Firmware 4.11.11976 Released

[anacreon]

I side-loaded the new F/W this morning and applied my usual patches, then read some - no problems.

Then I side-loaded new fonts (new to the device, I had used them on former ones,) and I had extreme formatting problems (no bold, no italics, no paragraph position (all aligned on the left-hand side,) even with Kobo's fonts. The same books were fine on the H2O2.

First I tried suppressing the first book I noticed it on (a Calibre catalog) and reloading it.
Then I tried turning off/on the device and the PC.
Then I saved parameters and database, and logged off from kobo in case it was a problem with the database.
Nothing worked. I don't even have an error message to post.

Can somebody suggest a cause to the problem - and a remedy?

EDIT: I took a long time writing this, and realized I'm not the only one, and that it is a F/W problem. So back to the previous one.

[geek1011]

OK, after some testing, it seems to be that the kepub reader doesn't read external stylesheets anymore. Inline styles work fine (and that's why I didn't notice the problem while I was testing the patches). I will still stay on this firmware for now, as the book I am currently reading has inline styles, so it is not affected by this bug.

I guess the worst part about this bug is that Kobo will probably issue a fix soon, and then I have to update the patches all over again :/ . At least I'm getting faster at it, and it only takes me an hour and a half, but I still don't have unlimited time...

Edit: I've reported this issue to kobo.

[mathil]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

It's not 2). I sideloaded/installed 4.11.11976 on my Forma (no Kobo patches installed) and had the same problem with sideloaded kepubs. It looked, to me, as if the whole internal CSS file was being ignored. This resulted in all text being left-aligned and all paragraphs having, what looked like, a 1em top & bottom margin.

Yes, the text was left-aligned for me as well; I didn't mention it because I thought it was a problem with my books (I usually apply patches so that all my books have justification).

I love Kobo; I'm always willing to defend them when they're unjustly attacked, and I'm sure everyone involved in the software development etc. is doing their best. But from a user's point of view, I really can't understand why they keep having these QA issues. It's been like this for years. I love their ereaders and will keep using them, but I'm also lucky enough that I know this forum and can chat with other users about firmware issues...

[Calenorn]

Originally Posted by geek1011

OK, after some testing, it seems to be that the kepub reader doesn't read external stylesheets anymore.

Holy cow! That's brutal.

[John F]

I use Calibre, send kepub on the fly, and I don't think I'm using external style sheets, so would this firmware be a problem for me?

I have a Forma coming on Tuesday, so want to be prepared.

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by John F

I use Calibre, send kepub on the fly, and I don't think I'm using external style sheets, so would this firmware be a problem for me?

I have a Forma coming on Tuesday, so want to be prepared.

Yes. You are almost certainly using an external stylesheet.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

It's not 2). I sideloaded/installed 4.11.11976 on my Forma (no Kobo patches installed) and had the same problem with sideloaded kepubs. It looked, to me, as if the whole internal CSS file was being ignored. This resulted in all text being left-aligned and all paragraphs having, what looked like, a 1em top & bottom margin.

ETA: I've just tried an official Kobo kepub, synced via Kobo Desktop. I have exactly the same problem, i.e. kepubs are unusable. Back to 4.11.11911 for me.

Unfortunately, I didn't notice this until a long time after the release. That was on my Clara HD. I was surprised I hadn't seen any complaints here, so I was wondering if it was OK on the Forma. Apparently it isn't.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by geek1011

Yes. You are almost certainly using an external stylesheet.

Just to be clear, by "external" you mean referring to CSS files that are included in the book, rather than in-line styles. Right? My first reaction was that you were referring to a stylesheet somewhere on the device, but not inside the book. But, I don't know of any that are used in any recent firmware.

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Just to be clear, by "external" you mean referring to CSS files that are included in the book, rather than in-line styles. Right? My first reaction was that you were referring to a stylesheet somewhere on the device, but not inside the book. But, I don't know of any that are used in any recent firmware.

Yes. Sorry about the misleading wording.

[ma678]

My Clara HD couldn't read a comic book via Overdrive from my local library. The same book displays well after I reverted back to 4.11.11911.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by ma678

My Clara HD couldn't read a comic book via Overdrive from my local library. The same book displays well after I reverted back to 4.11.11911.

I assume that would have downloaded as a kepub. If so, it would have been hit by the stylesheet bug that has been discussed.


And for the record, I have report the problem to Kobo when I saw it, and discussed it with them today. I'm pretty sure I heard the from down here when he saw what was done. I would expect a reasonably quick release, but it probably will be a few days. They might withdraw 4.11.11976 first. It depends on if they think this bug is worse than the ones they were fixing.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by John F

I use Calibre, send kepub on the fly, and I don't think I'm using external style sheets, so would this firmware be a problem for me?

I have a Forma coming on Tuesday, so want to be prepared.

In the sense being used here (I think), an external stylesheet is internal to the epub but linked to the text files. If you look at an epub in an editor, you'll see a <head>....</head> section in which you'll see a piece of code similar to:

<link href="../Styles/stylesheet.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"/>

You can also embed the styles in each text file or you can have the styles added to every tag. Neither of which is, IMNSHO, a good idea.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Just to be clear, by "external" you mean referring to CSS files that are included in the book, rather than in-line styles. Right? My first reaction was that you were referring to a stylesheet somewhere on the device, but not inside the book. But, I don't know of any that are used in any recent firmware.

Definitely inside the book. The same book that reads right with 11911 looks awful with this firmware. I think that, in this case, Kobo has gone over the top with its lack of testing (aside of not allowing to read any book, that's right).

Edit: If, as ma678, it doesn't happen only with sideloaded kepub but with kepub in general, sorry, Kobo has done a very poor work.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I assume that would have downloaded as a kepub. If so, it would have been hit by the stylesheet bug that has been discussed.


And for the record, I have report the problem to Kobo when I saw it, and discussed it with them today. I'm pretty sure I heard the from down here when he saw what was done. I would expect a reasonably quick release, but it probably will be a few days. They might withdraw 4.11.11976 first. It depends on if they think this bug is worse than the ones they were fixing.

For me, an ereader which doesn't honor the stylesheet is the worst bug at all.

[ewphoenix123]

I have stability problems with this version.
My Forma kept getting stuck every 20-30 Minutes yesterday and I had to reboot.
No more more freezes after I switched to another book (epub) today, so I won't rollback yet but something to observe.