Glo Kobo often gets stuck on "Processing Content"

[VirgoGirl]

Hi!

About 20% of the time, when I eject my Glo from Calibre after adding a book or books thru Calibre onto my microsd card, the Glo will hang on the "processing content" screen, not progressing, not doing anything. If I touch the screen after a little bit of time, it'll bring up the home screen and the new book(s) will be there. I generally remove them again thru Calibre and reload them, 90% of the time after doing that, they get through the processing screen with no problem.

It started happening in January last year when I was running the previous firmware I had - before that going back to April 2014 it didn't happen at all - but it got to the point where it froze the reader. I had to restore it and update the firmware to 3.19.3761 in July of 2016. Now it happens about 20% of the time, no specific types of epubs, some I make myself and some are commercial epubs. All sideloaded onto my microsd card. There seems to be no common factor in which epubs cause this to happen.

I don't know if it's a GLO problem, a Calibre problem, or a microsd card problem. The Calibre version I have is 2.62, my microsd card goes back to 2014. It was happening more often when I would keep Calibre open in the background on my laptop, but now happens less frequently as I close it when I'm not actively using it. If It happens twice in a row, it seems to clear if I close Calibre and reopen it. However, there are times where I've had to power off and power back on the Glo to make it go past the "processing content" screen.

Anyone have any information that may help? Right now it bothers me, but I'm looking at it as a quirk of the reader. I'm just worried that it'll get worse as it did before to the point where I had to reformat the reader.

Thanks for any help!

UPDATE:
My previous firmware was firmware was 3.3.0 (April 17, 2014), the problem started happening around January 2016, newer firmware installed July 2016.

[GeoffR]

I've seen this on my Glo occasionally with firmware 3.19.5761, the processing screen appears to have frozen but when I touch it, the homescreen is shown just as it normally would be after processing.

I just ignore it, I haven't ever seen any problem with the books that were being processed when it happened.

(Edit: In my case it also happens when loading to the internal storage with no external micro-SD card present. I think it started happening around the time of the 3.19.5761 firmware update, but I'm not 100% sure on that, just before 3.19.5761 was released there was a flurry of firmware updates so perhaps it started with one of them.)

[VirgoGirl]

Thanks! I wasn't sure if it meant that my SD card was slowly dying. I have a backup blank card, but the idea of re-adding everything onto a new card fills me with dread.

I wonder if it would be possible to copy everything from the old card - books and kobo files - onto a new one and make it work without having to format it and re-add it as a new card... I periodically make a catalogue of everything on the microsd just in case it dies and I need to redo it.

Thank you for your reply!

[JSWolf]

You could update the firmware on your Glo so this bug can be done away with.

[koboy]

Originally Posted by VirgoGirl

Thanks! I wasn't sure if it meant that my SD card was slowly dying. I have a backup blank card, but the idea of re-adding everything onto a new card fills me with dread.

I wonder if it would be possible to copy everything from the old card - books and kobo files - onto a new one and make it work without having to format it and re-add it as a new card... I periodically make a catalogue of everything on the microsd just in case it dies and I need to redo it.

Thank you for your reply!

yes you can do that, just make sure you have show hidden files on your computer and copy everything from your old micro SD card to as many new micro SD cards as you like they will work fine without having to load all the books in again from scratch, just remember to format the new card or cards in FAT32.

best wishes koboy

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by koboy

yes you can do that, just make sure you have show hidden files on your computer and copy everything from your old micro SD card to as many new micro SD cards as you like they will work fine without having to load all the books in again from scratch, just remember to format the new card or cards in FAT32.

Of course, that won't actually work. The device records a serial number from the card against the books on the card when they are processed. When you change to a different card, it has a different serial number and the books are treated as new books. Of course, it would be easy to doctor the database to avoid this, but it requires getting the serial number from the new card and a little SQL.

[VirgoGirl]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You could update the firmware on your Glo so this bug can be done away with.

I don't know if that would solve the problem as it started with my original firmware - from April 2014 set up - and has continued on (and became worse) with the new firmware. I'm concerned that it would either stay the same or become more frequent with a firmware update.


Good to know about the card. The only problem I have with starting a new card is the collections, I have yet to figure out how to move books onto the card pre-shelved, despite reading that post on this forum.

Thank you for the replies!

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by VirgoGirl

Good to know about the card. The only problem I have with starting a new card is the collections, I have yet to figure out how to move books onto the card pre-shelved, despite reading that post on this forum.

calibre will create the collections for you when you send books to the device. And maintain them each time you connect. If "that post" is the one explaining how to configure the driver to do this, what is the problem? What have you configured in the driver? And have you set metadata management on the Send to devices page of the preferences to automatic?

[JSWolf]

I'm running the new firmware (granted on an H2O) and I have not seen any eBook getting stuck. But, I do validate my eBooks before I send them to my H2O so I know there is no technical issues with them. I use epubcheck and I have never had a problem processing.

I am on Windows and I use EPUB-Checker and I can drag/drop the ePub and any errors are displayed in EPUB-Checker's window so I can easily see what the error is and go and fix it. Most of the time (when there are any errors) it's just simple fixes.

[koboy]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Of course, that won't actually work. The device records a serial number from the card against the books on the card when they are processed. When you change to a different card, it has a different serial number and the books are treated as new books. Of course, it would be easy to doctor the database to avoid this, but it requires getting the serial number from the new card and a little SQL.

it works perfectly fine for me, i have 2 micro SD 32GB cards, the second card is my backup in case anything goes wrong with my main one, it is an exact copy of my main card which i use all the time, i can put the backup card in and it works fine no problem without reloading the 220 books that are on it all over again.

best wishes koboy

[VirgoGirl]

Originally Posted by davidfor

calibre will create the collections for you when you send books to the device. And maintain them each time you connect. If "that post" is the one explaining how to configure the driver to do this, what is the problem? What have you configured in the driver? And have you set metadata management on the Send to devices page of the preferences to automatic?

Apologies if I was offensive, I did not mean to be. The problem is not with the post, the problem is with me. I went through the steps, but I could not get it to work. Clearly, if others can, the problem is *my* fault, not the fault of the instructions. I have no idea what the problem is, I followed what I understood to be correct.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I am on Windows and I use EPUB-Checker and I can drag/drop the ePub and any errors are displayed in EPUB-Checker's window so I can easily see what the error is and go and fix it. Most of the time (when there are any errors) it's just simple fixes.

The problem doesn't appear to be with the epubs because if I disconnect the Glo, reattach it, remove those same books and send them again, 90% of the time they process with no problem. I've had a few that had problems - one went perfectly happily onto my husband's Touch, but I couldn't get that same book to load onto the Glo until I reconverted it as an azw3 then reconverted that back to an epub - but I was always able to fix that. This is just purely chance.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by koboy

it works perfectly fine for me, i have 2 micro SD 32GB cards, the second card is my backup in case anything goes wrong with my main one, it is an exact copy of my main card which i use all the time, i can put the backup card in and it works fine no problem without reloading the 220 books that are on it all over again.

Well, in the last month I did fairly extensive tests with recent firmware on two different devices and it DIDN'T work. I did those tests because of a post here and posted the results. Plus reported to Kobo a bug I found while doing it. These results backed up what I had found some time ago.

This has not always been the case. With very old firmware you could swap the card. I don't remember exactly when it changed, but I'm sure it was before v3 was released.

[koboy]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Well, in the last month I did fairly extensive tests with recent firmware on two different devices and it DIDN'T work. I did those tests because of a post here and posted the results. Plus reported to Kobo a bug I found while doing it. These results backed up what I had found some time ago.

This has not always been the case. With very old firmware you could swap the card. I don't remember exactly when it changed, but I'm sure it was before v3 was released.

ok im using 3.16.0 on my Kobo e-readers, to start with i put my card 1 into the Aura 6" making sure it's formatted in FAT32 then i take it out and copy the files it has put onto the card onto my PC, then i copy those files onto card 2,

i then use Calibre (without a doubt one of the best freeware Programs ever written) along with the Kobo Ouput Plugin (2.3.3) to convert the books from epub to kepub and send them to my Kobo Mini and then i copy them from the root of the Mini onto the Micro SD cards.

then i use only card 1 to put them on my Kobo Aura 6" and also my Kobo Touch, they then process the content, but and it's a big but when i put card 2 in either the Aura or the Touch the books are already processed and also include the bookmarks etc.

best wishes koboy

[robko]

Originally Posted by koboy

ok im using 3.16.0 on my Kobo e-readers,

Wow, that's a pretty old firmware version no matter which device you're talking. If you're going to comment on how things work on a Kobo you really should indicate you're using that firmware since a lot of things have changed since then and you just end up confusing the majority who are using a much later firmware version.

[koboy]

Originally Posted by robko

Wow, that's a pretty old firmware version no matter which device you're talking. If you're going to comment on how things work on a Kobo you really should indicate you're using that firmware since a lot of things have changed since then and you just end up confusing the majority who are using a much later firmware version.

sounds like another good reason to use an older firmware version to me, if it ain't broke don't mess with it, btw take a look at what firmware version VirgoGirl was originally using 3.3.0, and then updated to 3.19.3761.

regarding not mentioning what firmware version i'm using all they have to do is ask, after all i was only trying to be helpful, but of course i will remember your suggestion for if and when i try to be helpful again.

best wishes koboy