Glo Kobo Glo freezes every couple of weeks

khii · 01-13-2014, 10:00 PM

I've had my kobo glo for a couple of months now. I love it, it goes everywhere with me and I've logged nearly 150 reading hours on it. However it has a problem where it freezes in the middle of reading every so often. It will just suddenly become completely unresponsive and only a combination of manually resetting it and plugging it into something will revive it. Does anyone else have this problem? Any fixes? It's very jarring having my reading interrupted without warning, and it's fine the rest of the time. :/ I have software version 3.1.0.

Thanks!

TechniSol · 01-14-2014, 01:57 AM

I suppose the obvious question is whether it just started after a firmware upgrade or has been doing it all along? I think the latest version for the Glo is higher than that, 3.1.1... If it's related you could load the newest firmware from the firmware thread, wait for an upgrade, etc.

If that, and either signing out or doing a factory reset doesn't clear it up contact Kobo and get it swapped out while in warrantee.

tshering · 01-14-2014, 03:51 AM

If "every so often" means "every couple of weeks", then my Kobo readers (one Touch model B, one Touch model C) show the same behavior as your Glo. I came to think of it as the normal case. With pre-2.4 FWs it was rather worser.
In most cases it is sufficient to force a power off (slide the power slider to the right and hold it for 15 seconds) and power in on again.

GeoffR · 01-14-2014, 07:54 PM

I don't think it is normal for the device to completely freeze at random, that probably means a hardware fault.

The last time my Glo froze completely was with firmware 2.1.5, over a year ago. I put that down to a firmware fault because it always happened in the same place, when using the font settings menu in a book.

There have been a couple of times since where it has appeared to freeze: sometimes during sync the spinner stops spining and there is no response to the touch screen or light button, but it recovers after 10-15 seconds and completes the sync; a similar thing happens sometimes when I unplug the Glo from the USB cable, it can take 30 seconds or so before it realizes it has been unplugged, but it resumes normally if I wait for it.

Edit: One other situation where it seemed to freeze but then recovered was with some books that had enormous .html files, mainly omnibus editions where the publisher had put a whole book into one .html file instead of splitting it up into one file per chapter. With these sorts of books page turning is very slow, and when using the TOC the device would freeze for 10 seconds or so. Running the book through Calibre splits the huge files up into smaller files which fixed the problem.

TechniSol · 01-15-2014, 01:20 AM

My Touch and my Glo both require resets infrequently enough that I can't really recall the circumstances last time on either one. But, in all fairness, I'm so inurred to glitches in most electronics, even the ones I put up with, that unless something screws up in a catastrophic way I tend to just power down/reset and move on with things -despite the occasional forum rant. I'm not excusing the behavior, but it does happen. To me a lockup on a device that doesn't cost me a lot of time or data isn't too big a deal as long as it's infrequent.

The one daily driver that I can't put up with glitches on is my phone. Fortunately, my android phone is mature(?) enough(2.3.5) that it'll run months between resets, and I usually end up eventually resetting it rather than it rebooting on me unexpectedly -one of the main reasons I haven't upgraded in a couple of years. The funny part is that it's a relatively cheap HTC Inspire 4G that started out as an AT&T upgrade contract phone and still runs great on Net10 using AT&T's towers for half the contract price. Makes me chuckle a bit finally getting over on AT&T...

dakini · 01-17-2014, 10:13 PM

I just recently updated my touch from 2.1.5 to 3.0.1, and it started randomly freezing. It would work for half an hour, then it would freeze. At one point I put it, frozen in my purse, because I didn't have a paperclip to reset it. It came "unfrozen" about half an hour later. I noticed when I pulled it out of my purse, and the page on the screen was different and the dictionary was hilighting a word. That's when I learned I could wait for it to unfreeze ... not that waiting half an hour to be able to turn the page is reasonable.

I played around with it a bit, and it wasn't due to the books, wasn't due to where I was tapping, and was a pretty regular occurance -- multiple times a day, which it sounds like yours is less frequent.

If you have the patience, I'd play around with it a bit more. See if it happens when the battery gets low, or only if you haven't turned it completely off recently, or only on larger ebooks or only on a particular file.

In my case, I contacted Kobo and they swapped it out for another reader. Still not sure if it was an update problem or hardware that's starting to go bad.

But, best of luck. I hope that you can solve the issue yourself, and if not, that you can get it sorted with Kobo. Like I said, the more troubleshooting of the issue you can do before you contact Customer Relations, the smoother it goes.

01-13-2014, 10:00 PM	#1
khii Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2013 Device: Kobo Glo	Kobo Glo freezes every couple of weeks I've had my kobo glo for a couple of months now. I love it, it goes everywhere with me and I've logged nearly 150 reading hours on it. However it has a problem where it freezes in the middle of reading every so often. It will just suddenly become completely unresponsive and only a combination of manually resetting it and plugging it into something will revive it. Does anyone else have this problem? Any fixes? It's very jarring having my reading interrupted without warning, and it's fine the rest of the time. :/ I have software version 3.1.0. Thanks!

01-14-2014, 07:54 PM	#4
GeoffR Wizard Posts: 3,821 Karma: 19162882 Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: Te Riu-a-Māui Device: Kobo Glo	I don't think it is normal for the device to completely freeze at random, that probably means a hardware fault. The last time my Glo froze completely was with firmware 2.1.5, over a year ago. I put that down to a firmware fault because it always happened in the same place, when using the font settings menu in a book. There have been a couple of times since where it has appeared to freeze: sometimes during sync the spinner stops spining and there is no response to the touch screen or light button, but it recovers after 10-15 seconds and completes the sync; a similar thing happens sometimes when I unplug the Glo from the USB cable, it can take 30 seconds or so before it realizes it has been unplugged, but it resumes normally if I wait for it. Edit: One other situation where it seemed to freeze but then recovered was with some books that had enormous .html files, mainly omnibus editions where the publisher had put a whole book into one .html file instead of splitting it up into one file per chapter. With these sorts of books page turning is very slow, and when using the TOC the device would freeze for 10 seconds or so. Running the book through Calibre splits the huge files up into smaller files which fixed the problem. Last edited by GeoffR; 01-14-2014 at 08:09 PM.

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01-14-2014, 01:57 AM	#2
TechniSol GranPohbah-Fezzes r cool! Posts: 1,056 Karma: 3151024 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: Nook STRs, Kobo Touch, Kobo Glo	I suppose the obvious question is whether it just started after a firmware upgrade or has been doing it all along? I think the latest version for the Glo is higher than that, 3.1.1... If it's related you could load the newest firmware from the firmware thread, wait for an upgrade, etc. If that, and either signing out or doing a factory reset doesn't clear it up contact Kobo and get it swapped out while in warrantee.

01-14-2014, 03:51 AM	#3
tshering Wizard Posts: 3,489 Karma: 2914715 Join Date: Jun 2012 Device: kobo touch	If "every so often" means "every couple of weeks", then my Kobo readers (one Touch model B, one Touch model C) show the same behavior as your Glo. I came to think of it as the normal case. With pre-2.4 FWs it was rather worser. In most cases it is sufficient to force a power off (slide the power slider to the right and hold it for 15 seconds) and power in on again.

01-15-2014, 01:20 AM	#5
TechniSol GranPohbah-Fezzes r cool! Posts: 1,056 Karma: 3151024 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: Nook STRs, Kobo Touch, Kobo Glo	My Touch and my Glo both require resets infrequently enough that I can't really recall the circumstances last time on either one. But, in all fairness, I'm so inurred to glitches in most electronics, even the ones I put up with, that unless something screws up in a catastrophic way I tend to just power down/reset and move on with things -despite the occasional forum rant. I'm not excusing the behavior, but it does happen. To me a lockup on a device that doesn't cost me a lot of time or data isn't too big a deal as long as it's infrequent. The one daily driver that I can't put up with glitches on is my phone. Fortunately, my android phone is mature(?) enough(2.3.5) that it'll run months between resets, and I usually end up eventually resetting it rather than it rebooting on me unexpectedly -one of the main reasons I haven't upgraded in a couple of years. The funny part is that it's a relatively cheap HTC Inspire 4G that started out as an AT&T upgrade contract phone and still runs great on Net10 using AT&T's towers for half the contract price. Makes me chuckle a bit finally getting over on AT&T...

01-17-2014, 10:13 PM	#6
dakini not "it" Posts: 236 Karma: 1687996 Join Date: Aug 2012 Device: Kindle 7th gen	I just recently updated my touch from 2.1.5 to 3.0.1, and it started randomly freezing. It would work for half an hour, then it would freeze. At one point I put it, frozen in my purse, because I didn't have a paperclip to reset it. It came "unfrozen" about half an hour later. I noticed when I pulled it out of my purse, and the page on the screen was different and the dictionary was hilighting a word. That's when I learned I could wait for it to unfreeze ... not that waiting half an hour to be able to turn the page is reasonable. I played around with it a bit, and it wasn't due to the books, wasn't due to where I was tapping, and was a pretty regular occurance -- multiple times a day, which it sounds like yours is less frequent. If you have the patience, I'd play around with it a bit more. See if it happens when the battery gets low, or only if you haven't turned it completely off recently, or only on larger ebooks or only on a particular file. In my case, I contacted Kobo and they swapped it out for another reader. Still not sure if it was an update problem or hardware that's starting to go bad. But, best of luck. I hope that you can solve the issue yourself, and if not, that you can get it sorted with Kobo. Like I said, the more troubleshooting of the issue you can do before you contact Customer Relations, the smoother it goes.

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