Clara BW Connecting to Kobo library 4.45.23646

[MaterialisticTan]

I'm trying in vain to get my Clara BW (4.45.23646) to connect and sync with my local Kobo library (BookOrbit, but it could be Komga or CWA).

I've tried editing the

api_endpoint=

in

/.kobo/Kobo/Kobo eReader.conf

both during normal operation, as well as directly after a factory reset and tried restarting (and not restarting) both before and after the edit.

I'm monitoring devmodeon sync, oauth and packetdump logs as well as monitoring the packet logs and http logs of the intended target local api_endpoint but no matter what I do, it only reaches out to connect to storeapi.kobo.com /v1/initialization, and populates the .conf file with the [OneStoreServices] fields. Not a single packet reaches the local intended endpoint.

Is there a trick I'm missing here? Happy to patch, down/up grade, root.

I'm currently planning on hijacking the storeapi.kobo.com request and answering it from my local infra to see if I can get that initialization response to take and redirect, but it feels like this should be easier.

[MaterialisticTan]

Solved, posting what worked in case it helps anyone else syncing a Kobo to a self hosted server (BookOrbit in my case) on current firmware.

Device: Kobo Clara BW, firmware 4.45.23697.

What did not work: editing api_endpoint in .kobo/Kobo/Kobo eReader.conf after the device was already set up and signed into a Kobo account. Every sync still calls https://storeapi.kobo.com/v1/initialization and rewrites the [OneStoreServices] section, dropping the custom line. I confirmed this with a software factory reset, a clean single line edit, and a reboot. The device never once contacted my server.

A trap that cost me hours: I first edited the conf with a GUI editor (Sublime). Its save corrupted the file on the Kobo FAT partition, it became binary rather than text when re-opened, and Nickel silently discarded it and regenerated defaults. If you edit the file, use nano or a command line tool (e.g. sed) and check it is still plain text afterwards (the file command should report ASCII text, not data). Eject cleanly.

What actually worked: the edit only sticks if it is made before the first Kobo account sign in.

I got the idea from this thread from Taubin.

1. Hardware reset the device so it starts first time setup.

It rebooted into 4.40.23081, asked me to connect to WiFi and updated itself. This was the Kobo eReader.conf at that stage:

❯ cat '/Volumes/KOBOeReader/.kobo/Kobo/Kobo eReader.conf'
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
     │ File: /Volumes/KOBOeReader/.kobo/Kobo/Kobo eReader.conf
─────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────   
   1 │ [ApplicationPreferences]
   2 │ CurrentLocale=en
   3 │ EarliestChangeLog=4.40.23081
   4 │ SideloadedMode=false
   5 │ demoModeTimeout=0
   6 │ firstRunDate=@Variant(\0\0\0\x10\0%\x8e(\x4\x33\xf7\x84\x2)
   7 │ lastPlugTime=@Variant(\0\0\0\x10\0%\x8e(\x4\x34\x2\xf4\x2)
─────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

2. Go through setup and let any firmware update finish (mine updated 4.40.23081 to 4.45 during setup).
3. Before signing into a Kobo account, connect via USB and edit api_endpoint in .kobo/Kobo/Kobo eReader.conf with nano.
4. Continue setup. The first sync then uses the custom endpoint.