Aura HD Changes in Kobo Desktop 3.17

[MacEachaidh]

One thing I'm finding is that it no longer allows me to dismiss "recommendations" I'm not interested in.

My Desktop gets swamped mostly with romance novels and celebrity gabfests, titles that I'll never buy, and that clearly don't reflect my browsing history on the Kobo bookstore, so where do they come from? Are they solely based on sales numbers? If so, they're not really recommendations for me, just scattergun-approach junkmail.

Thing is, I'd actually welcome "recommendations", if they were based on subjects and genres I actively browsed. But without the option of saying "No thanks" to the junkmail, how's that ever going to happen?

[meeera]

I just don't open Kobo Desktop. It's very rarely needed for anything. It's been months since I used it.

[dordale]

I've never installed Kobo desktop--just use Calibre to manage my books and Aura HD. But, I've never bought any ebooks from the Kobo store either.

[MacEachaidh]

Originally Posted by meeera

I just don't open Kobo Desktop. It's very rarely needed for anything. It's been months since I used it.

\Depends on circumstances. I don't have wireless access, so for configuring (I've had to reset my device a few times lately) the Desktop is the only option.

I don't buy much from Kobo either -- the prices are usually the stumbling-block for me -- but I did yesterday, and the Desktop was the only way to obtain it. And now it's put a whole lot of settings onto my reader that I really didn't want. Blerkk.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

And now it's put a whole lot of settings onto my reader that I really didn't want. Blerkk.

What settings does it change? I can see that it sets a timestamp for the connection and the sync, but I have never seen any other change.

[MacEachaidh]

Stuff that I consider intrusive -- to my uses, anyway, which is why I stated it subjectively. The book I bought only allowed me to download it via the Desktop, and when I synced my reader it installed changes. For instance, a permanent tile on the home screen for "Recommendations" -- I can dismiss it, but as soon as I reboot it's back, and I can't dismiss the specific titles it recommends, just as with the recommendations on the new Desktop. The book itself appears in my Library, but if I remove it a placeholder entry stays there anyway saying it's "in the cloud". Ditto a new tile on the Home screen, which like the "Recommendations" can be dismissed but reappears if I reboot.

None of them disastrous, but I find them annoying, and they use up screen real estate I'd rather they didn't.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

Stuff that I consider intrusive -- to my uses, anyway, which is why I stated it subjectively. The book I bought only allowed me to download it via the Desktop, and when I synced my reader it installed changes. For instance, a permanent tile on the home screen for "Recommendations" -- I can dismiss it, but as soon as I reboot it's back, and I can't dismiss the specific titles it recommends, just as with the recommendations on the new Desktop. The book itself appears in my Library, but if I remove it a placeholder entry stays there anyway saying it's "in the cloud". Ditto a new tile on the Home screen, which like the "Recommendations" can be dismissed but reappears if I reboot.

OK, you said "settings", those are not settings.

Dismissing any tile, including the recommendations tile, should survive a restart. It does here on all my devices. If it doesn't, that is usually a sign that the database is corrupt. And you should be able to dismiss individual recommendations. When you view them, there should be a "Not interested" at the bottom. Tapping that will mark the book. Closing and reopening the recommendations will remove the book from the list.

New books do get added to the home screen. And removing purchased book without removing the tile will mark it as being in the cloud. Tapping it will download. And will probably have it synced from the Kobo desktop when you connect. And again, if the tiles reappear after a reboot, the database is probably corrupt.

[MacEachaidh]

No, never said they were items in the Settings menus. But if they weren't happening before, and now they are, on the same level of firmware, then they're obviously settings of some kind on the device.

I doubt the database is corrupt. That's like something Customer Care would say.

Anyway. My first experience of buying something and installing it through the 3.17 Desktop. I won't be doing it again! ;-)

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

No, never said they were items in the Settings menus. But if they weren't happening before, and now they are, on the same level of firmware, then they're obviously settings of some kind on the device.

The only "setting" that has changed is the "last time recommendations" were sent to the device. The recommendations tile was already in the list of things that could be displayed. The sync from the desktop app simply updated the data and hence it was displayed.

I doubt the database is corrupt. That's like something Customer Care would say.

Well, Customer Care would tell you to do a factory reset. And unfortunately, sometimes a reset, rebooting your computer or restarting the modem is the only way to fix things. Until whatever is the real cause gets fixed.

In this case, you described a behaviour. That behaviour is unexpected. It is not seen by most other users. When it has been reported and we looked into it, the database was corrupted. It is possible it is just the table that is used for the tiles, but, I would be very surprised if this is not the cause of the problem.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

I doubt the database is corrupt. That's like something Customer Care would say.

davidfor knows a shedload more than your average customer care consultant. Or your 95th-centile one, come to that.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

I doubt the database is corrupt. That's like something Customer Care would say.

Hmmm... Going by David's track record on Mobileread and elsewhere, my personal opinion is that I would take what he said seriously and, at the very least, give his advice a try.

Personally, I've seen database issues on more than one occasion triggered by anything from attempting to sideload an epub that had no resemblance to a product of the epub specification to disconnecting from a computer without doing a safe eject to Ghod alone knows why it happened.

It shouldn't take that much time to ensure that your sideloaded ebooks are all backed up and then sign out of your account, sign back in and have your Kobo ebooks resynced and sideloaded ebooks reprocessed.

At that time, if you still have the same issue of the recommendation tile popping back up, you can revisit the topic of the value of advice.

[eenk]

Originally Posted by DNSB

It shouldn't take that much time to ensure that your sideloaded ebooks are all backed up and then sign out of your account, sign back in and have your Kobo ebooks resynced and sideloaded ebooks reprocessed.

So does this mean that "usually" not the SQLite database files become corrupted in themselves, but the data becomes inconsistent instead (incomplete update, programming error)? In the first case, would there be some SQLite tool that could be run on the corrupt db file trying to fix it without loosing all data?

Well, in the second case I guess that a complete db rebuild from scratch by sign out-sign in is the only viable option, right?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by eenk

So does this mean that "usually" not the SQLite database files become corrupted in themselves, but the data becomes inconsistent instead (incomplete update, programming error)? In the first case, would there be some SQLite tool that could be run on the corrupt db file trying to fix it without loosing all data?

Well, in the second case I guess that a complete db rebuild from scratch by sign out-sign in is the only viable option, right?

I've had databases that according to the my utilities collection (SQLite Expert Personal, DB Browser for SQLite, SQLite Studio, etc. ... what can I say? I can't resist utilities) had no issues but my Kobo ereader disagreed. Looking at the contents of the database, in several cases there were issues with the contents of several tables, as you said, inconsistent data.

I've tried several utilities to re-index, clean up and/or "repair" databases but none that gave me results that I was happy with. For the most part, I found that it was simply easier to revert back to the factory database, restore a database backup and then resync/reprocess my ebooks.

Using davidfor's Kobo Utilities with Calibre to backup the database on connect is my current preference to minimize the amount of ebooks that need to be reprocessed.

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

One thing I'm finding is that it no longer allows me to dismiss "recommendations" I'm not interested in.

My Desktop gets swamped mostly with romance novels and celebrity gabfests, titles that I'll never buy, and that clearly don't reflect my browsing history on the Kobo bookstore, so where do they come from? Are they solely based on sales numbers? If so, they're not really recommendations for me, just scattergun-approach junkmail.

Thing is, I'd actually welcome "recommendations", if they were based on subjects and genres I actively browsed. But without the option of saying "No thanks" to the junkmail, how's that ever going to happen?

Mac, I very rarely open Desktop for PC. I download the epub versions of the books, and I open them with Sony Reader for PC, and then import into Calibre. (Others download with ADE)

If I get stuck with a kepub formatted book (and that's because I haven't checked the format of the book I bought prior to buying ), then I need to use Desktop just to download that particular book, which stores it onto my PC. I then open Calibre and use obok to retrieve the book.

My Kobo ereaders use a 'dummy' email address in that I don't have any Kobo accounts that use that email address. And I never use the device wifi.

It works for me .....

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I've had databases that according to the my utilities collection (SQLite Expert Personal, DB Browser for SQLite, SQLite Studio, etc. ... what can I say? I can't resist utilities) had no issues but my Kobo ereader disagreed. Looking at the contents of the database, in several cases there were issues with the contents of several tables, as you said, inconsistent data.

Yes, corrupt/inconsistent data versus corrupt database. In this case, I am pretty sure it is the database. Losing data when powering off and on is pretty good indicator.

I've tried several utilities to re-index, clean up and/or "repair" databases but none that gave me results that I was happy with. For the most part, I found that it was simply easier to revert back to the factory database, restore a database backup and then resync/reprocess my ebooks.

I agree. It's rarely worth the trouble of trying to fix if there is a recent backup.

Using davidfor's Kobo Utilities with Calibre to backup the database on connect is my current preference to minimize the amount of ebooks that need to be reprocessed.

I know that MacEachaidh is not a calibre user, so that won't help. With this sort of problem, if I want to experiment, I take a full copy of the user partition first. Then, if it doesn't work, or I want to get back to the previous state, I simply copy this back. It takes some time, but it works.