Kobo Awards oddities

[Diruuo]

Greetings Mobileread community! I finally registered today after a very long period of lurking.

The reason for this topic is my confusion with the reading Awards that Kobo devices and apps have. I had the impression that these are account based but after some serious poking around that no longer seems true. I have differing awards on my Kobo Aura when compared to the ones I have on the Android app. I also have some awards on one device but they seem inactive on the other device.

Another oddity, none of the time based (read at a certain time) awards are tracked on my Aura, while they seem tracked at least in part on the Kobo app.

I also seem completely unable to trigger the Kobo Booklover award (the one for logging into my account). I read reports of it being bugged but that was literally years ago, is it seriously not fixed yet?

Lastly there are just some awards missing from my Aura as opposed to them on the Kobo app....

How do I get the time based ones to track, and how do I fix the rest, it really is no big deal but it's infuriating to see them just not work.

P.S. The WiFi pop-up thing after the latest (3.17.3) update is a bit aggravating but at least there was a workaround on the forums here.

P.P.S. What is the benefit of the patches provided here - I'm one that doesn't like tinkering with software much (I have a Nexus 5 that's still completely unmodified) but if they provide sufficient updates to the speed/usability/functionality of the device then I see nothing wrong with patching.

[Ripplinger]

That's why I never bother looking at the awards pages any more. It makes no sense that certain awards only pop up on certain devices or apps, but not on others. And if you need to reset your device, all awards are gone, or if you change to another device with the same account, all awards are gone.

Nothing but a useless gimmick, which often can be fun, but not when Kobo has sucked all the fun out of trying to obtain the awards.

There is a longer thread about all awards (I think all or at least most are listed) somewhere, if I find it again, I'll post a link to it.

Edit:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=155111
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=213195

It's possible there are newer awards out now as well.

[Diruuo]

So there's no way for me to fix the fact that these awards are not tracking? Would it be because I don't currently have constant WiFi access?

Also, some of the awards mentioned on those pages I don't see and I seem unable to trigger them either. I honestly don't even care much for awards, I just don't like having the greyed out icons when I know I fulfilled the requirement.

Another question - is there a way to somehow organize my library better? It's been increasing over the months and the standard sort and then scroll through 10+ pages of stuff to find the book I need is just becoming too troublesome.

Also I still don't really have an answer in regards to the patches. What is the benefit and is it worth doing? I also keep reading about "alternate readers" I assume different software that renders the pages...? What is the benefit of doing that?

Thank you in advance for your time.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Diruuo

Another question - is there a way to somehow organize my library better. It's been increasing over the months and the standard sort and then scroll through 10+ pages of stuff to find the book I need is just becoming too troublesome.

Yes: keep your ebooks in Calibre, set up Collections there, then they will automatically organise your books accordingly when you send books to your Kobo. There are details instructions in a sticky thread in this forum.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by Diruuo

So there's no way for me to fix the fact that these awards are not tracking? Would it be because I don't currently have constant WiFi access?

Also, some of the awards mentioned on those pages I don't see and I seem unable to trigger them either. I honestly don't even care much for awards, I just don't like having the greyed out icons when I know I fulfilled the requirement.

Some awards just refuse to update on some readers, some will not trigger at all, some only work with kepub and not epub, wifi on or off really shouldn't matter for most of the awards. But having no idea if an award is buggy or if it's because of certain requirements because Kobo seems to prefer to keep it all mysterious and not give out exact info, just ended up making it too frustrating to even try and figure out anymore after a point, so I just now avoid looking at the awards pages and pretend they're not even there. I've no doubt it's helped save my sanity.

Originally Posted by Diruuo

Another question - is there a way to somehow organize my library better? It's been increasing over the months and the standard sort and then scroll through 10+ pages of stuff to find the book I need is just becoming too troublesome.

Meeera already gave you the best possible answer... use Calibre.

Originally Posted by Diruuo

Also I still don't really have an answer in regards to the patches. What is the benefit and is it worth doing? I also keep reading about "alternate readers" I assume different software that renders the pages...? What is the benefit of doing that?

The patches do various things, like finetune the light adjustment (when you click Kobo's version it jumps ahead in 10% increments, the patch moves it in 1% increments), let's you adjust smaller spacing between lines of text, use smaller margins, maximize the space on the homescreen, change how the page number is displayed at the bottom, use smaller margins all around, side loaded fonts have access to the advanced settings, many things in the patch that you enable or disable as you prefer. I wouldn't be without the patch on the Kobo any more.

As far as alternate readers go, some like them, I have no problems with the built in reader, I use epubs only, so I don't use them. I gave them a try once and they really offered no advantage to how I read or select books (you select from a file folder view), but it's all a personal choice. Best thing is to give them a try if you're undecided. You can always go back to the original software.

[filmo]

Go to your Kobo ereader's library and search for Author or Title of book you want to read. This will quickly find book.

Kobo Library can be sorted by Recent, Title, or Author, which I find helpful and also File Size or File Type which I never use.

I also use Calibre to manage books on my computers and ereaders. I will often find next book to read on desktop or laptop computer using Calibre then use ereader's search function to find book in ereader's library.

[GeoffR]

All my awards returned after a factory reset, however I'm not sure whether the awards themselves are saved in the Kobo cloud or were just re-awarded after the factory reset based on the other stats that were restored from the cloud.

If they are re-awarded then it might depend on how much sideloaded vs synced content you read. The stats for sideloaded books are not saved in the cloud, so if the awards were originally given based on stats related to sideloaded books then they wouldn't necessarily be re-awarded after a factory reset.

The Glo is my only device and I never use the Kobo desktop app, so I can't tell if the awards are device-related or account-related.

[drjd]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

All my awards returned after a factory reset, however I'm not sure whether the awards themselves are saved in the Kobo cloud or were just re-awarded after the factory reset based on the other stats that were restored from the cloud.

If they are re-awarded then it might depend on how much sideloaded vs synced content you read. The stats for sideloaded books are not saved in the cloud, so if the awards were originally given based on stats related to sideloaded books then they wouldn't necessarily be re-awarded after a factory reset.

The Glo is my only device and I never use the Kobo desktop app, so I can't tell if the awards are device-related or account-related.

I think the awards and other stats are stored on Kobo cloud.

The data about awards definitely includes sideloaded books and contents, IMHO, because I mostly (about 99% of my library) use sideloaded books only.

Surprisingly, the only award never appeared achieved on my devices is : BookLover. I don't know why? It only requires a login to your account.

[Diruuo]

Hmm I don't know why the time based achievements do not track then. In regards to the rest I'm starting to feel that some of the achievement are cloud based but don't sync unless complete. The one award/achievement that I'm pretty sure isn't cloud based is the one for the shares to Facebook.

Anyway thank you for all of the input. I'll just continue reading, maybe they'll unlock some day.

[Ripplinger]

My awards didn't transfer over from my Glo to my Glo HD, so I thought it was per device and not account. I have 26 fully completed awards on my Glo (I should have 27, but the one that's a big "O" for Once Upon a Time, You started reading a new book, vanished on the Glo after a firmware update). On the Glo HD, I have only 17, including the missing "O" award from the Glo, but 5 of those are greyed out as not completed. Oddly, Book Lover for logging into my account also is greyed out on the Glo HD. I remember the Juggernaut award on the Glo kept staying at about 35% complete no matter how many books I read. One firmware update it finally jumped from 35% to complete after maybe a year.

Kobo Awards just make no sense to me at all.