Firmware 4.20.14601 has been released
 

Looking at geek1011's Kobo Firmware Download page, it is showing that 4.20.14601 is now available for all devices other than the Kobo Mini.

The Kobo Desktop application for Windows is also updated to Kobo Desktop 4.20.12714.

Kobo Firmware 4.20.14601

Kobo firmware 4.20.14601 has been released. As of March 2, 2020, it has been released to the Kobo Touch A/B, Kobo Touch C, Kobo Glo, Kobo Glo HD, Kobo Touch 2.0, Kobo Aura, Kobo Aura HD, Kobo Aura H2O, Kobo Aura H2O Edition 2 v1, Kobo Aura H2O Edition 2 v2, Kobo Aura ONE, Kobo Aura ONE Limited Edition, Kobo Aura Edition 2 v1, Kobo Aura Edition 2 v2, Kobo Clara HD, Kobo Forma, and the Kobo Libra H2O. It has not been released to the Kobo Mini. The affiliates used to check these firmware versions were: kobo, bestbuyca, fnac, beta, rakutenbooks, and the walmartca.


Download Links

Official Links:

• Kobo Touch A/B (mark 3) - Download | Release Notes
• Kobo Touch C (mark 4) - Download | Release Notes
• Kobo Glo (mark 4) - Download | Release Notes
• Kobo Glo HD (mark 6) - Download | Release Notes
• Kobo Touch 2.0 (mark 6) - Download | Release Notes
• Kobo Aura (mark 5) - Download | Release Notes
• Kobo Aura HD (mark 4) - Download | Release Notes
• Kobo Aura H2O (mark 5) - Download | Release Notes
• Kobo Aura H2O Edition 2 v1 (mark 6) - Download | Release Notes
• Kobo Aura H2O Edition 2 v2 (mark 7) - Download | Release Notes
• Kobo Aura ONE (mark 6) - Download | Release Notes
• Kobo Aura ONE Limited Edition (mark 6) - Download | Release Notes
• Kobo Aura Edition 2 v1 (mark 6) - Download | Release Notes
• Kobo Aura Edition 2 v2 (mark 7) - Download | Release Notes
• Kobo Clara HD (mark 7) - Download | Release Notes
• Kobo Forma (mark 7) - Download | Release Notes
• Kobo Libra H2O (mark 7) - Download | Release Notes

You can also try the generic links at your own risk:

• Mark 3 - Download
• Mark 4 - Download
• Mark 5 - Download
• Mark 6 - Download
• Mark 7 - Download

Generated by kobofirmware by Patrick G (geek1011). Source Code

Notes:


Series view:

Browse your Kobo books by series. Visit My Books > Series to get started.

Choose between List view or Cover view in the […] Menu at the top right.

When viewing books in a series, you can find more books in that series by tapping the 'More in this Series' link.


Dictionary:

When you press and hold a word while reading, you'll see the definition pop up, with a fresh new look.

You'll find access to the full dictionary view, Google search, and Wikipedia search.


Wi Fi:

Fixed: Some Wi Fi 2.4GHz networks were not appearing when attempting to scan or connect.

Reported equipment included Freebox routers, and routers running OpenWrt software.


Battery:

Your Kobo eReader's battery might have have been draining faster than expected while you weren't using it. We've put some fixes in place to help make sure you can pick up your book where you left off.

Patches will most likely be out tonight. And I guess I'll need to look at the dictionary stuff again... hopefully they fixed the bugs I found.

That series view is quite useful, though.

That is one of the most detailed release notes I've seen.

Interesting about the battery. I have noticed that my Aura HD has been draining the battery more quickly lately, but who knows the true cause?

I wonder if they have fixed the custom font bug introduced with the previous update? I didn't update because of that.

Some of my notes (from https://github.com/geek1011/kobopatc...es/issues/48):

• The new selection menu is nice. The selection now appears with a solid black background rather than an underline, and the menu is now more compact, with submenus instead of tabs. Selecting text is also faster, but moving the selection vertically is buggy, as it triggers the menu gestures.
• The new dictionary view is more streamlined, but is still just as small (it does have a fullscreen button, though). I haven't checked the functionality or if this is patchable yet. The extra dictionaries bug still remains, though (the one which requires a patch to fix the space splitting). Pagination is now vertical, similar to the settings pages (and has a scrollbar rather than a page number).
• The font menu now appears on the top of the screen, and has increased padding. I'm not sure if I like this or not yet. The stats view shows at the top too.
• I haven't noticed any bugs in the new series view yet (and it's pretty nice).
• The interface is slightly faster for some actions, including closing a book.
• Touchscreen accuracy on the A2v1, and probably others, has been improved.
• Image tags in dictionaries with non-dict:/// URLs don't segfault the inline dictionary anymore, but dict:/// images still don't display either (the same bug as what was happening with the full-screen dictionary). The same thing happens when they are in an iframe.
• Base64 images work perfectly now! (they don't segfault, and they work in both dictionary views)
• Remotely hosted images work perfectly as well.
• Background colors now work properly (but I don't really see why one would use them).
• Font weight changes don't need a reboot to apply anymore (this was a bug).

On my Forma I've been experiencing almost immediate draining (100% to 1% in less than a day), but without any real impact as it can keep that last 1% for days and days... I just have no way to know when it's really at 1% and is about to die.
I thought it was a faulty hardware sensor or something like that, but seeing this update, I hope it fixes it.

I hope this will take care of the wifi issues I've had. When you live in an apartment building and the Kobo doesn't see any networks at all on the first attempt to sync, you know something's not right.....

Thank you for your notes. Has the bug in adjusting the font weight been fixed so we no longer have to reboot to get the new setting to take effect?

Yes, and changing font settings is now faster as well.

Copyright at the bottom of your page says 2019.

Thanks, fixed.

Of course this is released when I'm at work. I started long notes on this during the beta, but, it is on my home computer and not accessible from work. The release notes, and @geek1011's post covers a lot, but, there is more. I'll post from memory and update it later from my other notes. The main one I want to mention in the Series Tab.

New Features:

• Series Tab
  • This displays a list of series with a cover, the author and the number of books in the series that are on the device.
  • There are list and cover views.
  • Tapping an entry opens the series and shows the book.
  • The list can be sorted by Series Title, Number of Books and Recent (based on the books in the lists)
  • The list is not based directly on the series name. It is actually built from an id in the database. This means that sideloaded books will not be in series list until a method is added to update this id. This should be in the next version of calibre.
• Selecting text is now done as reverse video instead of underlining.
• Selection pop-up menu has been reorganised.
• Dictionary popup has changed.
  • Uses scroll bar if the text doesn't fit in the popup.
  • Button for searching Google or Wikipedia with the selected text.
  • Button to show the definition in full screen.
• Footnote popup uses scrollbar for longer notes.
• WiFi fixes.
• End of book for purchased kepubs:
  • End of book prompt for rating/review has been changed.
  • If closing a book when more than 90% finished, will be prompted whether you want to mark it as finished. (Handy if there is a lot of aftermatter to skip.)
• Popups for in-book progress, font settings and zoom bar (PDF and images) have been moved to the top of the screen.
• All Beta Features available on all devices if Developers Mode is turned.
  • Note: Kobo makes no claims that they will work properly on the newer devices.
  • My note: Do not start playing Unblock It. It is a blackhole for time.

Fixed bugs:

• Sorting the author list is now case insensitive.
• Changing font weights in epubs happens immediately.
• Fix orientation bug for left-handed user reading on their side with locked portrait orientation (Not sure about this as it was in the last beta release and I haven't worked out what it actually changed)
• Dictionary language correctly changed and remembered.

calibre
There is an update need in the driver in calibre to bump the supported firmware version for this release. This should be in the next release of calibre. Until then, it is completely safe to use the "Attempt to support newer firmware" option. The update to the driver will include changes to allow sideloaded books to be seen in the new Series list. There will also be an update to my Kobo Utilities plugin to add this support.

Update: Calibre version 4.12.0 has been released with the support for this version of the firmware and the Series tab. And the support was added in Kobo Utilities plugin version 2.11.0.

@davidfor, will we be able to update the metadata for all the side loaded eBooks we already have on our Readers to fix them to work properly with the new series features?

The metadata update options in the driver and plugin will work in exactly the same way as they currently do. They just update two extra columns in the database.

This will be implemented in seriesmeta tonight at the same time the patches are released. @davidfor, would you mind making the UUID deterministic (preferably a UUIDv5 of the series name with a namespace of 9ea9be91-2966-4fbf-b822-de692259bc9b [I generated a random one just now]), to make compatibility with Calibre easier? If you don't like that, anything deterministic is better than a random one.

No wonder why I couldn't find that. I was seeing if I could patch a few things about it I was planning to try with the previous version.

That's interesting.

^ that :D.

That might have something to do with https://github.com/geek1011/kobopatch-patches/issues/33.

I'm not generating a UUID. I'm reading the database to get the UUID for books from Kobo along with their series name. If a sideloaded book has the same series name and author, I use the UUID. Otherwise, I just use the series name. I have had this working in the driver and plugin with no problems since about 24 hours after the Series tab hit the betas.

The issues I have found have been related to bad series data. The series name from Kobo isn't always consistent. I have a couple of examples where one book has a slightly different series name than the others. (Some have "The xxxx" and others "xxxx"). And I have a few books that download with the series id, but no series name. And this was device dependent. I had to sign-out of the account on the device to fix it. It was something cached on Kobo's side. it seemed to only affected books I had for a while. In at least one case, I think when I bought it it wasn't part of a series and was added to a "Sci Fi Masterworks" series later.

Overall, if the series info in the books is good, the series tab works well. My desire now is for a filter along the lines of "don't show series with only 1 book in it".
I thought the old version was there. There might be some A/B testing going on with it.
And for the record, I'm on Easy level 116.
That would probably fit.

Oh, OK, I see. I'll probably do the same, then. What happens with your implementation if a book already has been updated with Calibre, but someone later bought a book from Kobo in the same series, and they try to sideload another book with the same series? Will the plugin update the first sideloaded book to match?

The driver compares the metadata in the database to the library and updates the database as needed. This should mean all the sideloaded books get updated to the id from Kobo. It isn't something I explicitly tested, but, from memory of the code, it will handle this situation.

And for those worried about performance, there is only one database read. The driver collects all necessary metadata from the database in the first pass. The later comparisons are in memory, and, unless there have been a lot of changes, fast.

OK, that should be simple enough to implement.

Also, do you have any idea of changes made regarding handling of "Extra: " dictionaries? We (jackie_w and I) have been encountering some strange behaviour: https://github.com/geek1011/kobopatc...ment-593735567.

A trivial question perhaps, but how does one play the Word Scramble? I select letters, but see no way to have the selections counted. that count stays at "0" out of however many are listed for that particular grid.

Sorry, no idea. I haven't tried sideloading a dictionary for a while. And, I haven't been paying much attention to how it works recently.

OK, quick question about the database changes for compatibility with the new Series tab.

I sideload everything (even the stuff I buy from Kobo; drm removed, of course) so no need for me to generate a UUID or anything like that, but for various reasons, it'd be easier and faster for me just to copy the database file off my Kobo and run the SQL directly on my computer and then copy it back rather than do it through usb (2.35 GB file, 13,000 books (blame gutenberg), etc, plus I want to compact the database after and that definitely is faster if I do it locally).

I haven't installed the new firmware yet so I can't inspect the database to see what changed, but am I correct to assume that it'd be just as simple as copying over all of the data from the 'Series' column to whatever the new column is (looking at geek1011's seriesmeta commit, is it called SeriesID?) and that's it, or is there more to it than that (sorry if the question sounds dumb; I'm weak in sql)?

Yes, that should work for now. Just copy the contents of 'Series' to 'SeriesID' for sideloaded books (and remember to exclude the rows used for TOC entries). You can also use seriesmeta v3.1.0 to do it for you (it's quite fast, even on large libraries).

Curious: Can seriesmeta be run directly on a database file locally, or is it dependent on having the reader connected too because it also needs to scan the books?

It needs to scan the books (but it's quite efficient at doing so - it scans my ClaraHD with 834 books [5GB] in ~19 seconds).

I wonder why Kobo decided they needed new columns for the series stuff?

Those have been there for a while, they just weren't used for sideloaded stuff. They probably needed it for the "More in this series" button.

Ah, thanks

Click again on the last letter of a word. Click a, n, and t, and click again on t and 'ant' will be counted as a word.

Thanks! Now if only my hands were faster :)

Ok, dumb question, but for TOC entries, isn't the Series data set to NULL anyways? So copying it over to SeriesID should still be NULL and be fine, right? Although I only really spot checked and didn't check every TOC entry but the ones I did encounter were NULL.

I was really hoping something like would work.

Although I was playing around (haven't actually deployed it yet) and it seemed to set SeriesNumberFloat to 0.0 for all non-NULL entries at the same time. Not sure if that's a quirk of the program I'm using (DB Browser for SQLite) or if that's what's supposed to happen. Should I be copying over SeriesNumber to that column too?

Pagination is better, though on the previous FW, the physical buttons don't page in popups like dictionary, you have to tap/swipe.

Hi, I‘m wondering what additional benefit Series has over Collection? I was perfectly happy with Collection functionality. At the moment, I‘d rather turn Series off.

Immediately after installing 4.20, I applied this query and it worked fine for me. All series have appeared.

If you were creating collections for series and nothing else, there probably isn't any advantage. And if you were only creating collections for some other reason (TBR list, genre etc), again there probably isn't any advantage. But, if you were creating collections for both reasons, you will no longer have the series collection mixed up with the non-series collections. To me, that is a good thing. But, if you don't like it, just ignore the tab.

Hi rtiangha, can you tell me how compacting the database?. This may not be a necessary action, but my database has >100mb. Is it too big or is it normal?
Thanks