MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - [GUI Plugin] Manage Sony x50 Reader Book List

kpw · 08-24-2011, 03:48 PM

Hi MisterMoonlight,

I don't have anymore real information to pass on, but I do have another theory that I'd like to throw out there. I'll give you my "bottom line" first before I ramble on with my rationale for why I think it might help...

Bottom Line: It might be worth your while to check your reader drive file system for errors, using the Windows "Check drive" facility (I'm not sure exactly what it's called in Win XP). If there are errors, let the tool fix them and then try things again.

Ramble: From everything we've seen, I'm getting the feeling that we have a problem specifically with the media.xml file, and that might be preventing updates from being applied to it. Here are the reasons I have for this:

I noticed something unexpected in the last trace file you sent me. The trace dumps out the file stats for the book files whose timestamp get updated, both before and after the timestamp adjustment. What I expected to see (and what I see on my system) is that the "before" stats should have the original timestamp that matches the cache (i.e. media.xml), and the "after" stats should show the updated timestamp. What I see in your trace though, is that both "before" and "after" stats reflect the updated timestamp. I think we're getting this because the file timestamps were updated successfully on previous runs of the plugin action. So that tells me that the EPUB file updates are successfully going through.
With the stock Sony firmware, when it does a scan of the book files on the drive, it detects if any timestamps differ from the cache entries for those books. If it finds a discrepancy, it updates the record in the media.xml file with the right "date" value. This is not happenning with your reader since the media.xml file continues to show the old "date" values for the updated books. Perhaps this means that the Sony firmware is attempting to update the file but is running into the same problem the plugin is?
I understand you're running PRS+, but I would be really surprised if that would interfere with the base Sony metadata processing, so I wouldn't expect the behaviour you're getting to be normal.
I'm not sure what would cause the media.xml file to not accept updates, but perhaps some file system errors are getting in the way. With caching at the OS or device driver level, maybe write errors don't get caught at the Python level (this is pure speculation, since I don't know what happens at that low level).

Anyway, I'm guessing a "Check Drive" won't hurt anything. If the drive is clean, then we can just ignore my rambling and scratch our heads some more...

08-24-2011, 03:48 PM	#82
kpw Connoisseur Posts: 80 Karma: 12933 Join Date: Feb 2011 Device: Galaxy Note 8, Sony PRS-650, Sony PRS-600	Hi MisterMoonlight, I don't have anymore real information to pass on, but I do have another theory that I'd like to throw out there. I'll give you my "bottom line" first before I ramble on with my rationale for why I think it might help... Bottom Line: It might be worth your while to check your reader drive file system for errors, using the Windows "Check drive" facility (I'm not sure exactly what it's called in Win XP). If there are errors, let the tool fix them and then try things again. Ramble: From everything we've seen, I'm getting the feeling that we have a problem specifically with the media.xml file, and that might be preventing updates from being applied to it. Here are the reasons I have for this: I noticed something unexpected in the last trace file you sent me. The trace dumps out the file stats for the book files whose timestamp get updated, both before and after the timestamp adjustment. What I expected to see (and what I see on my system) is that the "before" stats should have the original timestamp that matches the cache (i.e. media.xml), and the "after" stats should show the updated timestamp. What I see in your trace though, is that both "before" and "after" stats reflect the updated timestamp. I think we're getting this because the file timestamps were updated successfully on previous runs of the plugin action. So that tells me that the EPUB file updates are successfully going through. With the stock Sony firmware, when it does a scan of the book files on the drive, it detects if any timestamps differ from the cache entries for those books. If it finds a discrepancy, it updates the record in the media.xml file with the right "date" value. This is not happenning with your reader since the media.xml file continues to show the old "date" values for the updated books. Perhaps this means that the Sony firmware is attempting to update the file but is running into the same problem the plugin is? I understand you're running PRS+, but I would be really surprised if that would interfere with the base Sony metadata processing, so I wouldn't expect the behaviour you're getting to be normal. I'm not sure what would cause the media.xml file to not accept updates, but perhaps some file system errors are getting in the way. With caching at the OS or device driver level, maybe write errors don't get caught at the Python level (this is pure speculation, since I don't know what happens at that low level). Anyway, I'm guessing a "Check Drive" won't hurt anything. If the drive is clean, then we can just ignore my rambling and scratch our heads some more...