Fed up with the bugs!

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by buffaloseven

Well, considering the new Aura 6" is using a new firmware, we don't actually know it has all the same bugs. It may even end up being a whole new release, not just another point release. We'll have to wait and see.

The Aura is using the same firmware as the rest of the devices. In fact, 2.8.1 has code in it for the Aura, and I think 2.7.1 did as well. I don't know what the factory installed version will be, but there should be another version downloaded when they are being set up. My guess is that it will be 2.9.0 or 2.9.1. And that should be what the other devices will receive.

The reality is that the number of people complaining about bugs with Kobo devices is a tiny, tiny fraction of the Kobo user base. I know tons of people with Kobo devices that have never had a problem with them and are happy as clams with them. The only things that are truly "bugs" that Metazoa has fixed is the long paragraph bug and the wi-fi insomnia (which I never noticed myself). Everything else is personal preferences and hacks.

The fix for the long paragraph bug breaks some of the paragraph handling. And the WiFi insomnia is not a bug. The WiFi is deliberately put to sleep when not actually needed to save battery power.

Truthfully, the 2.8.1 firmware is probably one of the best of the 2.x generation. I've had very few problems (just the occasional long paragraph and problems opening books with embedded fonts -- but not all, just some), and have definitely found it smooth sailing for the most part.

I like the current firmware. There are bugs, but none affect my reading much. The bugs I notice the most are to do with the annotations list. Annoying if I mark up a lot of errors in a book, but not unworkable.

[Mhtsos]

I absolutely fed up with Kobo firmware.
After I made the mistake to upgrade from the factory firmaware that was shipped with the Kobo Glo I had had constant bugs and problems.
Although I believe the overall UI is now better,it came with a cost.At least for me.
In the last 6 months I had two serious situations that required to factory reset my device.One of them was quite persistant.
Also until now there wasn't any patch that was relative bug free.The last one(8.1) introduced a bug that doesn't activate the light when is in 1%.
I must increase the luminocity to 4-5% first and then press again the button.

All in all,I was much happier and carefree user with my Sony.I wish Sony introduced a proper reader.
Maybe a Kindle(or a Pocketbook) is a better option for my Xmas shopping spree.

btw:I have relative little experience with kobo,my first(and I believe last)device is the glo.I don't know what was the firmware in the older devices or in the mini/aura HD.

[Anak]

Originally Posted by buffaloseven

Well, considering the new Aura 6" is using a new firmware, we don't actually know it has all the same bugs. It may even end up being a whole new release, not just another point release. We'll have to wait and see.

We do have to wait and see. My point was that all devices use the same firmware. And therefore a bug is present on all device models. Sure some bugs only apply to a smaller number of devices as not every reader has the same hardware capabilities like font light.

New devices that use the same firmware inherit all existing bugs. So the new Aura 6" has the same bugs as the existing models.
Sure, if Kobo rolls out a new firmware for the new Aura 6" first I'm sure the changed or improved things, add new features, and maybe even fixed some bugs as well. If it is a major firmware revision or just a small incremental one? I don't know.

[buffaloseven]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The Aura is using the same firmware as the rest of the devices. In fact, 2.8.1 has code in it for the Aura, and I think 2.7.1 did as well. I don't know what the factory installed version will be, but there should be another version downloaded when they are being set up. My guess is that it will be 2.9.0 or 2.9.1. And that should be what the other devices will receive.

The fix for the long paragraph bug breaks some of the paragraph handling. And the WiFi insomnia is not a bug. The WiFi is deliberately put to sleep when not actually needed to save battery power.

I like the current firmware. There are bugs, but none affect my reading much. The bugs I notice the most are to do with the annotations list. Annoying if I mark up a lot of errors in a book, but not unworkable.

Thanks for clarifying the wi-fi insomnia thing; I could never quite wrap my head around what it was. I did find other problems arose from the long paragraph hack as well, so while it does fix one bug it creates others. But that's expected, Metazoa is still just hacking the binary.

I was curious the Aura would debut the 3.0.x firmware due to the addition of Pocket & Beyond the Book might justify a jump instead of just 2.9.x. I guess we'll see later this week or next week.

[TechniSol]

It'll be interesting to see, that's for sure.(whether new Aura suffers the same bugs, or gets fixes and we're still stuck with them, or we all get fixes?) I have to give Kobo credit for continuing to give us firmware updates for older models, and I hope that continues.

Frankly, I can't say the existing bugs affect me to any great degree, but they do affect others who can be quite vocal, and rightfully so. I want to see them fixed so people have a positive user experience, and also so that when I get to the point where they'll affect me(external SDHC issues, etc.), they will already be gone.

I've said it before, they have great hardware, a nice physical design(minus the red power sliders), and good features in the software(I bought my 1st Kobo because of the variable weight fonts and other adjustments, my second for that again and the quality of the lighting), I just want to see them eliminate the system wide problems with SDHC usage, and the niggling little bugs that need chasing. And no, "but we're going to do that later in an updated version of the reader software that we don't have yet" is not really the reply customers want to hear. But if so, make it clear you can't fix those things because of lack of access to code or licensing concerns and chances are people would quit kvetching about them!

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The fix for the long paragraph bug breaks some of the paragraph handling.

Please can you expand on this? I don't think I've noticed extra problems since I applied the Kobo Patcher. Am I missing something?

The only problem I do still see is when the last line of a chapter is occasionally forced to a new page when there appears to be easily enough room on the previous page. But since I also got that before applying the Patch I don't see how the Patch would be responsible.

[PeterT]

Every time a new (x)html file is encountered in the ePub it will ALWAYS start a new page.

Most publishers have one (x)html file per chapter.

Therefore you should expect a chapter to start on a new screen.

[6charlong]

Originally Posted by TechniSol

I've said it before, they have great hardware, a nice physical design(minus the red power sliders), and good features in the software(I bought my 1st Kobo because of the variable weight fonts and other adjustments, my second for that again and the quality of the lighting), I just want to see them eliminate the system wide problems with SDHC usage, and the niggling little bugs that need chasing.

I apologize ahead of time but I have to disagree about the red slider. I came to Kobo from a Kindle Paperwhite and a Fire HD (that one's not an eReader but anyway). With Kindle the on/off switches are black on black needing almost a safari to find them. You have to turn the reader on its side and even then you won't find it fast without a good light. Plus on the PW, if you read without a cover you will occasionally have it turn it off when the palm of your hand rests against the off switch located on the bottom edge.

I think the on/off switch should be always be so easy to find that you don't have to think about it. So your bug is one reason I love it.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Every time a new (x)html file is encountered in the ePub it will ALWAYS start a new page.

Most publishers have one (x)html file per chapter.

Therefore you should expect a chapter to start on a new screen.

I think you have misunderstood me. I know that a new chapter/html file always starts on a new page. What I am trying to describe, perhaps badly, is like this... The last paragraph of the chapter takes up (lets say) 5 lines of text. The first 4 are displayed on the same page. Even though there is a half to one inch of space left at the bottom of that page, the 5th line (the last few words) are pushed to a new page of their own.

I always thought perhaps it was a kind of variation of the 'long paragraph bug', i.e. the Kobo not being quite sure how much text can fit in the remaining space. However, the Kobo Patcher 'fix' to the 'long para bug' doesn't appear to 'fix' the 'end of chapter bug', but it doesn't seem to make it worse either.

I should add that I'm talking about standard epubs only. I've no idea what effect the Patcher hacks have on kepubs.

[Anak]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I think you have misunderstood me. I know that a new chapter/html file always starts on a new page. What I am trying to describe, perhaps badly, is like this... The last paragraph of the chapter takes up (lets say) 5 lines of text. The first 4 are displayed on the same page. Even though there is a half to one inch of space left at the bottom of that page, the 5th line (the last few words) are pushed to a new page of their own.

I always thought perhaps it was a kind of variation of the 'long paragraph bug', i.e. the Kobo not being quite sure how much text can fit in the remaining space. However, the Kobo Patcher 'fix' to the 'long para bug' doesn't appear to 'fix' the 'end of chapter bug', but it doesn't seem to make it worse either.

I should add that I'm talking about standard epubs only. I've no idea what effect the Patcher hacks have on kepubs.

This is one of the page rendering bugs and related to the long paragraph bug.
The bug you described is what I've dubbed "The end of chapter paragraph bug".
Display the whole parapgraph on a page but with the exeption of the last line, while there is more than one empty line available to display that last (part) of sentence..

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Anak

Yes, they are working on "epub3", yeah right. I'm sure they do, just as any other ereader brand does. But this doesn't mean they don't have to improve current epub2 support or kepub issues.

Given that the ACCESS Netfront BookReader renderer is compliant with the current EPUB 3.0 version and is the renderer used by Kobo for .kepub.epub ebooks and that both ACCESS and Kobo are involved with the Readium EPUB 3 effort, I fail to see any sense in your "yeah, right" comment. BTW, Adobe has joining the Readium Foundation and this may mean that the Readium EPUB3 renderer will have support for Adobe's ADEPT DRM baked in.

I've read several epub3 ebooks on my Kobo and using the ACCESS renderer for reflowable epub3 ebooks works quite well (other than one from Infogrid Pacific that made heavy use of Javascript and CSS animation). Oddly that one also crapped out on iBooks but did look quite decent on my desktop using the Azardi reader.

Originally Posted by Anak

I like Metazoa, he was (is) able to fix lots of issues that Kobo couldn't without having access to the source code.

I use Metazoa's patcher but lookng through the patches, the only one I see as being an actual bug fix would be the Fix Page Breaks bug item which does not seem to work all that well on my Aura HD -- I still get the odd paragraph stopping half way down the page and then a line or two at the start of the next page. Opening one book with overlong paragraphs, I get fewer breaks but they are not completely gone and some breaks show up where the unpatched code the page properly.

Regards,
David

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by 6charlong

I apologize ahead of time but I have to disagree about the red slider. I came to Kobo from a Kindle Paperwhite and a Fire HD (that one's not an eReader but anyway). With Kindle the on/off switches are black on black needing almost a safari to find them. You have to turn the reader on its side and even then you won't find it fast without a good light. Plus on the PW, if you read without a cover you will occasionally have it turn it off when the palm of your hand rests against the off switch located on the bottom edge.

I think the on/off switch should be always be so easy to find that you don't have to think about it. So your bug is one reason I love it.

I'm thinking of getting a Kobo and I loved my Paperwhite. Can you tell me what you love about Kobo please?

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I use Metazoa's patcher but lookng through the patches, the only one I see as being an actual bug fix would be the Fix Page Breaks bug item which does not seem to work all that well on my Aura HD -- I still get the odd paragraph stopping half way down the page and then a line or two at the start of the next page. Opening one book with overlong paragraphs, I get fewer breaks but they are not completely gone.

Regards,
David

Probably I have more bugs showing up on my Aura and mini then anyone, but I have never had the page break one. Weird eh?

Helen

[dmapr]

I got fed up with the bugs, and then metazoa fixed them all

[drew2720]

Josieb1..I have both (KPW and a Kobo Aura HD) and I have to say, the Aura HD is wonderful. I really like the size of the screen (6.8), the even front light (that you can turn completely off), and the resolution is great (1440 x 1080). It has spoiled me to the point that my poor kindle is gathering dust and I'm thinking about getting a second Aura HD. I'm holding out in case they update the HD and make it more like the new Aura that just came out (would like to see the edge 2 edge screen on an updated HD).