Glo HD Reset annoyencies

[DrChiper]

I got recently an old Glo HD, which I decided to reset. I did the pin-hole reset, and the manual factory reset. All books were removed as intended.
However, when going to MyBooks > Collections all old book entries were still visible (correctly indicating 0 books).
Of course, I can manually delete all those collection entries (one-by-one), but this is tedious.
So my questions:

• Why did the (manual factory) resets not wiped everything?
• Is there a better factory reset for the Glo?
• Is there a smarter way to manually select and delete multiple collection entries in one go?

Anybody?

[MGlitch]

If you mean the collections were there but were empty it’s because they get synced to your account.

I don’t think anything would wipe them out short of making a new account which of course doesn’t really wipe them out it just doesn’t associate them with the new account from the old.

As to why, probably because Kobo figured most people doing resets would rather not have to recreate the collections which is more work than deleting them. YMMV of course but I’d expect Kobo to aim at pleasing the masses.

[PeterT]

Remember if you only purchased books from Kobo, synced them from the Kobo store then saving / restoring collection status makes sense.

Now when calibre is configured for automatic metadata management it will update collections on the device to match the defined column(s) in calibre. I'm not sure though what happens if the side loaded book is NOT on the device but the book IS flagged by Kobo as being in a collection. I'll experiment later on

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[John F]

Just a thought ...

I believe the collections are stored in a SQL database table. An SQL "DELETE from ..." might be an easy way.*

* depending on your definition of easy. And I don't know how.

[DrChiper]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

If you mean the collections were there but were empty it’s because they get synced to your account.
I don’t think anything would wipe them out short of making a new account which of course doesn’t really wipe them out it just doesn’t associate them with the new account from the old.

The original books were a mixture of Kobo purchased ones, library loaned ones and side-loaded ones (via calibre). I wiped them all via the reset possibilities as found on the mobileread wiki and restarted with a new (mine) account. Everything was cleaned, except for the collections, which was odd (I thought).

Originally Posted by MGlitch

As to why, probably because Kobo figured most people doing resets would rather not have to recreate the collections which is more work than deleting them. YMMV of course but I’d expect Kobo to aim at pleasing the masses.

When done manually on the device itself, I could agree. I myself however, use calibre for creating collections. So when the above suggestion is correct, Kobo should then have offered a possibility to delete those collections by user request, but apparently it cannot.

[DrChiper]

Originally Posted by John F

Just a thought ...
I believe the collections are stored in a SQL database table. An SQL "DELETE from ..." might be an easy way.*

* depending on your definition of easy. And I don't know how.

It could be even simpler: just delete the whole SQL database and let the device recreate it on reset. But that is not for the faint of heart either: reset must be possible for the average user too.

Why do I want all this complete cleaning? I want to pass on this device to a new owner and therefore make sure the old content is not accessible anymore. I hoped a manual factory reset would make that possible.

[DrChiper]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Remember if you only purchased books from Kobo, synced them from the Kobo store then saving / restoring collection status makes sense.

Now that is a thought: the device was connected via wifi (as is usually is the case when re-initializing for a new user) so it could have synced my last "collections data" back on this device. Hmm, maybe I should use a dummy account.

[DrChiper]

The dummy account did the trick: no collections anymore. So, previously my old synced data was reloaded. This is not always what you want, but could be handy when restoring a device. So yes, it is what it is.

[JSWolf]

Or you could just sign out that start you over again.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Or you could just sign out that start you over again.

Not the case here Jon if you’d bother to read the thread. Resets, any of them, require a relogin which in this case triggers a sync and the problem is restored.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Not the case here Jon if you’d bother to read the thread. Resets, any of them, require a relogin which in this case triggers a sync and the problem is restored.

But you could cancel the sync. It's what I did when I first setup my H2O.

[rtiangha]

If you're prepping this device to give away, what you could also do is factory reset, then when it reboots and prompts you to log in, just don't do it. Don't enable wifi, turn it off and give it to the other person. Let them go through the setup procedure.

Other options include connecting it to your PC upon first reboot and deleting the database (it will get recreated on the next reboot) and/or take the opportunity to sideload the latest firmware before giving it away. Many paths up the mountain.

[Fat Abe]

Out of curiosity, could the OP jack the Kobo into a PC and look for the files that are still present after a reset. On an active reader, in the .kobo folder, there is a BookReader.sqlite file which may correspond to what is seen on the Collections pages. I also see an affiliate.conf file, which may be cleared on a reset.

[DrChiper]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

Out of curiosity, could the OP jack the Kobo into a PC and look for the files that are still present after a reset. On an active reader, in the .kobo folder, there is a BookReader.sqlite file which may correspond to what is seen on the Collections pages. I also see an affiliate.conf file, which may be cleared on a reset.

To my surprise the folders ".adds" (for NickelMenu) and "fonts" (for private side-loaded fonts) were still present with their contents. Never expected that. I will remove those manually.

The ".kobo" folder seems to be clean and the config file in folder "Kobo" is small and looks like default.

So, all in all it was a good question

[Fat Abe]

Your KoboReader.sqlite seems to be updating on its own, as others have suspected. Back it up, together with the other files. This may or may not be an interesting experiment should you decide to delete it to see what influence it has on what appears in the collection list. Caveat emptor, but wait until someone else gives you an "all clear", or a warning like, "watch out, you'll brick the reader".
What kind of message do you get if you attempt to open a book that is not physically on the flash card, but in the collections list? Personally, I have never set up anything in My Collections, and just sideload author-specific books from my PC.