cybook completely stuck

[adamtaurus]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Problem solved by PM. It was due to corrupt file systems on both the internal partition AND the SD card. Reflashing with 538 and reformatting the SD card sorted it.

Yes. My problem has been solved by reflashing with 538 and reformatting the SD card.

Thanks to Harry and M.H.

[morana69]

Hi,

My cybook crashed this evening trying to upgrade to firmware 685. It now gets stuck at the splash screen and the internal disk and SD card do not appear when I connect it to the PC.

From the posts here it sounds like I need to reflash back to firmware 538. However, I don't have the firmware file and I can't see where to down load it from the bookeen site. Does anyone know where I can get it from?

Thanks
John

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by morana69

Hi,

My cybook crashed this evening trying to upgrade to firmware 685. It now gets stuck at the splash screen and the internal disk and SD card do not appear when I connect it to the PC.

From the posts here it sounds like I need to reflash back to firmware 538. However, I don't have the firmware file and I can't see where to down load it from the bookeen site. Does anyone know where I can get it from?

Thanks
John

Go here: http://egad.dyndns.org/cybook/. Download the update_kernelb538fmt.zip file. Re-install and SIN NO MORE!!!

Derek

[tompe]

Originally Posted by morana69

Hi,

My cybook crashed this evening trying to upgrade to firmware 685. It now gets stuck at the splash screen and the internal disk and SD card do not appear when I connect it to the PC.

From the posts here it sounds like I need to reflash back to firmware 538. However, I don't have the firmware file and I can't see where to down load it from the bookeen site. Does anyone know where I can get it from?

How did it crash? Was it during the update?

Sometimes when you have done strange things you need to connect the USB cable first and then turn the Cybook on to see the disks.

[morana69]

Originally Posted by tompe

How did it crash? Was it during the update?

Sometimes when you have done strange things you need to connect the USB cable first and then turn the Cybook on to see the disks.

Yes, I was applying the 1.1 firmware (685?), it started the update and everything looked fine, after about a minute the progress bar stopped moving. I left it for about 15 more minutes and decided that it was broken. I tried to switch off/switch on: nothing, then reset and still nothing.

It would stick at the splash screen and then not respond to any keys including power. When I reset it, then I can press the power button and the screen blanks and then comes back to the splash screen.

I've now tried to reflash back to 538 with two different SD cards but nothing seems to work. I suppose that it has to go back to Bookeen - at least I'm in the UK so hopefully it won't take too long to get there and back.

- John

[momghoti]

My condolences, John. This is almost what happened to me--mine looked like the update worked, then froze in the same way.
Once they contacted me, they had me re-try a bunch of things I *told* them I'd already tried--it took several days of back-and-forth before they offered me a return number. So...my cybook is going on a trip.

[morana69]

I phoned Bookeen last Friday and spoke with a very nice French lady in their support department. She asked me to try a few things, including a reflash back to 538. When that didn't work she sent me an RMA later that afternoon.

Mine's currently sitting in a post office in Paris waiting to be delivered to Bookeen for repair.

Hopefully it won't be long coming back.

John

[Over]

Geez... This topic is making me unsecure about buying the Cybook.

[morana69]

Well, I received a cybook back from Bookeen today and I must say that I'm impressed by their support.

They sent me an RMA within an hour of me speaking with them and they dispatched a new cybook back to me on the day that they received mine back to them.

So all can say is well done Bookeen, I'm a very happy customer.

(What's more the new cybook they sent me is one of the new ones with 512M internal memory).

Yes the original had a problem, but that can happen to any product - and reflashing is notoriously error prone (indeed do Amazon or Sony provide updates at all?). The important thing in my mind is that when I needed support I got great customer service.

Cheers
John

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by morana69

Yes the original had a problem, but that can happen to any product - and reflashing is notoriously error prone (indeed do Amazon or Sony provide updates at all?). The important thing in my mind is that when I needed support I got great customer service.

Indeed they do. There has been one firmware update for the PRS-500 and one firmware update to the Kindle. As far as I know the PRS-505's shipping firmware has not been updated. Then again, none of these devices had such visible and severe bugs to fix either.

BOb

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Indeed they do. There has been one firmware update for the PRS-500 and one firmware update to the Kindle. As far as I know the PRS-505's shipping firmware has not been updated. Then again, none of these devices had such visible and severe bugs to fix either.

BOb

There have been two updates for the 500 and - forgive me for disagreeing, Bob - but the initial firmware of the 500 had some pretty major bugs. RTF files of any real complexity would crash (and RTF was what we all used to read before we got the tools to create LRF files) and the machine had a VERY nasty habit of losing all its bookmarks randomly when you used the "Connect" desktop software. The initial firmware update fixed those bugs, but "broke" the battery meter. The 2nd firmware update fixed the battery meter again (but it took them about 4 months to do so!).

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by HarryT

There have been two updates for the 500 and - forgive me for disagreeing, Bob - but the initial firmware of the 500 had some pretty major bugs. RTF files of any real complexity would crash (and RTF was what we all used to read before we got the tools to create LRF files) and the machine had a VERY nasty habit of losing all its bookmarks randomly when you used the "Connect" desktop software. The initial firmware update fixed those bugs, but "broke" the battery meter. The 2nd firmware update fixed the battery meter again (but it took them about 4 months to do so!).

Sorry, your right... there were two, I forgot about that. However, I never read RTF's so never had a problem.

However, the person I replied to was implying that Sony and Amazon don't even do firmware updates, which is just not true.

BOb

[Alan]

Hi,

I want to add my ¢2, too:

I experienced the same problem. After reading a lot of threads about this problem, I believe the file system in my Cybook was corrupt. So far I tried everything, including a firmware flash with version 538. Finally I succeeded.

But after all this also shows me, where the real problems are: If simple reading with the device can destroy the file system (at least this is what I think was causing the problems) rendering the device useless, than something is really, really wrong. Sure, hardware can become defective. This is true for your dishwasher as well as for the Cybook. It's not nice, but it happens.

But software (the supposed cause of these problems) cannot become defective, it can only be defective from the beginning. I am a professional Windows and backup software administrator and have also some basic Linux skills. I know how operating and file systems work. I have seen corrupt NTFS partitions as well as pink screens on Linux machines. File system corruption can occur. But, and this is a big BUT, the Cybook is, compared to the servers I administer, not more than a pocket calculator when it comes to complexity and power. It has only to do some very limited routines. Frankly, using a Linux kernel for a book reader is quite an overkill. But anyway, a device that is out for the mass market as a book reader simply must not have this kind of problem.

I consider myself quite resourceful and I am able to at least try to solve many problems before giving up. But think about the average user. He won't be able to flash firmware nor will he be able to rebuild a file system on his reading device. He will either throw away the device or will go to the painstakingly slow process of contacting Bookeen, requesting an RMA number and sending it to Bookeen.

So I urge Bookeen to look into this kind of problem - the most serious one - in order to prevent future problems of this nature.

Alan

[HarryT]

Alan,

What makes you believe that the problem lies with the device rather than the user? Writing to memory and then unplugging the USB cable without doing a "Safely Remove Hardware" on a Windows machine can all-too-easily result in a corrupt file system, and that's not Bookeen's fault.

If your problem was a corrupt file system, did you really need to reflash? Wouldn't simply reformating the internal disk have fixed it?

[Alan]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What makes you believe that the problem lies with the device rather than the user? Writing to memory and then unplugging the USB cable without doing a "Safely Remove Hardware" on a Windows machine can all-too-easily result in a corrupt file system, and that's not Bookeen's fault.

You may be right. But I always safely remove my Cybook from a Windows machine. And the file system corruption occurred long, long after the last connection to a Windows computer.

If your problem was a corrupt file system, did you really need to reflash? Wouldn't simply reformating the internal disk have fixed it?

In order to get a connection to the internal memory of a Cybook, the OS has to run so that the memory can be mounted to an external computer. But the OS was constantly rebooting, thus preventing the memory to be accessible for mounting.

I do not know, why Bookeen designed its device in a way, that the internal memory cannot be accessed without the OS running. It would have been so much easier to just reformat and restore the last backup.

Alan