[davidfor]

Originally Posted by youngmax

Although the notification about the firmware was originally in Calibre (pretty sure it was the Kobo Utilities notification of an available update for the device, though not 100%), I disconnected the device and updated by touching the sync tile on the home screen. Unfortunately the firmware status of the replacement device is unknown since it could have been sitting in its box since November for all I know. I don't have a backup of the new device's .kobo folder before I overwrote it.

Possibly of note, while setting up the new device I first tried logging into my kobo account and got to the home screen. Would that have been enough to trigger a check for available firmware updates?

The firmware should be updated during the setup process. It is usually done after entering the WiFi password and before being asked to login to the Kobo account. If there is an update, it will be downloaded, installed and the device rebooted. Then you will be taken through the rest of the setup.

If so, there seems to have been no reason for the device to download an update, which I saw it doing. If a bare initial login without hitting the sync tile even once isn't enough to trigger an update check, it sounds like I was running a database from the most recent firmware on a 'new' device with older firmware.

The upgrade check should be done:

• When setting up the device either new, or after a factory reset.
• When doing a sync. This can be the automatic daily sync if you haven't turned that off.
• When connecting to the Kobo desktop app.
• From the Kobo Utilities plugin in calibre. This is not officially supported

There is a dependency on the affiliate set on the device. In general, everywhere gets the same firmware version, but it can take a month for it to reach all affiliates and countries. Japan is the exception to this. Kobo seem to only release occasional firmware versions to Japan. I haven't seen a pattern except when a new device is launched there.

You can get different results from the utilities plugin. It can use the affiliate from the device, or an "early adopters" affiliate.The latter should be one of the affiliates that get the update first.

Here's the contents of the version file from my backups of the original device:

N250553006736,2.6.35.3,3.19.5761,2.6.35.3,2.6.35.3,00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000370

Here's the version file off the new device the day I received it, but I'm not sure if this is from before or after I overwrote all the files:

N2505B3901229,2.6.35.3,3.19.5761,2.6.35.3,2.6.35.3,00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000370

Both of those are from the current firmware. If you are intending to use your backup, you will probably need to be on this firmware.

Here it is from two days ago, just before I hit the sync tile and everything went to hell.

N2505B3901229,2.6.35.3,3.16.17,2.6.35.3,2.6.35.3,00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000370

3.16.17 is a strange release. It isn't listed in the firmware links thread. I know it was released as a beta, but I don't remember it being released elsewhere. Unless it was a Japanese release and withdrawn or replaced quickly. It might have been a version with sickel enabled and quickly replaced by 3.17.0. And then 3.17.3 and then 3.18.0 without sickel.

David, thanks for the restoration procedure. It seems my options right now are:

-Restore reading positions, RIP bookmarks
-Attempt a downgrade to 3.16.17? Not frequently done, might brick the kobo.

1. Downgrading from 3.19.x to 3.16.17 is probably a risk. The way to do it is via factory reset. The steps are:
2. Install the Kobo desktop application.
3. Do the factory reset.
4. When prompted to setup the device, choose to use the PC.
5. Start the Kobo desktop application and connect the device.
6. Let the desktop application do the firmware update and do the setup, but DO NOT eject the device.
7. Open the drive for the device and find the firmware files in the .kobo directory. Delete them. You are looking for the directory upgrade and the files KoboRoot.tgz and manifest.md5sum.
8. Eject the device.

At this point the device will be running whatever the factory installed firmware was. For my Aura H2O, that is 3.7.0. I don't know if Kobo have updated the firmware on the devices, but they might have for the Japanese release. I don't remember when that was, so can't guess.

You can now connect to the PC and manually install any desired firmware version. You can also do that before ejecting the device above, but seeing the factory firmware is probably a useful data point.

-Reset device, export user table from fresh DB to a CSV file, then load a backed-up DB and replace the user table from CSV. sqlitebrowser doesn't seem to have the ability to open two databases at once, which I suppose makes sense with the embedded focus of sqlite, so this is the best I could come up with.

I don't normally use SQLiteBrowser, but if you want to open two databases at the same time, you can run two instances of it. They are then independent and can open different databases. But, extracting to CSV is probably the best bet and then importing that to the other database.