[rjh4242]

I've been very happy with my Kobo Libra H2O since I bought it almost exactly two years ago - until last week.

I plugged it into the laptop to load a few books onto it using Calibre, in exactly the same way as I have for the past 2 years. I have the KoboUtilities Plugin, using the KoboTouchExtended driver, and up until last week it worked perfectly. Last week in calibre when I plugged the Libra into the laptop I started getting odd error messages in calibre: 'unable to read database' and 'database corrupt' and 'disk i/o error' (different messages after various reboots of both the Libra and the laptop).

Having googled and read lots of mobileread posts, I assumed there might have been a dodgy book or a dodgy cable, and that the database was lost beyond repair so reset the Libra to factory settings and started again with a completely blank, new setup.

The problem is that now I'm getting even more weird symptoms.

I reset the Libra to factory settings, set up the Kobo account and get it back running with a completely empty database. No books downloaded from my Kobo account (I don't have any - I always sideload my books). I plug the Libra into the laptop and start Calibre. Calibre detects the Libra with its empty database, and when I check the database using KoboUtilities it comes back ok.

I then put a book onto the Libra via Calibre (I've tried multiple different ones in case it's a specific book causing the problem). Calibre shows it's put a book onto the Libra, so I safely eject the Libra. The usual Importing content screen and bar comes up on the Libra, but when the home screen appears the book doesn't show in the My Books count on the home page, although it DOES show when I go to the My Books section, and I can read it there.

If I plug the Libra back into the PC with calibre open, calibre doesn't think there are any books on the device.

If I plug the Libra back into the PC without calibre open, do nothing, and then eject the Libra, it goes back into the Importing Content screen, and then the My Books count is correct. If I then plug it back into Calibre, calibre can see the book on the device.

Based on this, it seems like the first time the Libra says Importing Content it's not actually updating the database properly. If I plug it back into the laptop and safely eject it to trigger another database update, this time it sees the book and updates the database correctly.

How is this possible on a completely newly restored to factory settings Libra? I've tried it with two different firmwares: 4.28.18220 and 4.31.19086, factory resetting each time and then installing the relevant firmware version. I've tried 2 different laptops with completely separate calibre setups and versions. I've tried 3 different cables and 5 different USB ports. I have lost count of how many times I've factory reset the Libra and started again.

After working on this all day I finally managed to get up to 63 books on the Libra by only putting on a couple at a time, ejecting the Libra, closing calibre, waiting until the Libra 'Importing content' screen had closed, plugging it back into the laptop without calibre open, safely ejecting, waiting through another 'Importing content' screen and then plugging back in to the laptop, opening calibre and repeating the process.

Unfortunately just now I got the yet another error (I haven't seen this one before) when KoboUtilities tried to do its automatic backup when I plugged in the Libra:
"calibre, version 5.30.0 (win32, embedded-python: True)
Failed to backup device database: Failed: Backing up Kobo device database

*** in database main ***
On tree page 9806 cell 42: 2nd reference to page 9788
Page 5271 is never used
wrong # of entries in index content_bookid_index
wrong # of entries in index sqlite_autoindex_content_1

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre\gui2\device.py", line 87, in run
File "calibre_plugins.koboutilities.jobs", line 200, in do_device_database_backup
Exception:
*** in database main ***
On tree page 9806 cell 42: 2nd reference to page 9788
Page 5271 is never used
wrong # of entries in index content_bookid_index
wrong # of entries in index sqlite_autoindex_content_1
"
UPDATE:

Without doing anything else to the Libra I just plugged it into the other PC and Calibre is giving me the i/o error again (that I have had several times before):
calibre, version 5.34.0
ERROR: Error: Error communicating with device

IOError: disk I/O error

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre\gui2\device.py", line 87, in run
File "calibre\gui2\device.py", line 512, in _books
File "calibre\devices\kobo\driver.py", line 1886, in books
File "calibre\devices\kobo\driver.py", line 180, in device_database_connection
apsw.IOError: IOError: disk I/O error

UPDATE 2:
I safely ejected the Libra, and it rebooted without human intervention. It then seemed to think there was one book less than it previously knew about. I plugged it back into the computer, when Windows scanned for errors and didn't find anything (which it has done many times during this process, never finding any errors). When I started Calibre it recognised the Libra and this time gave the 'database malformed' error that started off this whole process:
calibre, version 5.34.0
ERROR: Error: Error communicating with device

CorruptError: database disk image is malformed

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre\gui2\device.py", line 87, in run
File "calibre\gui2\device.py", line 512, in _books
File "calibre\devices\kobo\driver.py", line 1988, in books
apsw.CorruptError: CorruptError: database disk image is malformed

There's clearly something very wrong, but I can't figure out what's happening and I'm losing the will to live. I've spent all day trying to get it sorted out, or at least understand what the problem might be, and failed. Can anyone suggest what might be going on, and how I might get the Libra to work effectively again? Could it be a hardware issue? I've tried everything I can think of from a software/database perspective. Thanks for any suggestions.