Kobo E_Reader wifi upgrade gone bad

[tomko]

can someone point me to the previous firmware (pre- 1.9.11) for the Kobo Wifi N289? it won't reset or load or connect to wifi in it's current state... says "updating" each time I power it on. thanks

[davidfor]

PM sent

[tompw]

Same problem as everyone else...

By pressing 'menu' during boot-up, I got my Kobo into USB firmware upload mode. When plugged into my PC, it shows as USB storage device with one folder (.kobo_upgrade)

Is there a way to get a (working) firmware onto the Kobo via this mode?

I have this file: http://download.kobobooks.com/firmwa...ate-1.9.11.zip , which contains (1) a folder named 'upgrade (2) a TGZ file, which in turn contains a tarball. I feel like if I could copy the right thing into the right place, it might all just work...

[flyboy320]

Which Kobo do you have, N647, N647B, or 289? Once we know that we can send you the correct file so you can write the image file onto the internal SD card.

[tompw]

I'll check - but are you saying there's no way other than removing the internal SD card?

[flyboy320]

Originally Posted by tompw

I'll check - but are you saying there's no way other than removing the internal SD card?

That is correct.

[tompw]

Originally Posted by flyboy320

That is correct.

Well, that's annoying...

The model number is N647 - thanks in advance

[flyboy320]

Originally Posted by tompw

Well, that's annoying...

The model number is N647 - thanks in advance

PM sent.

[rya]

A link to the Kobo n647 image would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

[flyboy320]

Originally Posted by rya

A link to the Kobo n647 image would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

PM sent

[Altivo]

So here's an update after a year+ of using 1.9.11 on the N647 Kobo. It works, but has inexcusable warts.

1) Font selection no longer works. The menu offers the option of serif or sans-serif but no matter which you set, nothing changes.

2) The display of books you are currently reading shows file names, rather than the proper author and title data extracted from the files. Since some downloaded ebooks have highly useful filenames such as AB23fg27gtq.epub, this is not very productive. The correct author and title do appear if books are loaded via Calibre or sideloaded by other means (I use an external SD) and the file names are done to show author and title.

3) The device forgets about the external SD card when powered off, and does not recognize it when powered on. It will recognize the card only if you insert it after the reader has booted up completely. (I pop the external card out, power up, and re-insert the card once the menu of currently reading titles appears. It then takes a moment to re-process the external memory and comes up with a complete menu. Bookmarks are remembered even for the titles that were temporarily forgotten, fortunately.)

4) Various unknown situations reportedly cause the device to crash and return to a state where it endlessly cycles through false "updating software" or "no books found" displays. I hadn't seen this until yesterday, when it happened to me. I turned the page and crash! All books were gone and each time the power was cycled, the "updating software" screen would appear followed by "updating contents" and finally "no books found."

I resolved the crash this time by opening the case, something I had not done until now. Be warned, this takes patience, persistence, and a lot of caution. I used an old credit card as a tool, after prying open one corner with a pocket knife. Once I could insert the corner of the credit card, I worked it slowly around the edge of the case, to horrible cracking noises as the edges loosened. The main fastening is a plastic clip about a half inch to the left of the arrow buttons. Be very careful to lift this straight up slowly and gently so it pops loose. I am not responsible for this lousy design, and don't blame me if it breaks off rather than releasing. The top bezel/frame will now lift off and can be set aside.

Four tiny phillips head screws must be removed before you can lift the circuit board out. You do not need to remove the battery as it has long enough leads to let you tilt the board back and slide the micro-SD chip from its socket at the bottom edge of the board.

I inserted the chip into an SD adapter and mounted it on a computer running Linux so I could analyze the contents. A small unallocated space at the low end of the device probably contains boot code specific to the N647 and must be left intact. There are three other partitions. One is labeled "KoboEreader" and is a FAT32 file system compatible with most Windows-based computers. This is the disk space where content is loaded if you put it in through the USB port.

The other two partitions are unjournaled UNIX type file systems (EXT2 format) and not readable by Windows machines (A Mac may be able to read them, and of course a Linux machine can read and write them.) They appear to have almost duplicate contents, but one was smaller and had no files that had been updated since 2010. My guess is that the smaller partition is a "recovery" copy of the system, and at some point was intended to be used by factory reset to restore the prior version of the software. Unfortunately, this capability seems to have been removed from the firmware. Fortunately, the copy of the files remains in place. I suspect that clearing all files from the larger EXT2 partition and then copying everything from the smaller partition into the larger would take you back to an earlier release of the firmware. I did not attempt this, and would suggest that you make sure to back up everything on the chip before testing the theory. I'd be interested to hear if anyone does try it.

What I did do was run fsck (the Linux equivalent of scandisk) on the EXT2 partitions. The smaller recovery partition had no errors. The larger partition had many disk errors, broken allocation chains, incorrect free space pointers, etc. I allowed fsck to correct these, and ran it again to make sure. It came up clean the second time.

Then I replaced the SD card in its socket, reassembled the board with the screws to the case, and turned the power back on. The "updating software" message appeared and took several minutes to clear. Don't turn the power off! Then it rebuilt the content database. Still didn't recognize the external SD, but it did find the Kobo user guide. Then I popped the external SD out, waited a few seconds and reinserted it. The insertion was recognized, and contents list rebuilt. Now all my externally loaded titles were available again.

So I'm back in business, with the same bugs as before but at least I can read. If it crashes again, I will probably attempt to recover by using that recovery partition. If that fails, I'll duplicate the internal SD from another Kobo N647, since a friend has one that has never been upgraded.

I intend to keep using the Kobo wifi because it is lighter in weight, has a longer battery life, and has a nice non-glare display that is readable even in bright sunlight. All the major distributors have gone to promoting Android based tablets with color displays instead. Those devices are nice if you want to browse the web or play games, but they weigh more, cost more, have much shorter battery life, and all the ones I've tried are pretty much unreadable in sunlight.

In short, I think the hardware design of the earlier ebook readers with eInk displays is suited to the job. It's unfortunate that the software on many of them is buggy and now unsupported without ever having been fixed.

[glenn12344]

So it seems this thread is the only place on all of the internet to get an image of the Kobo N647 internal SD. Mine stopped working ("no books found") randomly several months after it updated itself to 1.9.12 (10.16.2014). It was working fine up until today.

Dearest flyboy320, davidfor, (or anyone else), if I could get that image I would be greatly greatful.

I will also be trying to recovery partition Altivo identified to see if that is what he suspects it is and can be used to restore the original firmware. Update: looks like the recovery partition is missing a bunch of key files. They might extract when you first power on the system.

thanks

[flyboy320]

Originally Posted by glenn12344

So it seems this thread is the only place on all of the internet to get an image of the Kobo N647 internal SD. Mine stopped working ("no books found") randomly several months after it updated itself to 1.9.12 (10.16.2014). It was working fine up until today.

Dearest flyboy320, davidfor, (or anyone else), if I could get that image I would be greatly greatful.

I will also be trying to recovery partition Altivo identified to see if that is what he suspects it is and can be used to restore the original firmware.

thanks

PM Sent

[kocoman]

How To disable updates to prevent this problem?

[Altivo]

Originally Posted by kocoman

How To disable updates to prevent this problem?

The best way is never to connect the reader over wi-fi again. The problem has been known for at least a year and a half, yet nothing has been done about it. It certainly could have been fixed, but the attitude of Kobo's current management and support seems to be "Forget it, buy a new device."

The truth is, none of their current devices have the battery life or simplicity of the early ones. I don't have time to disassemble the problem myself but it certainly could be fixed somehow.

If you need to sync multiple devices via the Kobo website, or can't download your ebooks to a computer and sideload them over USB or via the SD port, it appears you are essentially screwed. Even when you get the device working with the latest "update" in place, it is functionally damaged. This update was clearly never tested properly on the original wi-fi devices, and should not have been deployed. When massive problems were reported, it should have been withdrawn. Kobo support has totally failed us here.