Touch Bricked Touch 905B - can it be resuscitated?

[MacEachaidh]

My venerable Touch 905B is bricked, with a blank white screen. Can it be brought back to life?

It's been running f/w 3.19.5761, and struggling with it. It kept locking up, with no indication it was due to bad books. (Once it started happening often, I'd run that ePub through Sigil, ADE, ePubCheck and sideload it onto my Aura HD, and no files showed any sign of problems.)

Anyway, Kobo Customer Care had me check the battery was up to 100% (it was; I'd charged it last night) then do a factory reset, which reported as successful. I plugged it into Kobo Desktop and let it complete the registration and upgrade, which it reported as successful. Ejected the reader from the Desktop. (Windows 7, USB 2 port.) The Touch began processing the upgrade, then locked up again. (The hour-glass stopped its animation.)

KCC had me do a pinhole reset. The light at the top beside the power slider showed green (solid, 1 second), then blue (solid, 1 second), then green (again solid, 1 second). The screen flashed briefly black, then white again, then ... stopped. And that's where it sits. Any attempt at pinhole resets produce the same result, and the device doesn't recognise a manual factory reset (hold the Home button in and work the slider).

KCC claims the lights mean the power level must be lower than 30%, and it won't complete because it doesn't have enough power. Did the f/w upgrade really use up 70%+ of the battery's charge? Really? They had me charge the thing again, and said within an hour it would flash a quick succession of blues, and I could do a factory reset. Well that hasn't happened; it's been charging for six hours, and still shows the green-blue-green pattern in the lights when i do a pinhole reset; plugged into the USB it shows a solid unblinking green light; and other than that, it shows no activity at all.

If I plug it into my PC, it's not recognised as a valid USB device. No active USB session is initiated, and I can't see the device in Explorer.

Once the device was re-initialised, I was probably going to sideload an earlier version of f/w and let it downgrade, but I didn't get that far. KCC told me this is a known problem with the 3.19.xxxx f/w, that a lot of devices are locking up unexpectedly, but claimed Kobo Development is still "gathering information" and hasn't given KCC any information on a fix. True or excuse, I can't tell.

So: anything I can do? Any help would be appreciated.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

My venerable Touch 905B is bricked, with a blank white screen. Can it be brought back to life?

It's been running f/w 3.19.5761, and struggling with it. It kept locking up, with no indication it was due to bad books. (Once it started happening often, I'd run that ePub through Sigil, ADE, ePubCheck and sideload it onto my Aura HD, and no files showed any sign of problems.)

Anyway, Kobo Customer Care had me check the battery was up to 100% (it was; I'd charged it last night) then do a factory reset, which reported as successful. I plugged it into Kobo Desktop and let it complete the registration and upgrade, which it reported as successful. Ejected the reader from the Desktop. (Windows 7, USB 2 port.) The Touch began processing the upgrade, then locked up again. (The hour-glass stopped its animation.)

KCC had me do a pinhole reset. The light at the top beside the power slider showed green (solid, 1 second), then blue (solid, 1 second), then green (again solid, 1 second). The screen flashed briefly black, then white again, then ... stopped. And that's where it sits. Any attempt at pinhole resets produce the same result, and the device doesn't recognise a manual factory reset (hold the Home button in and work the slider).

For the factory reset using the buttons to work, the device needs to be off. My steps are:
- Charge the device for at least an hour.
- Hold the power button in the off position for twenty seconds.
- Hold the home button down and turn it on. Release the home button when the LED starts flashing or the screen doe something.

If that doesn't work the first time try again, but hold things a bit longer.

KCC claims the lights mean the power level must be lower than 30%, and it won't complete because it doesn't have enough power. Did the f/w upgrade really use up 70%+ of the battery's charge? Really?

The battery in your N905B Touch is probably at least three years old and could be four. Li-Ion batteries age and hold less charge. It isn't uncommon for them to be down to 50% capacity after two years. And a factory reset is a fairly intensive activity, so using 20% of a new battery is probably normal. So, 70% of an aging battery probably isn't unusual.

They had me charge the thing again, and said within an hour it would flash a quick succession of blues, and I could do a factory reset. Well that hasn't happened; it's been charging for six hours, and still shows the green-blue-green pattern in the lights when i do a pinhole reset; plugged into the USB it shows a solid unblinking green light; and other than that, it shows no activity at all.

If the Kobo device is off when you plug it in, it will usually start up after a few minutes. I think the blue flashes they described are that. But, as the device isn't starting properly, that doesn't happen.

If I plug it into my PC, it's not recognised as a valid USB device. No active USB session is initiated, and I can't see the device in Explorer.

That's to be expected. The device has to be running properly before it can present the data partition to the PC. And depending on the firmware version, you might have to press a button on the screen.

Once the device was re-initialised, I was probably going to sideload an earlier version of f/w and let it downgrade, but I didn't get that far. KCC told me this is a known problem with the 3.19.xxxx f/w, that a lot of devices are locking up unexpectedly, but claimed Kobo Development is still "gathering information" and hasn't given KCC any information on a fix. True or excuse, I can't tell.

I don't think there have been more hangs reported with 3.19.x than any other firmware version. And the only semi-consistent one I can think of is related to using the two new fonts.

So: anything I can do? Any help would be appreciated.

My suggestions are:
- Make sure the factory reset with the buttons is done correctly.
- Open the device and reseat the internal SD card.
- Write a new image to the internal SD card, or a replacement card. I can supply a link to the image.

[robko]

Originally Posted by davidfor

- Hold the power button in the off position for two seconds.

I think you meant hold the power OFF for TWENTY seconds (not two).

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by robko

I think you meant hold the power OFF for TWENTY seconds (not two).

And fixed in the original post.

[MacEachaidh]

Thanks, but I know how to do a factory reset. The issue is that the device isn't responding.

I don't think there have been more hangs reported with 3.19.x than any other firmware version. And the only semi-consistent one I can think of is related to using the two new fonts.

It wasn't my claim; it was what Kobo Customer Care said. And since they're the ones who can do things like escalate issues or replace devices,what tey say is the case seems to count. :-) They did say they've got the hanging issue flagged as a known problem for older devices on this firmware.

I'm sure we all understand that older devices my become obsolete from a firmware perspective before they fail as hardware. They took my comment on-board, that in those cases they should stop the Desktop from downloading the newer firmware that locks up such devices, especially since a) KCC doesn't support "downgrading" firmware versions and b) a full factory reset will require connecting the device to the Desktop or wireless connection to re-initialise it, and then you just get the problem firmware again.

Anyway. As I can't reset the device, and it appears to have been the firmware that at least precipitated the issue, if not completely caused it, they're contemplating replacing the device.

Re the battery and such issues, I think it's doing fine. Before this happened, it typically lasts a good six weeks on a full charge, even with daily reading use. As an original Touch it has no screen light to drain power, but I still think that's pretty good going. Hence my surprise over the suggestion that a reset was draining it.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

Thanks, but I know how to do a factory reset. The issue is that the device isn't responding.

I was responding to you statement about doing a factory reset. It was missing the important need of the device actually being completely off. Most cases of people reporting that a factory reset didn't start are because they don't do this. But, if you were just being brief in your comments, that's different.

It wasn't my claim; it was what Kobo Customer Care said. And since they're the ones who can do things like escalate issues or replace devices,what tey say is the case seems to count. :-) They did say they've got the hanging issue flagged as a known problem for older devices on this firmware.

Sorry, badly phrased on my side. I was meaning that if hanging issues were endemic in recent firmware, I would have thought we'd see the complaints here. And we haven't.

I'm sure we all understand that older devices my become obsolete from a firmware perspective before they fail as hardware. They took my comment on-board, that in those cases they should stop the Desktop from downloading the newer firmware that locks up such devices, especially since a) KCC doesn't support "downgrading" firmware versions and b) a full factory reset will require connecting the device to the Desktop or wireless connection to re-initialise it, and then you just get the problem firmware again.

But, you can also put whatever firmware you want after the desktop app is finished and before you eject the device.

Anyway. As I can't reset the device, and it appears to have been the firmware that at least precipitated the issue, if not completely caused it, they're contemplating replacing the device.

Not being able to do a factory reset is strange. I wonder if something has been damaged in the partition table or the reset partition. A fix is probably to restore an image to the card. If Kobo don't replace the device, that might be worth trying.