On the "Kobo Touch future firmware feature request thread", a few of us have been wondering if there is a connection between device IDs and the well-known problems some have had updating since firmware update 2.0.0 came out. Obviously, to find this out we need some information from you good folks, in the form of:
a) your device ID and version number,
b) an indication of the country you bought the Touch and where you did the update(s),
c) whether you did it via Kobo Desktop, wifi, or by downloading and installing yourself, and
d) whether you have had any difficulties or changes in device behaviour not announced by Kobo as part of the updates since 2.0.0., and, if you did, what they were/are. These include, but are not limited to, failed updates, slow page turns, displaying the wrong book cover ... the list is quite long!
e) In addition, if you know the firmware version it came with from the factory that would be useful.
f) However, reports of no problems are as useful, so if you have been lucky, please let us know, too!
If you would like to help us with this bit of research, the ways of finding the ID/version numbers are:
For Windows users
How to get this info without Calibre on Windows (thanks to murg for this):
1) plug the Touch into the USB cable and connect.
2) bring up the Device Manager
2a) Windows 7 : Start/Control Panel/Device Manager
2b) Windows XP : Start/Control Panel/System/<one one of the tabs> (this is from memory)
3) under
Disk Drives, find
Kobo eReader USB Device
4) right click on this and select Properties.
5) select Details tab.
6) change Property dropdown to
Device Instance Path
7) the value contains the Revision
8) change Property dropdown to
Parent
9) the value contains the PID
10) note that you also get the Touch's serial number
device instance path: USBSTOR\DISK&VEN_KOBO&PROD_EREADER&REV_
YYYY\KG1111111111B&0
parent: USB\VID_2237&PID_
XXXX\KG1111111111B
Alternatives steps:
3) the Touch will also show up under
Universal Serial Bus Controllers as
USB Mass Storage Device.
Note: There may be more than one USB Mass Storage Device.
6) change Property dropdown to
Hardware IDs
7) the value contains the PID and revision
skip 8) 9) and 10)
Hardware Ids: USB\VID_2237&PID_
XXXX&REV_
YYYY
With Calibre (thanks to davidfor for this):
1. Open Calibre.
2. In the top bar, click on Preferences.
3. Click on Miscellaneous (middle of the bottom row).
4. On the screen that comes up, locate the "Debug device detection" button, but don't press it yet. Connect the KT with a usb cable, and then allow it to connect to the computer.
5. Now, timing is a bit tricky. If you have autorun turned on, click the Debug button just after the box (or boxes if you have an SD card) have opened. If not, probably counting slowly to five would do it.
6. What you should see is a box that says "Getting debug information, please wait ...", and then produces a list of all the usb devices connected to your computer. Run down the list until you find "Looking for devices..." The line below will look like:
u'usb\\vid_2237&pid_
XXXX&rev_
YYYY' (italics will be numbers)
Followed by:
Detected possible device KoboTouch
The device ID/version are the two four-digit numbers after "pid" (those in italics above).
If you are Windows user, and don't have Calibre, please see murg's post (#6) below.
For Mac users (thanks to Mrs_Often for this):
Make sure your Kobo Touch is attached to your Mac, and mounted on the Desktop.
1. Click on the apple to the top left of the menu bar
- Click "About this Mac" at the top of the menu that opened
2. A small window with superficial information about your Mac will open
- Click the button down the bottom that says "More info…"
3. Skip this step if you're on 10.6.x, for 10.7.x and later:
- Hit the "System Report…" button on the bottom left
4. A larger window with detailed information is now open
- In the left column, click "USB" under "Hardware"
- In the top frame of the window, you'll see the USB Device Tree. From that tree, find and click "eReader" or "Kobo" or whatever yours is named by your Mac.
- In the bottom frame of the window, you'll see all sorts of information about your Kobo Touch
- Behind "Product ID" you'll see something like 0x4163. The four digits after the x is what you want, plus:
- Behind "Version" you'll see something like 3.26. This is the second number you want, without the decimal point, so in my case: 326.
For Linux users: (Thanks to RJCroy for this):
1) Open a terminal
2) type the command 'lsusb -v'
This will give details of all the USB devices connected. One will be the Kobo. It will look something like:
Bus 002 Device 005: ID 2237:4163 Kobo Inc.
Couldn't open device, some information will be missing
Device Descriptor:
bLength 18
bDescriptorType 1
bcdUSB 2.00
bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level)
bDeviceSubClass 0
bDeviceProtocol 0
bMaxPacketSize0 64
idVendor 0x2237 Kobo Inc.
idProduct 0x4163 [This is the device ID]
bcdDevice 3.26 [This is the version number]
If you could spend a few minutes to do this, the information would be really useful, and I'll post updates as we get the information.
