Kobo Firmware 4.12.12111

[the.Mtn.Man]

Alright, been using the firmware on my first gen Kobo Aura for about two-weeks, and it's rock solid. The only idiosyncrasy I've noticed is that the drop-down menu for adjusting the brightness level does not update to show the current brightness, but that's a minor annoyance at worse.

[raindog89]

Originally Posted by the.Mtn.Man

Alright, been using the firmware on my first gen Kobo Aura for about two-weeks, and it's rock solid. The only idiosyncrasy I've noticed is that the drop-down menu for adjusting the brightness level does not update to show the current brightness, but that's a minor annoyance at worse.

I reported a similar bug today. (to Kobo)
The Auto function for Natural Light on my Clara only works sometimes. (This controls amount of blue vs orange light). I have to turn the auto switch off and on again for it to kick in.
I know it's a bug with this version of the software, because I did a factory reset and went back to to the previous 4.10.? version, where it functioned properly. Then when I pulled down the 4.12 update again, it started acting up again.

[Boneist]

It seems like the tapping-the-progress-area-to-change-the-display issue is finally fixed. Hurrah!

It’s a shame that the area to control the toggling still takes up most of the bottom section of the screen (leaving just the corners available to tap to turn the page).

Aside from that, I haven’t noticed any problems with this firmware, and I’m a lot happier that the progress display no longer changes a billion times in each reading session!

[sts]

Originally Posted by eenk

Just another guess as I don't know when the Wifi WPA2 patches had been incorporated by Kobo into their firmware: is your Wifi access point of a recent version with respect to the IEEE 802.11 protocols? As there were replay attacks on the AP attachment process, this has been changed. As far as I remember, the changes apply to the Wifi non-AP stations only, that is "clients", not access points (APs). However, depending on your Wifi AP vendor's firmware, especially if it hasn't been maintained in a while, there might be older bugs now surfacing, due to the new Wifi clients' more strict handling of AP association. But then, just a guess.

- 2x Unifi AC-AP Pro behind USG, all of them with most recent firmware => no Wifi
- just my iPhone with personal hotspot => no Wifi
- "my" corporate Wifi at the office => no Wifi
- just for testing: my old fritzbox router (7490, most recent firmware) => no Wifi

All of these systems work flawlessly with all devices... only my Kobo Aura HD with any firmware above 4.7.xxx denies any connection attempts

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by sts

- 2x Unifi AC-AP Pro behind USG, all of them with most recent firmware => no Wifi
- just my iPhone with personal hotspot => no Wifi
- "my" corporate Wifi at the office => no Wifi
- just for testing: my old fritzbox router (7490, most recent firmware) => no Wifi

All of these systems work flawlessly with all devices... only my Kobo Aura HD with any firmware above 4.7.xxx denies any connection attempts

Can you search devmodeon, try to connect to wifi, then connect to a computer and PM me the logs in the .kobo folder?

[NiLuJe]

@geek1011: Unless I did something wrong when I tried this during The Great Margin Hunt, I'm no longer seeing the logs getting dumped to the .kobo folder with the debug services enabled in FW 4.12.x :?

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@geek1011: Unless I did something wrong when I tried this during The Great Margin Hunt, I'm no longer seeing the logs getting dumped to the .kobo folder with the debug services enabled in FW 4.12.x :?

I was just playing around with the logs (and releasing 3 new patches) a few minutes ago ! Did you enable the logging categories in the options?

[NiLuJe]

@geek1011: That doesn't ring a bell, no .

AFAICT, that (EnableDebugServices) pops up a new section in the Setting UI, right?

If so, that probably explains it (I never went there)... .

Moving along, sorry for the noise .

[eenk]

Originally Posted by sts

- just for testing: my old fritzbox router (7490, most recent firmware) => no Wifi

All of these systems work flawlessly with all devices... only my Kobo Aura HD with any firmware above 4.7.xxx denies any connection attempts

The 7490 is a good reference test ... all my Kobo devices (Forma, H2O mk 1, ...) work fine on my 7490's wifi; all devices on newest Kobo and AVM firmwares. Was the 7490 directly connected to an ADSL line or acting as a IP NAT router?

[sts]

Originally Posted by eenk

The 7490 is a good reference test ... all my Kobo devices (Forma, H2O mk 1, ...) work fine on my 7490's wifi; all devices on newest Kobo and AVM firmwares. Was the 7490 directly connected to an ADSL line or acting as a IP NAT router?

No ADSL here. We have a FTTH access with an ONT and a glass fiber modem. The 7490 establishes the internet connection through this modem (no double NAT or whatsoever, checked that)

[Quoth]

Since this update the annotations / notes are "broken" on my Kobo H2O original and epubs. Sometimes fine for a while. Eventually ALL the Chapter headings of ALL highlights or annotations are changed to be the Chapter last annotated. Same viewing on Kobo or Calibre Kobo Utilities import.
Doing a reset via hole (not power off) fixes it for a while for NEW annotations and then all those Chapter numbers/names are overwritten with last chapter.
I might have 40 to 600+ annotations per book I'm proofing.

A second unrelated issue is that some but not all images appear like tiny thumbnails rather than the size they used to be. Only the text has changed. Some books have had over 20 revisions converted and transferred to Kobo. It's not happening with the other non-Kobo eReaders, except they used to be less good for annotation (The Kindle PW3 is now easier, faster to use for annotations than the Kobo, but there is a bug on the Annotations import).

A third issue is highlight selection. It's SLOW to extend as you drag right. If you let go and use the (O) handle that often doesn't budge. If you try to select to near start of the next line and slightly "wobble up" to previous line the highlighting is cancelled. If there is an image on the page it's very very much slower or may appear to hang if a larger image. Really the earlier SW version that had only ONE bug in highlighting was FAR better. It had the bug where if *exact* "End of Line" was selected the highlight & note would vanish after message claiming success.

Do Kobo test at all with ePubs or only kepubs?

Also it seems very hit or miss if a book allows changing line spacing. Really it's rubbish now compared to when I bought it in mid 2017 (maybe May 2017). Yes it's nice I can turn off the header & footer (only since last update). I can't see anything else that has improved. The Home page is less functional and only about 1/3 any use. Forced advert text added! The Kindle PW3 is far better if only I could get the annotations off. Even the Sony PRS350 and Nook Simple touch are more reliable as "Touch" or something seems to hang / freeze often and I have to close sleep cover for about 15s for it to recover. Or tap power.

The "Smart" keyboard for adding a note may be nice for someone that never used older Firmware or never uses a laptop. I find it ghastly to use. There should be an option to turn off the auto caps feature which reacts to newline or period-space combo. The key layout and style is poor and not enough dead space between virtual keys so the small PRS350 touch keyboard and Kindle PW3 keyboard are faster / more accurate to type on.

I've now done a factory reset which automatically loaded 4.12.12111 again. I'll see does that fix anything. Highlight is STILL much slower to respond than any other model I have or earlier Firmware.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

Since this update the annotations / notes are "broken" on my Kobo H2O original and epubs. Sometimes fine for a while. Eventually ALL the Chapter headings of ALL highlights or annotations are changed to be the Chapter last annotated. Same viewing on Kobo or Calibre Kobo Utilities import.
Doing a reset via hole (not power off) fixes it for a while for NEW annotations and then all those Chapter numbers/names are overwritten with last chapter.
I might have 40 to 600+ annotations per book I'm proofing.

That is a long standing and well document bug. It occurs for epubs on the main memory. For epubs, the bookmarks are stored in the database and in files. When the book is reopened, the annotations are merged with the ones in the database and the location description is reset. It has been reported to Kobo, but, as you see it as important, you should report it as well.

There is a simple workaround. In the "Digital Editions" directory on the device, there is a directory called "Annotations". Delete this and create a file called "Annotations". Or, if you have a device with an external SD card, put the books on that.

A second unrelated issue is that some but not all images appear like tiny thumbnails rather than the size they used to be. Only the text has changed. Some books have had over 20 revisions converted and transferred to Kobo. It's not happening with the other non-Kobo eReaders, except they used to be less good for annotation (The Kindle PW3 is now easier, faster to use for annotations than the Kobo, but there is a bug on the Annotations import).

I haven't seen any change in how images are handled. But, I don't have many books with images in them. Can you post a sample for us to look at?

A third issue is highlight selection. It's SLOW to extend as you drag right. If you let go and use the (O) handle that often doesn't budge.

This is something that has change recently, and has been discussed. To adjust the selection, you need to tap the handle and try to drag it. Then release and do it again. The second time, it generally works.

If you try to select to near start of the next line and slightly "wobble up" to previous line the highlighting is cancelled. If there is an image on the page it's very very much slower or may appear to hang if a larger image. Really the earlier SW version that had only ONE bug in highlighting was FAR better. It had the bug where if *exact* "End of Line" was selected the highlight & note would vanish after message claiming success.

I can't say that I've ever seen a bug like that. Except for a paragraph that goes over the page. Selecting the last word trigger some interesting problems.

Do Kobo test at all with ePubs or only kepubs?

Also it seems very hit or miss if a book allows changing line spacing.

I don't think that changed in any way. The line spacing will be adjustable if the book uses relative units. If there line spacing in the book is absolute units, it has never been adjustable. Again, we'd need to see an example book to see why.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by davidfor

That is a long standing and well document bug. It occurs for epubs on the main memory. For epubs, the bookmarks are stored in the database and in files. When the book is reopened, the annotations are merged with the ones in the database and the location description is reset. It has been reported to Kobo, but, as you see it as important, you should report it as well.

There is a simple workaround. In the "Digital Editions" directory on the device, there is a directory called "Annotations". Delete this and create a file called "Annotations". Or, if you have a device with an external SD card, put the books on that.

Excellent! Except I don't quite understand. Just simply create a file with same name as the directory, no content or type?

I have a 32G SD card. I only put PDFs on it (the smaller "actual size" user/operator manuals for complicated portable gear work well, a scan of a 1920s to 1970s magazine works about as badly as on a Kindle DXG, i.e. unusable!).

I'll try the selection stuff again. It works so nice on Kindle PW3 and USED to be fine on Kobo. The Sony PRS350 is a little odd, but I can't get annotations off it anyway, not even in XP. The Sony app won't install on that!

[Quoth]

Quote:
-- the earlier SW version that had only ONE bug in highlighting was FAR better. It had the bug where if *exact* "End of Line" was selected the highlight & note would vanish after message claiming success.
I can't say that I've ever seen a bug like that. Except for a paragraph that goes over the page. Selecting the last word trigger some interesting problems.

Which bug, the current one, or the older one which was known and fixed a couple of FW versions ago?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

Excellent! Except I don't quite understand. Just simply create a file with same name as the directory, no content or type?

The instructions replace a directory with a file. Any file operations that act on the directory, or its sub-directories fail. That means the annotations files don't get created and cannot be read. And hence cannot cause the issue described.

I have a 32G SD card. I only put PDFs on it (the smaller "actual size" user/operator manuals for complicated portable gear work well, a scan of a 1920s to 1970s magazine works about as badly as on a Kindle DXG, i.e. unusable!).

My mention of the SD card was because when epubs are on the card, the annotations files that cause this problem are never created. I assume it is because the RMSDK doesn't properly support the SD card as a location for books. It isn't useful for newer devices, but, you have an Aura H2O, so I mentioned it.