Kindle Firmware 5.8.9

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by janrey

I used to get that as well but at some point it stopped. Try a full reboot (not a reset but restart).

I've tried both restarting and resetting. The problem goes away temporarily, but inevitably returns for me :(

Originally Posted by kevinpars

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. And this one does not appear to have enhanced typesetting.

Interesting. Thanks! I'm really beginning to wonder if this problem is exclusive to AZW3 and old-style mobi, and doesn't affect KFX books.

[nooboo]

Kindle tech team sent me an email asking how many books I have on my Kindle, and to make sure I only have "a few" books downloaded at one time and then check for the bug.

I'm not sure what constitutes "a few" books, but I told them the bug occurs with less than 10 books downloaded to my Kindle.

I hope this means they are trying to fix this.

[badgoodDeb]

They want us to run with only a few books loaded!!! ROFL. I have more than 600 loaded and have never seen these issues. (Voyage nor previous devices. Or Oasis, tho brand new and lightly used.)

Does it happen during normal reading, or when you are paging through quickly, looking for a spot? The latter seems more in tune with the caching problems discussed above.

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Does it happen during normal reading, or when you are paging through quickly, looking for a spot? The latter seems more in tune with the caching problems discussed above.

It happens during normal reading. (In 5.8.9, it's actually got worse: on initial entry to MOBI periodicals that I was previously reading and that are in the middle of articles, I often see a dead blank screen other than a progress bar at the start. Page back and I see the TOC; page forward, and I'm in the right place again. Caching bug!)

[nooboo]

Originally Posted by NullNix

It happens during normal reading. (In 5.8.9, it's actually got worse ...

Happens during normal reading for me, too.

5.8.8 was noticeably worse for me than 5.8.7.0.1. Not sure if 5.8.9 is worse than 5.8.8.

When the next update comes out, it will be a real quandary whether to update.

[tomsem]

I would like to suggest the possibiliity that the problem is not software per se but of corrupted data.

For example, I recently discovered that about 60 book purchases (my earliest) did not appear in item search or viewing ALL listing (Voyage). My other Kindle, also running 5.8.9, did not have this problem. I suspected some kind of data corruption, and after a Reset, it has gone away.

Reset requires some preparation to make it easier to restore the content you want to have (I created a collection with the downloaded items, then after the Reset used that to restore the cloud content). But at some point I think it is worth a try to see if it makes flakiness go away.

There's probably a more 'surgical' way to clear cached/corrupted data but without having detailed information about where it is and what it does, it may be more trouble than it is worth. Reset is pretty much guaranteed to get your Kindle back to a known baseline state, from which you can attempt to reproduce the issue.

[nooboo]

Originally Posted by tomsem

... at some point I think [resetting Kindle] is worth a try to see if it makes flakiness go away ...

I've done a factory reset at least 3 or 4 times already. The problem goes away for a day or two, then comes back.

I don't know much about caches, but which of the following would likely clear the cache?

- resetting Kindle - yes?
- restarting Kindle - yes?

- changing font or font-size - maybe ???
- closing book & opening a new book - maybe ???

- going back to Home page - no?
- putting Kindle to sleep then waking up again - no?

Any other thoughts?

[knc1]

Originally Posted by nooboo

I've done a factory reset at least 3 or 4 times already. The problem goes away for a day or two, then comes back.

I don't know much about caches, but which of the following would likely clear the cache?

1 - resetting Kindle - yes?
2- restarting Kindle - yes?

3 - changing font or font-size - maybe ???
4 - closing book & opening a new book - maybe ???

5 - going back to Home page - no?
6 - putting Kindle to sleep then waking up again - no?

Any other thoughts?

1 = yes
2 = yes
3 = yes (rebuilds new font cache, then renders current page, in-validates other cached pages)
4 = only if it causes a '3'
5 = no (because if you go back to book, you go to the last page opened)
6 = no (because there is no 'reset' or 'restart' involved, only suspend (freeze everything) and resume (unfreeze every thing).

Since the reader is closed source, the above is only what can be reasonably expected.
But that does not mean the programmer who wrote it was doing what is reasonably expected.

[nooboo]

Originally Posted by knc1

1 = yes
2 = yes
3 = yes (rebuilds new font cache, then renders current page, in-validates other cached pages)
4 = only if it causes a '3'
5 = no (because if you go back to book, you go to the last page opened)
6 = no (because there is no 'reset' or 'restart' involved, only suspend (freeze everything) and resume (unfreeze every thing).

Excellent! Thank you!

I'm curious though why closing a book and opening a new book wouldn't likely clear the cache. Wouldn't the pages from the previous book be in-validated and replaced by pages from the new book?

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by knc1

1 = yes
2 = yes
3 = yes (rebuilds new font cache, then renders current page, in-validates other cached pages)
4 = only if it causes a '3'
5 = no (because if you go back to book, you go to the last page opened)
6 = no (because there is no 'reset' or 'restart' involved, only suspend (freeze everything) and resume (unfreeze every thing).

Since the reader is closed source, the above is only what can be reasonably expected.
But that does not mean the programmer who wrote it was doing what is reasonably expected.

I see no evidence that anything is wrong with the font cache, which is persistent, built by fontconfig and contains expensive-to-compute font metric and family data for matching. This appears to be some *other* cache, probably a cache of uncompressed/prerendered MOBI/AZW3 stuff (i.e. pre-run through the HTML renderer). It is probably not the cache that runs ahead a few pages and computes the precise pixel transitions needed to get from one purely-textual page to another one without blinking through black, since I've had this problem on transitions both to and from pages with images on, where that cache is apparently disabled. Both this mysterious "other" cache and the pixel-transition cache are almost certainly purely in-memory things and only last for a few page turns at most -- but whatever it is that makes the cache management go so wrong *might* be resolved by one of those means. I don't know. This is all guesswork on my part

Kindles have a lot of caches.

[cc_in_oh]

Originally Posted by rickdob

How come the "faster highlighting" doesn't seem much faster on my Kindle Paperwhite?

Old process: 1) drag your finger along the words that you want to highlight 2) tap "highlight" in the pop-up menu 3) pop-up menu goes away and you can continue reading

New process: 1) drag your finger along the words that you want to highlight and Kindle automatically highlights it and brings up the pop-up menu 2) Now you still need to click outside of the pop-up menu to dismiss it so you can continue reading.

Am I missing something here?

I just got the update and don't see anything faster about it either. Short highlights didn't need speeding up; multi-page highlights did.

And now a tap that used to turn the highlighted page edits the highlight instead - I have to remember to swipe.

I do like the ragged-right option though - definitely a marginal improvement...

[tomsem]

I think this is Amazon's attempt to impose some cross platform consistency while inventing a marketing term for it, more than anything else. Kindle, Fire, and Android are pretty much the same now in terms of how it works.

I think this is more or less correct (I'm comparing with PW1):

If you long tap and drag to select a short phrase, it works same as before: you have to explicitly tap Highlight to highlight and the adjustment handles appear. It displays Wikipedia, Translate, Dictionary panels.

What has changed is behavior for longer highlights: now highlight is created without having to tap Highlight (that button is now Undo). But in both cases you have to tap somewhere to complete the action (and dismiss options). Not really 'faster' IMO.

On iOS the longer selection creates the highlighting with one gesture, and you have to tap the resultant highlight to change color, delete, share, add note etc. So if all you typically want to do is create a highlight, that is indeed 'faster' (one gesture and not two). For everything else (sharing, translation, modify highlight, add note) there's another tap to execute versus the behavior on Kindle, Fire, and Android.

[jhowell]

Firmware version 5.8.9.2 is now available for download.

[Isamilis]

Downloading now. FYI, in my Oasis, 5.8.9 version feels like slowing down the screen refresh rate. Opening book, changing page seems like need more resources compared to 5.8.8. I compared side by side, Oasis with 5.8.9 and Paperwhite (white, 2016 version) with 5.8.8. It almost consistent the paperwhite drawing the text and opening the book faster than Oasis.

I hope 5.8.9.2 fix this.

[coplate]

There has been 1 report of 5.8.9.2 bricking a device, but it's always possible that is unrelated.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=286445