Issues with Mobi (unable to read) and an issue with page numbering

[French]

I'm having trouble with a few of my books and no idea why. They are non DRMd Mobi. I can open both books, and page through the first few pages, but neither will get to the first chapter. Each just throws me back to the Contents on my reader to choose another book. The files aren't that bit (622 kb and 876 kb). Both open fine on my computer and I can page through them/see everything.

I also noticed as I was reading a book last night...it said 576 pages and kept me updated as to what page I was on. But then it felt like there was an awful lot "open" as I got close to that 576th page. And when I reached the 576th page there was another, and then another and then another (each numbered one higher, so 577, 578, 579, etc.) until I finished the book. Now this isn't a deal breaker, but apparently I am a reader that is just as cognizant of how much is left as what I'm actually reading. This messed me up a bit (expectations and all).

Are these "known" issues? Can they be fixed with firmware updates? I do like my new reader but am a little bummed at all the trouble I'm having to go through to use it, and even then I'm still experiencing issues.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by French

I'm having trouble with a few of my books and no idea why. They are non DRMd Mobi. I can open both books, and page through the first few pages, but neither will get to the first chapter. Each just throws me back to the Contents on my reader to choose another book. The files aren't that bit (622 kb and 876 kb). Both open fine on my computer and I can page through them/see everything.

I also noticed as I was reading a book last night...it said 576 pages and kept me updated as to what page I was on. But then it felt like there was an awful lot "open" as I got close to that 576th page. And when I reached the 576th page there was another, and then another and then another (each numbered one higher, so 577, 578, 579, etc.) until I finished the book. Now this isn't a deal breaker, but apparently I am a reader that is just as cognizant of how much is left as what I'm actually reading. This messed me up a bit (expectations and all).

Are these "known" issues? Can they be fixed with firmware updates? I do like my new reader but am a little bummed at all the trouble I'm having to go through to use it, and even then I'm still experiencing issues.

I saw the "moving carrot" page numbers on the original Firmware. I now mainly read EPUB and TXT., so I have not seen theif it still does that.
Changing Zoom level also messd that up, which was one reason I decided that percentage of the file size was a simpler scale that would not be affected by Zooming.

[ThomasMcKean]

Originally Posted by theducks

I saw the "moving carrot" page numbers on the original Firmware. I now mainly read EPUB and TXT., so I have not seen theif it still does that.
Changing Zoom level also messd that up, which was one reason I decided that percentage of the file size was a simpler scale that would not be affected by Zooming.

Page numbering on MOBI has never been accurate for me. Add that to already mile long list of things to fix.

This device has such potential. I hope one day it can reach it.

[mrsquash]

Originally Posted by French

Are these "known" issues? Can they be fixed with firmware updates?

They're known to me. I saw the same problems with non-DRMed Mobi when I first got my Astak. The page-number shuffle was frustrating to a new user experimenting with different font-faces and -sizes; attempting to navigate any way other than linearly was like doing a blind jump from Star Trek's transporter deck.

I, too, ran into a problematic mobi file that would not progress beyond the opening pages. What worked for me was converting it to epub (using Calibre). This also took care of the page-numbering problems.

Since then, I've settled on epub as my preferred format. According to what I've read, Mobi is being neglected since Amazon bought it, while epub is growing rapidly.

Disadvantages of epub on the Astak readers is that currently there is no easy way to change fonts (although it can be done), and the text display is, while perfectly legible, a bit on the light side (on the Pocket Pro, that is; it's fine on the EZReader Basic, I guess due to the fewer grey levels and larger display size).

I'm pretty confident that these epub issues will be addressed soon, via firmware. I doubt that anything will be done about the mobi problems.

So my advice would be to look into epub. And take a look at Calibre, if you haven't already. It makes conversion a breeze, and you can keep copies of your files in its database as both mobi and epub. If you go Kindle someday, you'll have the mobi files; if you go Sony (or others), you've got the epub; stay Astak, you can use either.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by French

I'm having trouble with a few of my books and no idea why. They are non DRMd Mobi. I can open both books, and page through the first few pages, but neither will get to the first chapter. Each just throws me back to the Contents on my reader to choose another book. The files aren't that bit (622 kb and 876 kb). Both open fine on my computer and I can page through them/see everything.

I also noticed as I was reading a book last night...it said 576 pages and kept me updated as to what page I was on. But then it felt like there was an awful lot "open" as I got close to that 576th page. And when I reached the 576th page there was another, and then another and then another (each numbered one higher, so 577, 578, 579, etc.) until I finished the book. Now this isn't a deal breaker, but apparently I am a reader that is just as cognizant of how much is left as what I'm actually reading. This messed me up a bit (expectations and all).

Are these "known" issues? Can they be fixed with firmware updates? I do like my new reader but am a little bummed at all the trouble I'm having to go through to use it, and even then I'm still experiencing issues.

Are there any higher ASCII characters somewhere at the start of the chapter? (so, any other character than is visible on your keyboard...).

About the page number, that has always, from the very start, been in mobipocket books. Because you can change the font, font-size, margins, orientation, and line spacing, you can't exactly say how many pages there are in the book. It will only give an estimate. I don't know exactly when it will "update" the total amount of pages... I've gotten used to it, and use it to give me an idea where I am in the book. (the mobipocket reader for WinCE doesn't show page numbers, but rather a progress bar).

I must say, I prefer the mobipocket way of showing page numbers, even though it's not always accurate, over the epub way of showing page numbers as you have absolutely no idea how many pages there are. And those page numbers don't match with your "pages" (sometimes I have to go two pages further to see the next page number, sometimes only two, etc).

[French]

Thank your for the responses and I gotta say, mrssquash...sometimes the easiest answer eludes us. It never occurred to me to just convert them to ePub and that seems to have worked perfectly.

I had originally converted everything I had to ePub but then noticed some of my books turned out bad. Very bad. So I went back and deleted all the books I had converted to ePub format, ensured there was no DRM on the original format(s) and then loaded them up. These 2 books were not working but they converted beautifully to ePub and I've now put that version on the reader and back in business. Someday I guess I'll have to learn how to change the fonts, etc. within ePub...but seriously it took everything I had to get to this point this fast. I just don't have the energy to delve into something else knee deep at the moment. So I'm thrilled they converted well.

Thank you all for the responses, I appreciate the confirmations it's not just me and have to agree with ThomasMcKean that this reader really does have a lot of potential. I hope the firmware keeps getting updated with improvements/enhancements that we can all agree on.

[mrsquash]

Good deal, French. With epubs on the Pocket Pro, you can just hit the "OK" button and a status bar will pop up that says, for instance, "40/327" to let you know what page you're on. You can then get rid of the status bar by hitting the button again. And you can tell it to go to page 327 and know that it will indeed take you to within 1024 characters (that's ADE's definition of a page) of the end of the book. An ADE page may be spread over 2 or more physical pages depending on your settings, but I find it close enough for my needs.

Apologies if you already knew this.

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by French

I'm having trouble with a few of my books and no idea why. They are non DRMd Mobi. I can open both books, and page through the first few pages, but neither will get to the first chapter. Each just throws me back to the Contents on my reader to choose another book. The files aren't that bit (622 kb and 876 kb). Both open fine on my computer and I can page through them/see everything.

That issue often has to do with a character in the text that the reader cannot display with the character set it is using. In FB2 files the behavior for non displayable characters was to completely skip the rest of the paragraph after the non displayable character. Since FB2 is so easy to edit in a text editor, I just went to the where the non displayable character was and changed the character to one in the ASCII character set and everything was fine. I routinely do that now with a global search and replace for all my FB2 books. Because it is so easy to work with, FB2 is now one of my favorite book formats for novels.

[Laura81]

I'm having a simliar problem with page numbering and I'm reading text files. It says I've reached say page 576 out of 576 but then goes on for another 30-50 pages or so. It is annoying but I figured there is nothing I can do to fix it.

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by Laura81

I'm having a simliar problem with page numbering and I'm reading text files. It says I've reached say page 576 out of 576 but then goes on for another 30-50 pages or so. It is annoying but I figured there is nothing I can do to fix it.

Somewhere a while ago I read that a "fix" was to go to the last page, then go back to the page you were reading. This must reset or re-calculate the page count.

[Laura81]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

Somewhere a while ago I read that a "fix" was to go to the last page, then go back to the page you were reading. This must reset or re-calculate the page count.

Ah, thanks for the information