Touch VERY happy with .kobo/image folder cleaning

[Xennex1170]

Ok, those of you paying attention to my recent posts know that I've been working on cleaning my image folder.. Now that it's completely done and I just have to do minor maintenance when I add some new ebooks I can report on how it has changed the responsiveness of my Kobo Touch and some guesses as to why it is so much faster.

The image files I removed were tagged with the following in the filename:
- N3_FULL
- N3_LIBRARY_SHELF
- N3_SOCIAL_CURRENTREAD

I also removed and reinstalled some free ebooks I downloaded from kobo.com in the past that were after my image folder had hit its limit. I first noted the titles and erased the ebooks from my KT. Then I did a wifi sync. Added back the ebooks at kobo.com and performed another sync. After completing I cleaned the image folder to remove the newly added image files tagged with the names listed above. Did one more sync to make sure I had downloaded everything I had selected. (2 didn't sync the first time).

When my KT returned to the Home screen after the sync it responded MUCH quicker to Entering the library from the Home menu, page turns in the library, and returning to HOME from anywhere when the HW home button is pressed. Not any real systematic checking of speed but I'd say my response time for all the above has changed from 4-5 secs (or requiring a tap in a neutral location) to 2 secs or almost instant.

My guesses as to why this has worked the way it has. Not all image files are used but those that are used are IMPORTANT. The N3_FULL as far as I can see serves no purpose and is HUGE in comparison with the other image files. If an ebook has somehow defaulted to the 'generic' bookcover due to the image folder having reached it's limit, it SLOWS DOWN processing because one part of the system is sending a request for an image file and the request is timing out and you end up with a page with generic covers. If this is true it could be that there ARE NO image files associated with the ebook in question resulting in the 'timeout' delay. If the requests are all filled the KT returns quickly and the page renders with the book covers relevant to the page. Since the HOME screen, bottom carousel, Library (Books, News & Mags, Previews, Shortlist) all use cover images I believe that having no covers is a BAD THING. I cannot stress this enough for those that have large libraries installed on their KT as I have.

Hope this helps some of you out their with the response times on your KT..

[JD Gumby]

Easiest way is to find out what device letter your Kobo is on (Start button -> Computer; it'll be the letter with the colon at the end of the drive's name - "KOBOeReader (G" on mine), then add the following three commands to a batch file (I call mine DeleteKoboImages.bat) and save it somewhere you can find it agan:

del G:\.kobo\images\file*N3_FULL.parsed
del G:\.kobo\images\file*N3_LIBRARY_SHELF.parsed
del G:\.kobo\images\file*N3_SOCIAL_CURRENTREAD.parsed

(replace G: with whatever drive letter your Kobo happens to be on) Then you can run it any time you feel the need to clear out the excess images again (say after a factory reset).

[Xennex1170]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

Easiest way is to find out what device letter your Kobo is on (Start button -> Computer; it'll be the letter with the colon at the end of the drive's name - "KOBOeReader (G" on mine), then add the following three commands to a batch file (I call mine DeleteKoboImages.bat) and save it somewhere you can find it agan:

del G:\.kobo\images\file*N3_FULL.parsed
del G:\.kobo\images\file*N3_LIBRARY_SHELF.parsed
del G:\.kobo\images\file*N3_SOCIAL_CURRENTREAD.parsed

(replace G: with whatever drive letter your Kobo happens to be on) Then you can run it any time you feel the need to clear out the excess images again (say after a factory reset).

Excellent tip. Thanks..

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

Easiest way is to find out what device letter your Kobo is on (Start button -> Computer; it'll be the letter with the colon at the end of the drive's name - "KOBOeReader (G" on mine), then add the following three commands to a batch file (I call mine DeleteKoboImages.bat) and save it somewhere you can find it agan:

del G:\.kobo\images\file*N3_FULL.parsed
del G:\.kobo\images\file*N3_LIBRARY_SHELF.parsed
del G:\.kobo\images\file*N3_SOCIAL_CURRENTREAD.parsed

(replace G: with whatever drive letter your Kobo happens to be on) Then you can run it any time you feel the need to clear out the excess images again (say after a factory reset).

So a factory reset doesn't quite clear the device of everything? Kobo need to add this I think.

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by jusmee

So a factory reset doesn't quite clear the device of everything? Kobo need to add this I think.

No, the factory reset should get rid of them - but it'll be repopulated when you re-add your library or the microSD card gets reprocessed when it finishes the reset.

[dioioib]

Here is a script I use for initialization with an image directory maintenance component added. This will work on MAC OSX by running it with terminal using

./kobo.sh

<- kobo.sh being the file name for the script.

If you cannot execute the script type the following to make the file executable.

chmod +x kobo.sh

This is the data for your kobo.sh file.

#!/bin/sh
#KOBOeReader setup script for OSX.
#Make sure the Kobo's drive label has not 
#been changed from KOBOeReader. 
#Created by Brian Durocher March 2012
#brian.durocher@gmail.com
#Creative Commons Share-a-like Licence. 
echo
echo "3 Stage Setup and Maintenance Script"
echo
echo "Unteathered setup. Only do this if you don't intent to use the Kobo with the Desktop Application"
echo
read -p "Would you like to intialize your kobo using the 'foo' initialization method: (yes|no) " -r
if [ "${REPLY}" == "yes" ]
	then
		echo
		read -p "Please make sure your KOBO is plugged into a USB port and press return: "
		echo "insert into user values('foo', 'foo', 'foo', 'foo', 'foo');" | sqlite3 /Volumes/KOBOeReader/.kobo/KoboReader.sqlite
		echo "Activation completed"
		echo
	else
		echo
		echo "Skipping initialization"
		echo
fi
read -p "Do you want to disable Spotlight Indexing and Trash on your Kobo device: (yes|no) " -r
if [ "${REPLY}" == "yes" ]
	then
		echo
		echo "Removing Spotlight Indexing and Trash on KOBOeReader."
		mdutil -i off /Volumes/KOBOeReader
		cd /Volumes/KOBOeReader
		rm -rf .{,_.}{fseventsd,Spotlight-V*,Trashes}
		mkdir .fseventsd
		touch .fseventsd/no_log .metadata_never_index .Trashes
		cd -
		echo
		echo "Complete..."
		echo
	else
		echo
		echo "Skipping Data Saving Measures"
		echo		
fi
echo 
read -p "Do you want to clean the image directory: (yes|no) " -r
if [ "${REPLY}" == "yes" ]
	then
		rm -vf /Volumes/KOBOeReader/.kobo/images/*.N3_FULL.parsed
		rm -vf /Volumes/KOBOeReader/.kobo/images/*N3_LIBRARY_SHELF.parsed
		rm -vf /Volumes/KOBOeReader/.kobo/images/*N3_SOCIAL_CURRENTREAD.parsed
	else
		echo
		echo "Skipping Image Folder Clean-up"
		echo
fi

Small modifications can be made to make this function with Linux. Email or PM me if you want me to make additional changes.

[Xennex1170]

I have recently hit the limit (about 2300) on the number of ebooks I can load w/o losing bookcovers even after clearing out all files in the .kobo/images folder that are tagged with the following in the filename:

- N3_FULL
- N3_LIBRARY_SHELF
- N3_SOCIAL_CURRENTREAD

Now I've started playing with removing the other 3 files tagged with the following:

- N3_LIBRARY_FULL
- N3_LIBRARY_GRID
- N3_LIBRARY_LIST

I've discovered through some trial and error that those files are used in the following way:

- N3_LIBRARY_FULL: Main Carousel and "Single book" view in Library
- N3_LIBRARY_GRID: Lower Carousel and "6 Cover Grid" view in Library
- N3_LIBRARY_LIST: "5 Cover and Name List" view in Library

I don't really use the "6 Cover Grid" view in the Library so I deleted the "N3_LIBRARY_GRID" tagged image files to open up space for about another 1100 ebooks with covers if I'm lucky. Side effect is that now I have blank bookcovers in my lower carousel. If you do what I did I will suggest that you leave the "N3_LIBRARY_GRID" tagged files for the books you have or intend to place in your shortlist. This will prevent blank bookcovers from displaying on the home screen in the lower carousel. From experience I can say it IS BAD FOR DEVICE RESPONSE to have blank bookcovers display especially on the Home screen.

For any Kobo developers reading this PLEASE find some way of increasing the file limit for the .kobo/images folder or place each type of tagged file in a separate folder under .kobo/images. That alone will allow us to have about 7400(?) ebooks complete with the cover images. Knowing this I think with the current setup it would be impossible to really fill even a 4GB SDHC card with ebooks and still have all the cover images intact.