc. None work. I've tried all those suggestions.

Different firmwares have not helped. There have been many updates since the Kobo Touch's release and people are still commenting that theirs crashes. I will assume it is not a software issue.

I figure it could not be a hardware issue either because people are still reporting newer Kobo Touch units freezing up. This time assuming that there is only one hardware revision to the Kobo Touch.

Then I though about the µSD card. That is one possible variable that could be the culprit. I could see Kobo using different makes and models.

I picked up a class 10 8GB µSD. I wanted a faster read/write card versus huge storage capacity. 8GB is crazy nuts anyways given the file sizes we are dealing with.

Final results:
The unit responds noticeably quicker. Page turns are faster. Navigating the library and working the menus is also faster. However, the unit still freezes up on me though.

Now I am wondering if it is the reader? I have read that an alternative reader exists. I have not looked much further into this. That will be my next project.

[Thane1]

I have also been affected by this annoyance, from time to time. I wonder if part of it has to do with badly formatted epub files, I have been slowly going through all mine and have found rather shockingly that many have some sort of defect (at least Sigil's check tool says so). I have also reduced the number of books on my device to a minimum, which at least makes the reader respond a bit faster.

I am considering to just reset it (again) and only load one free kepub from Kobo's library and one properly formatted epub just to see if it freeze.

[AbPho]

Tell me more about this Sigial Checker. And what type of errors are we talking about here? We are only talking about text files. How can something in there cause a Kobo to crash?

[GeoffR]

(If the device stops responding but resumes normal operation after a time, then it hasn't crashed.)

I have had this happen on my Glo, and it has always been associated with a book that has extremely large internal files: either extremely long chapters, or where the publisher has put multiple chapters into a single file, resulting in a very large file.

I think the issue is caused by the device getting low on memory, and some operations such as search and sort can become very slow when there is not enough memory available to cache intermediate results.

The solution in my case has been to delete the book from the device, use Calibre to split the book's internal files into smaller chunks (an epub to epub conversion will usually do this automatically), and reload the book to the device. (Don't reload the book without deleting it first, as that will cause other problems).

Sideloaded or embedded fonts with very large files could cause similar issues i think.

[AbPho]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

(If the device stops responding but resumes normal operation after a time, then it hasn't crashed.)

I understand. I should have stuck to using freezing-up.

I have had this happen on my Glo, and it has always been associated with a book that has extremely large internal files: either extremely long chapters, or where the publisher has put multiple chapters into a single file, resulting in a very large file.

I have only read 2 books so far. In both cases I had this problem. File sizes and quantities differ in both cases.

I think the issue is caused by the device getting low on memory...

Is there memory other than the µSD card in a Kobo Touch? If so, how much memory does it have? My bigger, faster 8GB µSD card did not stop the problem from happening again.

The solution in my case has been to delete the book from the device, use Calibre to split the book's internal files into smaller chunks (an epub to epub conversion will usually do this automatically), and reload the book to the device. (Don't reload the book without deleting it first, as that will cause other problems).

I have started playing with Calibre's convert feature and the book editor.

Sideloaded or embedded fonts with very large files could cause similar issues i think.

I have not sideloaded any fonts. And by embedded you mean within the ePub file? I'll check both books to see.

Thanks GeoffR.

[AbPho]

So this afternoon the unit was relentlessly locking up. Every page turn was an endeavor. The unit even crash on the main menu. It was completely unresponsive. It ended up having turned off with the main menu displayed. And I could not do anything to it for a good long while. Eventually I could turn the unit back on and go through the normal boot up sequence to get back to the main menu. This makes me believe it is not an epub content / layout issue. More of a hardware issue. Guess this is why the person sold it. :|

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by AbPho

Is there memory other than the µSD card in a Kobo Touch? If so, how much memory does it have? My bigger, faster 8GB µSD card did not stop the problem from happening again.

I was thinking of the RAM memory, not the SD storage used to store the books. The touch and Glo have 256MB RAM I think, newer devices have more.

I would try a few epub books, ones that are known not to have faults, just to rule out the books being the source of the problem (try some from the Baen free library for example).

Edit: If the problem still happens after a factory reset with known good books, then that would seem to point to a hardware issue.

[AbPho]

Thanks for the link GeoffR.

I got the firmware downgraded to 1.9.16 (see my other thread). I will try one of those books and this firmware. Then work my way up.

[Thane1]

I meant Sigil the epub editing program (see: https://code.google.com/p/sigil/) it has a facility to check the code of an epub. The actual tool that does the checking is called flightcrew (https://code.google.com/p/flightcrew/) and was built into Sigil.

Anyways even with clean books on the device I still get these annoying hang ups. Be reducing the number of books I have on the device I feel it happens less, as well the device seems more responsive IMHO.

[AbPho]

Like I mentioned. My Kobo Touch is running firmware v1.9.16. A 2GB microSD card is installed (not the original 2GB mind you). It has 13 free kobo books on it and one other. I read one of the free kobo books with zero problems. I will check with my other book over the next few days to see how it works. If it works then I'll try another firmware. If that works then I'll put my 8GB card back into the kobo and try it at that firmware as well. If that works then I'll load a ton of books onto the card as my final test.

That will let me know if it is:
1) the firmware
2) the card
3) the book
4) the number of books on the card

[booklover6]

When you got it, did you factory reset it? I had gotten a used Touch. Registering it wasn't enough. It needed a complete factory reset. (Battery was draining really fast, now it's normal). I don't use it but my son has made no complaints.

[AbPho]

Yes. I did that. Then all hell broke loose. Learned a lot quickly to get it up and running again.

[AbPho]

After much playing with my Touch running v1.9.16 I have come to a strange conclusion. The unit won't turn pages when I touch the sides of the screen when reading certain books...however it is not a complete freeze. The home button still functions. For a while I would dump back to the home screen and open the book again. That always worked. But I found another method. When the touch/tap no longer results in a page turn all I have to do is swipe my finger from right to left to turn a page forward, etc. The unit switched between being able to tap to the next back to requiring a finger swipe to advance to the next page.

[Joeldmtl]

Originally Posted by AbPho

My USED Kobo touch occasionally, and sometimes quite frequently, freezes on me. Upon using the touch screen to turn the page or call up the menu the unit does not respond. Multiple taps cause nothing to happen. Even pressing the home button does nothing at this time. Once I tried to forced shut down by holding the power button. This did nothing as well. After a short while (1-2 minutes) the unit un-freezes and runs all the commands that I had given it while it was frozen. ie: it would turn 3 pages and then bring up the home screen because I tapped the screen 3 times and pressed the home button once.

A number of Kobo Touch owners are experiencing this issue. Starting from when the unit first came out to now.

There are various articles on the net that tell you to perform a hard power down, a soft reset, a factory reset, ensure a fully charged battery, etc. None work. I've tried all those suggestions.

Different firmwares have not helped. There have been many updates since the Kobo Touch's release and people are still commenting that theirs crashes. I will assume it is not a software issue.

I figure it could not be a hardware issue either because people are still reporting newer Kobo Touch units freezing up. This time assuming that there is only one hardware revision to the Kobo Touch.

Then I though about the µSD card. That is one possible variable that could be the culprit. I could see Kobo using different makes and models.

I picked up a class 10 8GB µSD. I wanted a faster read/write card versus huge storage capacity. 8GB is crazy nuts anyways given the file sizes we are dealing with.

Final results:
The unit responds noticeably quicker. Page turns are faster. Navigating the library and working the menus is also faster. However, the unit still freezes up on me though.

Now I am wondering if it is the reader? I have read that an alternative reader exists. I have not looked much further into this. That will be my next project.

Below you'll find an e-mail I sent to Kobo Customer care Canada discussing two problems I'm having with my Kobo Touch. Both problems have been flagged in the "Mobilereads Kobo forum" (One being the same as the one you are describing). Yet in my last phone call to Kobo, one of the supervisors suggested that they had never heard of either. All they could suggest was a "factory reset"

What do we do know?
1) Wait for another firmware update;
2) Buy a Kindle;
3) Let the bookstores that you buy your books from know that you cannot buy books from them anymore as your Kobo e-reader is not functioning properly and that you may have to switch to Kindle - and let them press Kobo?

E-mail to Kobe:
After our latest firmware updates (3.8...), about 2 weeks ago, my wife's and my Kobo Touches started to freeze upon selecting bookmarked pages from “ANNOTATIONS”. After waiting a few minutes the units unfreeze and then revert to their home-screens, at which point we have to reselect the books we were reading to get back to where we were before they froze. (Both readers are about 2 years old and have the same books on them).

In addition, about a week ago, my Kobo started to freeze while I was reading. Then, after a few minutes, it responds to instructions I have given it while it was frozen and functions properly until the next freeze.

In order to try to see if these problems were created by a corrupt book, I deleted all my books except one new one, logged out and back into my account and did a factory reset – All to no avail.

I have contacted Kobo Customer Care a few times about this problem, but have not really had much help. CAN YOU PLEASE HAVE SOMEONE WITH TECHNICAL KNOWHOW CALL ME TO CLEARLY DISCUSS HOW TO RESOLVE THESE PROBLEMS!!!

[PeterT]

Annotations have issues in the 3.8.0 f/w releases; improvements are coming... not sure of the exact schedule, but as a WAG I'd expect it to be very close to when the Aura H20 ships.