Aura H2O Slow Kobo -- Should I reset it?

DandalfTheWhite · 05-31-2016, 10:59 PM

Hi there,

My Kobo is great. I love it but recently there have been some problems.

I'm a person who likes to have a lot of books on their device, all of my books are on an SD card and not on the device itself. I think I have around 10,000--mostly fanfictions with some novels thrown in there too. Everything is organized in Calibre in shelves and such, so I don't think erasing everything and starting over will be too annoying.

My issues:

Restarts-For the last few days when I open a new epub book (made in calinbre) my kobo just shuts off and turns back on. One book opened after the restart, but another just causes it to restart over and over again. Both epubs worked fine in Calibre.
There are a few other restart bugs like if the screen locks in a book I need to force a restart because it won't unlock.
Slow restart - when it does restart, the restart is very slow. It takes about 15 minutes to be usable. It loads the home screen, the battery indicator goes to about half (regardless of how charged it is. When it is done restarting the battery indicator becomes accurate again.) also covers don't load. I can not do anything while this happens but wait.
slow in general -- this one I think is just because of book quanity, and when I am reading page turns are fast but the gui is slow when I navigate around.

So I am thinking a of wiping it and starting again. Will this help me? Do you have any other suggestions on how to make things go faster and more stable?

Thanks!

meeera · 05-31-2016, 11:36 PM

I'd probably first test it by taking the SD card out, putting a handful of books directly on the device, and seeing what happens. Have you tried a logout/login cycle? Also, your dud ebook may well be viewable with Calibre but still have errors - run a check.

GeoffR · 06-01-2016, 01:15 AM

I don't know if a reset will help, or if 10,000 ebooks is just too many for the device to handle. I still have less than 1,000 on my Glo, and I only have one shelf (non-fiction) and it contains just a handful of books, so I don't use calibre to manage shelves.

One thing to be careful of with fanfiction, or other books where you might load updated versions of an existing book with an altered internal structure (such as extra chapters or different TOC arrangement), is to make sure you delete the old version from the device before loading an updated version. If you use Calibre to load the new version over the top of the old one then the database doesn't get updated properly, and all sorts of strange things can happen including crashes when navigating the book.

As meeera said, viewing the book in Calibre is not a good way to check for faults in the book, as it will just ignore many errors that can be fatal on other devices. Better to use EpubCheck.

KePub books seem to use a lot more space in the database than ePub, so if there is a limit to the number of books then that limit might be lower for KePub books.

If you do go ahead with a factory reset and reload all your books there are some things you might try:

Just for interest's sake, take a note of the database size before you do the reset. Compare it with the size after you have re-loaded all your books.

Check the save template in the KoboTouch plugin, a reset and reload is the ideal time if you want to make a change. The default template will result in very long pathnames, and create one directory per author. FAT filesystems have limits on the number of files per directory, and long filenames reduce the number of files that can fit. Every extra 11 characters in the filename counts as one extra file towards the limit. Cover and thumbnail images, annotations files, etc. are created using the same base filename so they will be very long too. Also in some situations having lots of files (or subdirectories) in one directory can slow down access, so idealy you want the filenames to be as short as possible, but not result in too many files (or subdirectories) per directory. The template must generate unique names though, so you need to allow for books by different authors with the same title. I don't really know how much effect this has on performance since I don't have a control device to compare with, maybe none, but it can't hurt.

If you don't already then you might want to enable the Upload covers for books option in Calibre's KoboTouch driver. This will save the device the time it takes to generate thumbnails for the first time.

DandalfTheWhite · 06-01-2016, 01:43 AM

meeera:

Thanks for the reply. I took out the sd card and restarted the kobo and it still took forever to be functional. I added a few books to the main memory including the one that didn't work as well as one I just read on it and know works. The good one worked and the bad one still didn't. With five books on the kobo restarting still took ages.

I logged out and it restarted as soon as I did that. Had to go through setup again and redo my wifi and all that. After it got back to the home screen it seemed a lot faster. The broken book even opened, so maybe it wasn't broken after all. Will still use epub check to make sure it's alright.

It is processing now, will take all night probably. Will update in the morning. Thanks again for your help!

GeoffR:

I learned the updated book thing the hard way a while back. Now I am careful to delete the old version before I add it.

I don't think I have many KePubs. Just a few I think. Most of my books are from calibre and are just epubs.

I am not sure I will have to factory reset, but if I do, I will use your information. I appreciate you sharing it and let you know what I find.

davidfor · 06-01-2016, 03:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Check the save template in the KoboTouch plugin, a reset and reload is the ideal time if you want to make a change. The default template will result in very long pathnames, and create one directory per author. FAT filesystems have limits on the number of files per directory, and long filenames reduce the number of files that can fit. Every extra 11 characters in the filename counts as one extra file towards the limit. Cover and thumbnail images, annotations files, etc. are created using the same base filename so they will be very long too. Also in some situations having lots of files (or subdirectories) in one directory can slow down access, so idealy you want the filenames to be as short as possible, but not result in too many files (or subdirectories) per directory. The template must generate unique names though, so you need to allow for books by different authors with the same title. I don't really know how much effect this has on performance since I don't have a control device to compare with, maybe none, but it can't hurt.

That's not quite right. The device uses FAT32 and the limitation is per directory. Hence, a few subdirectories will minimise the issues caused by long filenames. For the cover images, the firmware subdivides those into a directory tree, so there is no problem there so long as the generated path isn't to long. The driver in calibre should be managing that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DandalfTheWhite

meeera:

Thanks for the reply. I took out the sd card and restarted the kobo and it still took forever to be functional. I added a few books to the main memory including the one that didn't work as well as one I just read on it and know works. The good one worked and the bad one still didn't. With five books on the kobo restarting still took ages.

With the full database, removing the SD card wouldn't necessarily help. The database entries for the books on the card are still in the database. That means any database operation would still have to take that into account. But, it might help some operations as a lot of information is cached. If the firmware is smart, if the SD card is not there, it might only load information into the cache for the books it still sees.
[/QUOTE]
I logged out and it restarted as soon as I did that. Had to go through setup again and redo my wifi and all that. After it got back to the home screen it seemed a lot faster. The broken book even opened, so maybe it wasn't broken after all. Will still use epub check to make sure it's alright.

It is processing now, will take all night probably. Will update in the morning. Thanks again for your help!
[/QUOTE]
From the first post, I think the main issue is the total number of books. At about 2600 books, I don't see any real performance problems. It is probably slower than when I had about 200, but not enough for me to worry about. I did wonder if there was some database corruption. The long startup time might have been the device attempting to fix this, or hitting problems when it tried to access parts of the database. But, I doubt if a factory reset would help. The logout and back in generates a new clean database and hopefully that will solve it.

One thing I normally suggest in these circumstances is to take a backup before the logout or factory reset. I take a full backup of the user partition of the device. That way if the logout or factory reset doesn't help, I can restore everything and get back to were I was.

I will be interested to know if this helps. I'm also curious about how long it takes to process all the books. The processing is a lot faster than some of the the earlier firmware, but it's going to take a while. Maybe we should start a book. I'll take 10 hours.

DandalfTheWhite · 06-01-2016, 11:10 AM

For anyone curious, my database is about 830 MB. Most of it in KoboReader.sqlite. I have backuped the database in Calibre, so I have backups going back a ways.

However after the processing (which took less than 8 hours, FYI. It was done when I woke up) the Kobo still reset very, very slowly. The book that would not open, did open however.

I think I am going to factory reset it anyway just to see if it helps. (A new issue popped up about an unexpected error.) It's not really too much work with Calibre and I have those backups in case I need them. I will put the books on in stages so that I can determine if that is the root cause. I'll be back when I am done with an update.

Thanks again for the help!

Edit: With only my kobo store books on it, it loads really fast. I am going to add some from Calibre now.

Edit 2: With 300 books restarting is very fast.

Edit 3: At 1300 books all is well.

Edit 4: 3000 books and no lag

Edit 5: Looks like the magic number is between 5000 and 6000 somewhere. After that I'm back to the slow restart issue. The restart also took a lot less time then it used to when it was at 10000+ books, even at 6000, so I think as long as I keep the numbers down it will be manageable. Thanks again for all the help!

05-31-2016, 10:59 PM	#1
DandalfTheWhite Member Posts: 23 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: Kindle Paperwhite 4	Slow Kobo -- Should I reset it? Hi there, My Kobo is great. I love it but recently there have been some problems. I'm a person who likes to have a lot of books on their device, all of my books are on an SD card and not on the device itself. I think I have around 10,000--mostly fanfictions with some novels thrown in there too. Everything is organized in Calibre in shelves and such, so I don't think erasing everything and starting over will be too annoying. My issues: Restarts-For the last few days when I open a new epub book (made in calinbre) my kobo just shuts off and turns back on. One book opened after the restart, but another just causes it to restart over and over again. Both epubs worked fine in Calibre. There are a few other restart bugs like if the screen locks in a book I need to force a restart because it won't unlock. Slow restart - when it does restart, the restart is very slow. It takes about 15 minutes to be usable. It loads the home screen, the battery indicator goes to about half (regardless of how charged it is. When it is done restarting the battery indicator becomes accurate again.) also covers don't load. I can not do anything while this happens but wait. slow in general -- this one I think is just because of book quanity, and when I am reading page turns are fast but the gui is slow when I navigate around. So I am thinking a of wiping it and starting again. Will this help me? Do you have any other suggestions on how to make things go faster and more stable? Thanks!

06-01-2016, 01:15 AM	#3
GeoffR Wizard Posts: 3,821 Karma: 19162882 Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: Te Riu-a-Māui Device: Kobo Glo	I don't know if a reset will help, or if 10,000 ebooks is just too many for the device to handle. I still have less than 1,000 on my Glo, and I only have one shelf (non-fiction) and it contains just a handful of books, so I don't use calibre to manage shelves. One thing to be careful of with fanfiction, or other books where you might load updated versions of an existing book with an altered internal structure (such as extra chapters or different TOC arrangement), is to make sure you delete the old version from the device before loading an updated version. If you use Calibre to load the new version over the top of the old one then the database doesn't get updated properly, and all sorts of strange things can happen including crashes when navigating the book. As meeera said, viewing the book in Calibre is not a good way to check for faults in the book, as it will just ignore many errors that can be fatal on other devices. Better to use EpubCheck. KePub books seem to use a lot more space in the database than ePub, so if there is a limit to the number of books then that limit might be lower for KePub books. If you do go ahead with a factory reset and reload all your books there are some things you might try: Just for interest's sake, take a note of the database size before you do the reset. Compare it with the size after you have re-loaded all your books. Check the save template in the KoboTouch plugin, a reset and reload is the ideal time if you want to make a change. The default template will result in very long pathnames, and create one directory per author. FAT filesystems have limits on the number of files per directory, and long filenames reduce the number of files that can fit. Every extra 11 characters in the filename counts as one extra file towards the limit. Cover and thumbnail images, annotations files, etc. are created using the same base filename so they will be very long too. Also in some situations having lots of files (or subdirectories) in one directory can slow down access, so idealy you want the filenames to be as short as possible, but not result in too many files (or subdirectories) per directory. The template must generate unique names though, so you need to allow for books by different authors with the same title. I don't really know how much effect this has on performance since I don't have a control device to compare with, maybe none, but it can't hurt. If you don't already then you might want to enable the Upload covers for books option in Calibre's KoboTouch driver. This will save the device the time it takes to generate thumbnails for the first time. Last edited by GeoffR; 06-01-2016 at 01:18 AM. Reason: spelling

06-01-2016, 11:10 AM	#6
DandalfTheWhite Member Posts: 23 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: Kindle Paperwhite 4	For anyone curious, my database is about 830 MB. Most of it in KoboReader.sqlite. I have backuped the database in Calibre, so I have backups going back a ways. However after the processing (which took less than 8 hours, FYI. It was done when I woke up) the Kobo still reset very, very slowly. The book that would not open, did open however. I think I am going to factory reset it anyway just to see if it helps. (A new issue popped up about an unexpected error.) It's not really too much work with Calibre and I have those backups in case I need them. I will put the books on in stages so that I can determine if that is the root cause. I'll be back when I am done with an update. Thanks again for the help! Edit: With only my kobo store books on it, it loads really fast. I am going to add some from Calibre now. Edit 2: With 300 books restarting is very fast. Edit 3: At 1300 books all is well. Edit 4: 3000 books and no lag Edit 5: Looks like the magic number is between 5000 and 6000 somewhere. After that I'm back to the slow restart issue. The restart also took a lot less time then it used to when it was at 10000+ books, even at 6000, so I think as long as I keep the numbers down it will be manageable. Thanks again for all the help! Last edited by DandalfTheWhite; 06-01-2016 at 10:51 PM.

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05-31-2016, 11:36 PM	#2
meeera Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,659 Karma: 66420972 Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Libra 2, iPadMini4, iPad4, MBP; support other Kobo/Kindles	I'd probably first test it by taking the SD card out, putting a handful of books directly on the device, and seeing what happens. Have you tried a logout/login cycle? Also, your dud ebook may well be viewable with Calibre but still have errors - run a check.

06-01-2016, 01:43 AM	#4
DandalfTheWhite Member Posts: 23 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: Kindle Paperwhite 4	meeera: Thanks for the reply. I took out the sd card and restarted the kobo and it still took forever to be functional. I added a few books to the main memory including the one that didn't work as well as one I just read on it and know works. The good one worked and the bad one still didn't. With five books on the kobo restarting still took ages. I logged out and it restarted as soon as I did that. Had to go through setup again and redo my wifi and all that. After it got back to the home screen it seemed a lot faster. The broken book even opened, so maybe it wasn't broken after all. Will still use epub check to make sure it's alright. It is processing now, will take all night probably. Will update in the morning. Thanks again for your help! GeoffR: I learned the updated book thing the hard way a while back. Now I am careful to delete the old version before I add it. I don't think I have many KePubs. Just a few I think. Most of my books are from calibre and are just epubs. I am not sure I will have to factory reset, but if I do, I will use your information. I appreciate you sharing it and let you know what I find.

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