kobo aura HD thinks its 2012 ?

[stumped]

cause ?
this is the device my son has on extended loan. he'd been moaning that recently added books were not there , which I was sure I'd sideloaded

so we check it out
I connect to calibre - check the on device column & add a few more - looks fine to me - and also see that some of the allegedly missing titles were on device.

disconnect it, hand it back...
he takes it - flips the sort order to" recently added" & says look : nothing new there... sure enough - page 1 of recently added looks well out of date. I sort by author & find the new ones Ok that way...

OK - so I flip it to settings... date and time and see 2012 ! which does explain the issue and means he can't trust that date added unless we delete & reload stuff

my question is how did it get like that.

I know we keep it offline so it does not get an internet time check, and clearly connecting to calibre does not force a date and time correction, but do Kobo readers also forget what year it is if battery goes flat ?
or must it have been a fat finger episode ?

I am sure it has been online more recently than 2012 as I reckon I did a firmware update check a couple of years ago
and my PC, which is online, does know that its 5th december 2019

[rtiangha]

If the battery had died and/or hadn't been charged for an extended period of time, then the clock probably reset, no different than many other electronics with an internal clock when it runs out of charge. I think the Aura HD came out in around 2012, so that would make sense.

[rashkae]

Some of my Kobo's have also lost their clock when left in cold temperatures (below freezing,) for more than a few hours.

[stumped]

Ok, that makes some sense as 2012 could be when I bought it. I think I bought it new soon after that model was released.
Did not realise it was so long ago, this implies it has worked well for 7+ years which is impressive.

My son is an avid reader but he could well have allowed it to go flat at some point.

Is anything else lost if left uncharged?
Books seem to survive but what about stats, for example

[rtiangha]

Stuff like that should be safe; stats are saved in the database, books to the file system. It's probably just the clock that would reset since it operates in RAM. I don't believe the clock syncs when you hook it up to a computer (but it will when connected over wifi to the internet), so it's just something that you'll need to keep an eye on and make sure to charge the battery every so often and not let it die.