Touch Fw. 2.5.2 SD-card issue

[Leonatus]

I did not find this issue in another thread:

My Kobo Touch (N905) behaves strangely with books on the SD-card.

• After booting, home screen appears, mostly including the books on SDcard.

• Opening a book, reading is possible some 2, 3 ... pages, but then (at tipping to change page) it will inevitably close and return to home screen.

• Sometimes, a popup opens with a note that I had removed the SD-card (which is not true), sometimes the book simply closes and returns to home screen.

• The home screen now doesn't show the books on SD-card any more, and I have to remove/insert the SD-card several times until the device condescends to recognise its content.

I made several tests and noticed that this behaviour does not depend

• whether the book that I'm reading is actually stored on the SD-card itself or on the device (i. e. the breakdown comes as soon as the SD-card is inserted and there are any books - epubs or kepubs - stored on it).

• whether the book that I'm actually reading is a kepub or an epub.

• on the kind of SD-card (I tried several brands)

It seems likely that a book is soemwhat corrupt, but the device behaves like that, even if there is only one single book on the SD-card (that has been checked with Sigil's Flight Crew, W3C, EpubChecker). Moreover, when I push (via ADE) the book onto the device, it reads properly, under condition that there is no other book on the SD-card.

Thus, proper reading is only possible

• if the SD-card is entirely removed (reading a book stored on the device itself)

• or if the SD-card is completely empty.

I'm in the lucky (?) situation that I could compare two Touch N905 models under Fw. 2.5.2 (the one that I formerly possessed having been exchanged during the warranty for other reasons), and the one that I first owned showed the same behaviour as soon as the firmware had been updated to 2.6.1; before, it worked without problems. The new one had to be synchronised at the Kobo desktop first, and then, only the firmware 2.5.2 was uploaded.

Well, I can use the reader without SD-card, but if there is this feature included, it should work somehow. Kobo says that there must be a book corrupted, but this can, after my tests, hardly be the case. It's, moreover, little probable that only one broken book anywhere on the SD-card causes the constant crash of the system.

Am I the only one to suffer from this?

[Transonic]

Originally Posted by Leonatus

I did not find this issue in another thread:

My Kobo Touch (N905) behaves strangely with books on the SD-card.

• After booting, home screen appears, mostly including the books on SDcard.

• Opening a book, reading is possible some 2, 3 ... pages, but then (at tipping to change page) it will inevitably close and return to home screen.

• Sometimes, a popup opens with a note that I had removed the SD-card (which is not true), sometimes the book simply closes and returns to home screen.

• The home screen now doesn't show the books on SD-card any more, and I have to remove/insert the SD-card several times until the device condescends to recognise its content.

I made several tests and noticed that this behaviour does not depend

• whether the book that I'm reading is actually stored on the SD-card itself or on the device (i. e. the breakdown comes as soon as the SD-card is inserted and there are any books - epubs or kepubs - stored on it).

• whether the book that I'm actually reading is a kepub or an epub.

• on the kind of SD-card (I tried several brands)

It seems likely that a book is soemwhat corrupt, but the device behaves like that, even if there is only one single book on the SD-card (that has been checked with Sigil's Flight Crew, W3C, EpubChecker). Moreover, when I push (via ADE) the book onto the device, it reads properly, under condition that there is no other book on the SD-card.

Thus, proper reading is only possible

• if the SD-card is entirely removed (reading a book stored on the device itself)

• or if the SD-card is completely empty.

I'm in the lucky (?) situation that I could compare two Touch N905 models under Fw. 2.5.2 (the one that I formerly possessed having been exchanged during the warranty for other reasons), and the one that I first owned showed the same behaviour as soon as the firmware had been updated to 2.6.1; before, it worked without problems. The new one had to be synchronised at the Kobo desktop first, and then, only the firmware 2.5.2 was uploaded.

Well, I can use the reader without SD-card, but if there is this feature included, it should work somehow. Kobo says that there must be a book corrupted, but this can, after my tests, hardly be the case. It's, moreover, little probable that only one broken book anywhere on the SD-card causes the constant crash of the system.

Am I the only one to suffer from this?

No your not the only one to suffer this problem. I got so fed up with my Kobo Touch behaving as you have described that it went in the trash can and I replaced it with a Kobo Mini. I have found the Mini on firmware 2.8.1 to be excellent and am now thinking about getting a Kobo Glo.

[Ken Maltby]

There are two alternative/additional ebook reading softwares that can be run on the Kobo devices, which you could try and see if you still encounter the problem. You could even add both as they are launched from your existing Kobo software.

First I would add Sergey's CoolReader port which is included with his Launcher: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=222803
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=201632
Then you could also add Giorgio's more mature Koreader port:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=216960 If you have the current Kobo Firmware you can get the latest Koreader build at:http://code.google.com/p/koreader-pa...downloads/list Be sure to download the one with kobo in its name.

Both can be set to, or already does allow the reading of hidden files/folders. With your ebooks in a hidden folder Nickel (the Kobo software) will not see or process your books. Both have menus that you reach by tapping the top of the screen, Koreader has some (when in a book) reached by tapping on the bottom of the screen as well.

As you may have noticed, while some things seem to work across a number of the Kobo device models, for some of the devices, not as much. At least, if one of these work for you then a hardware problem is unlikely.

Luck;
Ken

PS; You could try making a uSD card with a hidden folder of ebooks, to see if that eliminates the problem, if so Nickel is the likely the problem and you may need to do a factory reset and/or reinstall the Kobo firmware. To make a hidden folder you name the folder with ".name." and the trailing dot will disappear leaving you with the ".name" that Linux will treat as hidden.

[PeterT]

This sounds very much like an issue I had on a Touch; the SD card would not stay mounted in the device. Unfortunately I gave up playing with it (and seemed to be the only person on the beta list who ever saw this).

The symptoms were I would add material on an SD card; it would be scanned and the books would appear in the library. Without my doing anything, I would suddenly see the screen flash, and the content from the SD card disappear.

This also seemed to prevent my Touch from ever entering the sleep state.

Unfortunately, since this mount / unmount cycle happened at the OS level and not the application (Nickel) level, I really doubt that an alternate reading S/W will make any difference.

[Leonatus]

Thanks to all! It is somewhat consolating that I shouldn't be alone with my problem. Though this is no solution.

But indeed, it was today that I informed myself better about Koreader and CoolReader for Kobo. Only that it appeared to me a too heavy interference into the internals of my reader as to take the risk of trying - beeing without any clue in programming matters. So, Ken's advice can be a good help for me. I really doubt it it's a hardware problem, but it's also dubious to me if, under this circumstances, Koreader or CoolReader would without problems recognise the SD-card. - Would both run under Fw. 2.5.2?

One thing to do is in fact a reset - work settings or pinhole. I'm just waiting until I finish a book that I'm currently reading on the device. It's a kepub and not so easy to store elsewhere.

Perhaps - that's my last hope - could help the next firmware update.

[PeterT]

@Leonatus: Remember as I said, the books disappearing from the SD card is due to the card dismounting / remounting, and this is an O/S and/or H/W issue, NOT related to the reader application itself, so expect that this behavior would continue with ANY reader application.

[Leonatus]

Sounds awful.

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by PeterT

@Leonatus: Remember as I said, the books disappearing from the SD card is due to the card dismounting / remounting, and this is an O/S and/or H/W issue, NOT related to the reader application itself, so expect that this behavior would continue with ANY reader application.

Perhaps, this is the same problem you encountered, perhaps not.

Making a hidden folder on the SD card with a few ebooks in the folder, could be used to provide some actual indication whether Nickel is involved. If things are as you claim there is no way using this SD card would make any difference. If, as posted above, it works with an empty SD card inserted, (which should have little or no effect, going by your explanation), and it works with an SD card with a hidden folder containing ebooks, then Nickel is
a suspect, at least. In that case it is likely that an alternate reader that uses a file browser, might work.

Luck;
Ken

[davidfor]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned but has been a problem with the Touch, is how the SD card was formatted. Quite a few people found the cards weren't recognised properly when formatted by Windows. When they used the SD Formatter, the cards worked perfectly. I don't really think this will be the case here, but it is worth the try. Windows and Mac versions are at https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/.

[speakingtohe]

I would suggest getting another card and see what happens. Or you could remove all the books from the card you currently have put only one on and see what happens. But I gather you have already done that.

I in no way subscribe to the corrupted book theory, unless you are actually trying to read the corrupted book. And even then it should just refuse to display the book, but who knows what Kobo is doing.

Helen

[filmo]

If you want to erase SD card while formatting, I had to do full overwrite format to erase data on SD card I was formatting with formatter 4.

[Leonatus]

@davidfor
@speakingtohe
@filmo
All the suggested thiongs I have done. That the SD-card could be wrongly formatted, was one of the first suspicions. I fully overwrited it with SD-formatter and played the book(s) again on it, but without result. There has, some 10 months ago, already been a firmware problem with the SD-cards, and then I even tried to format it in EXT4, but also without result.

As I wrote, the books on the SD-card, once pulled onto the storage of the device itself, read without issue, provided that the SD-card has been removed or is completely empty. I didn't try all of them, but some, and the effect was always the same, so this seems to me that it's not a problem of the books.

I also carefully loaded the SD-card with epubs completely new and then started the device. Surprisingly, the device recognised some of the books, but (few) others not, in spite of beeing stored on the card (what I had checked). I transferred these books to the reader via ADE, removed the SD-card, and look: the books were recognised and read properly. Also diverse epub-checking methods showed no problems of these books. Obviously, this procedure was not so simply possible with kepubs.

It's quite enigmatic, but surely no book problem.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Leonatus

All the suggested thiongs I have done. That the SD-card could be wrongly formatted, was one of the first suspicions. I fully overwrited it with SD-formatter and played the book(s) again on it, but without result. There has, some 10 months ago, already been a firmware problem with the SD-cards, and then I even tried to format it in EXT4, but also without result.

OK, I didn't see the suggestion for the SD-formatter anywhere.

EXT4 won't work as the device will only load FAT and FAT32. But, there are instructions in the developer forum to allow ext4 formatted cards to be loaded. I doubt it would change anything, but it is something you can try.

It's quite enigmatic, but surely no book problem.

I have to agree with you. I think the only way it could be considered a book problem is that reading the book from the SD card seems to cause the disconnection. I think it sounds like a physical problem. Maybe the contacts in the SD card slot are dirty or lose. Or a bad solder joint holding the slot to the board.

[Leonatus]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I think the only way it could be considered a book problem is that reading the book from the SD card seems to cause the disconnection. I think it sounds like a physical problem. Maybe the contacts in the SD card slot are dirty or lose. Or a bad solder joint holding the slot to the board.

That's a possibility. How often does it happen with computers and other devices! I already thought of carefully cleaning the slot at least. But it is so small that I can only enter with a needle or so. And this may cause still more confusion.

[speakingtohe]

There are slot cleaning kits if the problem comes back.

Helen