Touch kobo touch freezes for few seconds randomly after firmware downgrade

[ashadul]

Hi,

I recently downgraded kobo touch firmware from v3.x to v2.6.1. The firmware I used is the one I saved while upgrading to v2.6.1 though kobodesktop. After firmware installation I copied previously saved root folders of kobo to complete the setup instead of connecting it to kobodesktop and getting updated firmware.

Now, my kobo freezes for few seconds (30s or so) every few page turns. Any ideas?

Note that I downgraded because of calibre management of shelf wasn't working in v3 firmware and I very much love this feature.

BR//
Ashadul

[ashadul]

Oh, I did factory reset couple of times and installed the firmware without any improvement.

[davidfor]

For downgrading firmware a factory reset is usually recommended. To go from 3.x.x to 2.6.1, it is definitely needed. I don't know what could be causing the problem unless there was something in the files you restored. I have done this recently and had no issues with my Touch and 2.6.1, but I just resent books rather than restoring anything.

Originally Posted by ashadul

Note that I downgraded because of calibre management of shelf wasn't working in v3 firmware and I very much love this feature.

Calibre works with ALL released firmware versions on the Touch on all Kobo e-ink based ereaders. I am using it with 3.3.0 on both my Touch and my Glo. And 3.2.0 on another Touch. If you have a problem with it, please report the problem so that it can be looked at. In this case, my bet is that it was a configuration issue or a corrupt database, not an actual fault in calibre or the driver.

[ashadul]

davidfor, Will you plz tell me the steps you used for downgrading firmware?

I would like to know whether I made any mistakes.

BR//Ashadul

[davidfor]

To downgrade firmware:

1. Get anything off the device that you don't have elsewhere.
2. Do a factory reset. You can do it from the settings or using the buttons.
3. Wait a bit.
4. When prompted to setup, connect to the PC and use the Kobo desktop application to setup the device. This will download the latest firmware and put it on the device.
5. When the application has finished and asks if you want to eject, choose the option to continue without ejecting.
6. Open the drive for the device and go to the ".kobo" directory.
7. Delete the files "KoboRoot.tgz" and "manifest.md5sum" and the directory "upgrade". Depending on the firmware version and the device, these might not all be there.
8. Unpack the firmware file you want to use into the ".kobo" directory. You should end up with the same files and directories you delete above. Make sure you have the correct version for your device.
9. Eject the device.
10. Wait for the firmware to install.

That is what I do. There are ways to skip using the desktop application if you don't want to login to a Kobo account. A search here should find them.

[ashadul]

After you good experience, today I tried updating to latest firmware through latest firmware after a h/w reset. What I found that after ejecting from caliber when I reconnect caliber cant connect to kobo due to corrupt database. BTW, that was my previous experience too.

Just now I followed you instructions to downgrade firmware. Hope this is solves the freezing problem for good.

[ashadul]

Problem persists.

Any ideas, anybody?

[Deliho]

davidfors method worked for my Kobo Touch. I upgraded from 1.9.13 to 2.1.1 and the freezing stopped. When I took the upgrade to 3.3.0 a couple of weeks ago my Touch was freezing constantly for about a minute and Kobo support told me there was no way to put on an older version and my problem must be caused by something else. Thanks davidfor.

[ashadul]

I was experimenting with my kobo touch to find out the cause of freezing problem and these are so far my findings:

1. Previously kobo used to save images on file system and now inside the database. This increase the database file size drastically. Disabling cover view on book list and compacting the sqlite database improves performance.

2. Kobo is keeping various activity logs in the database further increasing the database size. Manually deleting the logs and compacting helps.

3. Reducing the no of books in the device and compacting helps even more.

These cases makes me believe that database structure change without consideration to impact is the reason my freezing. (I hate to think inefficient SQL queries is the reason behind my problem though I made the same mistake once.)

Any thoughts?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by ashadul

I was experimenting with my kobo touch to find out the cause of freezing problem and these are so far my findings:

1. Previously kobo used to save images on file system and now inside the database. This increase the database file size drastically. Disabling cover view on book list and compacting the sqlite database improves performance.

Where do you get that idea from? For books in the main memory, the generated cover images are stored in ".kobo_images". For books on the SD card, the covers are generated each time they are needed. A few are kept in the in-memory cache, but if you page through the library list, it will probably be generating cover images for each book on each page.

If you are using the SD card, you can speed up the lists using calibre. It can generate and send the to the device. If it finds them in the correct place, they will be used instead of being generated.

There is a table in the database called "Images". So far, it doesn't seem to be used. The columns are ImageId, Type, Width and Height. The ImageId will be the file name in the above directory.

2. Kobo is keeping various activity logs in the database further increasing the database size. Manually deleting the logs and compacting helps.

Yes, that is correct. But, it will only really affect a couple of actions. There are problems with a couple of events. For them, they ContentID is set to null. What happens with these is that a row is added each time the event count is increased and all the rows have their event count increased. Event id 9 has been the biggest culprit for me. This counts the dictionary lookups or possible the number of times text is selected. I have found several thousand of these rows in the database. My fix was to delete all except one and set the ContentId to blank. From then on, it did the count but didn't duplicate the rows. And it improved the performance when looking up a word.

It's probably to late now, but it would be interesting to see the counts in the Event table. That would give an idea of what was happening and if anything was getting out of control.

If you think this is really a concern, you could add a trigger to prevent the rows being added to the Event table. The Kobo Utilities plugin for calibre has a function to do this for the AnalyticsEvents table. This was added as people wanted to prevent this data from being collected by Kobo.

3. Reducing the no of books in the device and compacting helps even more.

Yes, bigger database means slower access. But, I currently have just short of 1000 books on my Glo, and about 1500 on the Touch. I don't see the problem you are seeing with either device. How many books did you have on it? And how big was the database?

These cases makes me believe that database structure change without consideration to impact is the reason my freezing. (I hate to think inefficient SQL queries is the reason behind my problem though I made the same mistake once.)

Yes, there probably is some inefficient SQL in the firmware. I wish I could get a list of it all so I could have a play and work out how to improve it.

A problem with this as a conclusion is, why doesn't it happen for each page? If it is happening when changing chapters, that might make sense. The current position is stored in a database, so it probably gets stored when going to a new chapter. Otherwise, it gets stored during events such as closing the book, the device going to sleep or connecting to the PC.