Help please - updating to 4.4.9344 has really scrambled my Aura H20!

[lealla]

Hi all,

So my kobo Aura H20 updated to 4.4.9344 yesterday, and it has completely scrambled my device.

Issues include:

-Only showing about 20% of the books on the device

-When you try to access one of the books, it says it needs to be 'restored'. All these books are loaded from Calibre, so it shouldn't be trying to find it over wifi.

-Difficulty connecting to calibre - i.e either it connects but calibre shows that there are no books on the device / or it connects but only some of the books are listed as being on the device / or it shows an error message and won't connect

-Trying to load content every time it turns on/off or when I attempt a calibre connect

-After it has completed 'loading content' it's only a partial list of books on the device, never the full library. If I try to load content again, it'll show a different partial list - i.e after one loading it had 200 books, next time it ran the 'loading content' it only had 120 or so, and they were different books to the previous attempt.

-Running extremely slowly.


So, clearly something has gotten stuffed up on the way.
The most obvious solution seems to be a factory reset. Only, I haven't done this before and I'm worried I'll lose all my account info. Not the books, because I'll load them from calibre again, but my reading stats/bookmarks/highlights ect.

Can I back this up somehow?

And is a factory reset the way to go? Has anyone else experienced this?
I'm wondering if the corruption happened because store all my books on an external SD card.

Thank you in advance for advice - I'm really missing my books and hoping to fix it asap!
I have been browsing the threads relating to the firmware update, but couldn't find the answers I need, so apologies if my new thread is treading over old ground for anyone.

[JSWolf]

There a new firmware after this one. It is version 4.5.9587. Give that a go. You may have to manually download and install it. Also, after you've installed this version and if you still have problems, go back to Calibre and re-add your eBooks back to your H2O.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=288740

[Cinisajoy]

I would also recommend rebooting/restarting the device if you haven't already.

[davidfor]

@lealla: The symptoms suggest the database on the device is corrupt. Why, I don't know. I haven't seen any evidence that this can be caused by the firmware update. From what I have seen, it's likely that the database was already corrupt when the firmware was installed, and the restart read the bad data.

The solution, unless you have a backup of the database, is to sign out of the Kobo account on the device. This will trigger the setup process again and a new database will be created and the sideloaded books will be reloaded. Unfortunately, the bookmarks and reading stats for sideloaded books will be lost.

You didn't say, but did you see any errors when connecting to calibre?

[El Duderino]

Originally Posted by davidfor

@lealla: The symptoms suggest the database on the device is corrupt. Why, I don't know. I haven't seen any evidence that this can be caused by the firmware update. From what I have seen, it's likely that the database was already corrupt when the firmware was installed, and the restart read the bad data.

Unsure how to provide evidence, but I suffered a similar database corruption when upgrading my Kobo Aura a few firmware iterations back. I'm almost positive I'd read that Kobo switched to a new sqlite codebase (or something), causing the corruption and necessitating a library and stats rebuild.

I could be wrong, but maybe any answer is more comforting than no answer?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by El Duderino

Unsure how to provide evidence, but I suffered a similar database corruption when upgrading my Kobo Aura a few firmware iterations back. I'm almost positive I'd read that Kobo switched to a new sqlite codebase (or something), causing the corruption and necessitating a library and stats rebuild.

I could be wrong, but maybe any answer is more comforting than no answer?

No firmware that I've installed has cause a database corruption with my H2O. Installing new firmware does not corrupt the database.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by El Duderino

I'm almost positive I'd read that Kobo switched to a new sqlite codebase (or something), causing the corruption and necessitating a library and stats rebuild.

Are you thinking of when Kobo's 4.x firmware switched to using journaling with their SQLite database?

Originally Posted by JSWolf

No firmware that I've installed has cause a database corruption with my H2O. Installing new firmware does not corrupt the database.

OTOH, the restart after a firmware install can and will expose a corrupted database.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

OTOH, the restart after a firmware install can and will expose a corrupted database.

This is true.

But, if installing a new firmware caused a database corruption, we'd already have had many many complaints on MR about it and it would most likely be on mentioned on many of the tech/reading blogs.

[koboy]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

This is true.

But, if installing a new firmware caused a database corruption, we'd already have had many many complaints on MR about it and it would most likely be on mentioned on many of the tech/reading blogs.

hence why DNSB said expose not cause.

best wishes koboy

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by koboy

hence why DNSB said expose not cause.

best wishes koboy

I said it that way for the benefit of the OP who claimed that the firmware update corrupted the database.

[koboy]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I said it that way for the benefit of the OP who claimed that the firmware update corrupted the database.

ok, perhaps it's just me but i thought DNSB post already covered that.

best wishes koboy

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by El Duderino

Unsure how to provide evidence, but I suffered a similar database corruption when upgrading my Kobo Aura a few firmware iterations back. I'm almost positive I'd read that Kobo switched to a new sqlite codebase (or something), causing the corruption and necessitating a library and stats rebuild.

I could be wrong, but maybe any answer is more comforting than no answer?

As DNSB said, Kobo changed some options in the database starting with the 3.20.x firmware. I don't know if they changed the version of the SQLite library they used at the same time. It's more likely a corruption would happen when migrating to either the 4.1 or 4.2 firmware. In one of those, they changed how some data was stored and, from memory, the migration updated all of that. That would affect anyone coming from earlier firmware to a one of those or later. The main issue with this would be the amount of data updated. For anyone with a lot of books, and had done a lot of reading, then there would have been a lot of updates. The chance of something going wrong, increases with the number of changes needed.

[lealla]

Thanks for all the messages.

I will try to manually install the latest update - just to confirm, it doesn't matter that my device hasn't registered it automatically yet? I don't want to mess up the device further by installing an incorrect update.

If that doesn't help, I'll try a factory reset - I'm sad to hear I won't be able to save my information / account settings, but it's more important to me to have the device back up and running. I hope kobo somehow manages to implement a user settings back up/restore option someday.

I understand that it wasn't the firmware upgrade that scrambled the device, however it seems to have been a trigger for the corruption to either occur or for a previous corruption to reveal itself. I didn't mean to suggest that Kobo is releasing corrupting firmware, rather it was during the timing of updating that my device seems to have become corrupted.

I hadn't updated my kobo for a long time, due to having changed wifi settings a long time ago and neglecting to update the e-reader settings. Perhaps the update was just too big a change and exposed the corruption.

@davidfor - I get the normal "error communicating with device" in Calibre, however once choosing OK, the device shows up as connected, though with apparently no books on the device.

@DNSB - I think that could be the case - I hadn't done a full restart for a long time, so it may have been the restart, not the update that triggered the corruption.


Thanks again for all the tips, you guys are really helpful

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by lealla

Thanks for all the messages.

I will try to manually install the latest update - just to confirm, it doesn't matter that my device hasn't registered it automatically yet? I don't want to mess up the device further by installing an incorrect update.

As long as you download the correct version for your hardware, there should be no difference to your device between and OTA/Kobo Desktop app update and a manual update. For the original Kobo Aura H2O, you need the mark 5 hardware update. It's download URL is:

Kobo Mark 5 firmware 4.5.9587

Originally Posted by lealla

If that doesn't help, I'll try a factory reset - I'm sad to hear I won't be able to save my information / account settings, but it's more important to me to have the device back up and running. I hope kobo somehow manages to implement a user settings back up/restore option someday.

If the database is already corrupted, the firmware update won't fix it. You will need either a factory reset or to sign out of your Kobo account on the ereader and then sign back in.

Originally Posted by lealla

Thanks again for all the tips, you guys are really helpful

Thanks for the kind words.

[lealla]

Originally Posted by DNSB

As long as you download the correct version for your hardware, there should be no difference to your device between and OTA/Kobo Desktop app update and a manual update. For the original Kobo Aura H2O, you need the mark 5 hardware update. It's download URL is:

Kobo Mark 5 firmware 4.5.9587



If the database is already corrupted, the firmware update won't fix it. You will need either a factory reset or to sign out of your Kobo account on the ereader and then sign back in.



Thanks for the kind words.

Thanks DNSB - I suspected as much, but was hoping that an update might just refresh everything and sort itself out. I can see that's unlikely given the likelyhood of a corrupted database.

I have downloaded the link you supplied but am wondering if I should factory reset first, and then install the update - or install update and then factory reset. Which order do you think makes most sense?

Thanks for your help