Firmware3.17.0 Discussion

[Desdinova]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Speed has been improved. Page turn speed with ePub is noticeably faster. I do find my H2O to be stable. A lot of what you read on MR is from people modifying their Reader and something then becomes less stable.

The thing that needs fixing is sickle. The time limit used is too short so Readers can be rebooting when they should not have to.

I do think Kobo should release a bug fix firmware before adding any new features. Just fix things.

Hopefully a future update will put a configurable sickle timeout on the Power Settings page - A nice drop box marked Reboot Stuck Device after:

30,60,90,120 secs or never

[koboy]

Originally Posted by Desdinova

Hopefully a future update will put a configurable sickle timeout on the Power Settings page - A nice drop box marked Reboot Stuck Device after:

30,60,90,120 secs or never

something like this perhaps? good common sense thought for the day, the sickle function could be implemented into the settings of the firmware so that the user could enable or disable it depending on their own personal preference, perhaps this might be considered for future firmware releases, which i put in a earlier post.


best wishes koboy.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

And yet Kindle has better support for the open file formt PDF...
People didn’t have issues with their Sony PRS-500s and yet it is easy to point out that they present a subpar experience in comparison to what is possible these days. The fact that Kobo is collaterally introducing new bugs and other quibs with every firmware release is just subpar, period. Of course if I just read a couple of novels that I purchase from Kobo, I have less problems than if I use calibre in conjunction with my Kobo and have to restart the device after adding new books because my Kobo only registered half of them on first try (and database is likely to corrupt if I just ignore the discrepancy between files on the device and in the database, just a random bug in 3.13.1)...
I really don’t care if most people are generally satisfied with their Kobos, they are just bad devices, starting with subpar eink drivers (largely responsible for the sluggish behavior) all the way up to the random quibs like random unregistered highlights...

Here is where I have to disagree. I use Calibre to load books onto my H2O with no problem. Are the books you load straight from the publisher? One of the problems (and the same thing happens on Kindles) is that people side load books that are not from the publisher or have been modified and/or converted. They don't check for structural errors. The parser is not going to be able to handle all errors and I do know that some people download eBooks from the net and the condition can be very poor. Even an RTF conversion can contain errors. So before you send unknown sourced eBooks to your Reader, check for errors first.

The speed of page turning with ePub has been improved since 3.15.0. Also so has the speed of highlighting.

[patrik]

Originally Posted by arspr

The pdf file that 3.17. cannot manage because its thumbnail generation causes a reboot is just a 29 Mb one...

And this failure happens 100% of the time. So if you just have one file like this one, BANG!!!!, you are dead. You won't be able to browse your Library because each time you reach the page containing that file the device will restart...

I just let Calibre transfer two PDFs to my Aura HD (I generally don't use pdf on it).
One is 32 MB, the other was the largest I got (in Calibre), 204 MB.

The 32 MB one seems to work. I have tried several times.
The larger one, always trigger a reboot... tried several times as well.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Desdinova

Hopefully a future update will put a configurable sickle timeout on the Power Settings page - A nice drop box marked Reboot Stuck Device after:

30,60,90,120 secs or never

Never would not be a good idea. I think 120 is good for a maximum time limit.

[Desdinova]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Never would not be a good idea. I think 120 is good for a maximum time limit.

Point taken ;-) I only suggested never for those who don't like the idea of the process being automated ...

[koboy]

Originally Posted by Desdinova

Point taken ;-) I only suggested never for those who don't like the idea of the process being automated ...

never sounds good to me, im using firmware 3.16.0 and it will stay that way.


best wishes koboy.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by koboy

never sounds good to me, im using firmware 3.16.0 and it will stay that way.


best wishes koboy.

You want never, update to 3.17.0 and apply the patch that removed the reboot.

[koboy]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You want never, update to 3.17.0 and apply the patch that removed the reboot.

in a word no, i don't do patching.



best wishes koboy.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

And yet Kindle has better support for the open file formt PDF...

Hmmm... my original experience with alternative readers on an eink reader was due to the poor support of Amazon for pdf. I don't own a newer device but a co-workers Paperwhite 2015 does not seem to have improved the stock pdf experience to any great extent.

Originally Posted by johnnyb

People didn’t have issues with their Sony PRS-500s and yet it is easy to point out that they present a subpar experience in comparison to what is possible these days.

Really? I seem to remember a reboot loop trying to update the firmware on a PRS-500. Then there was sending them back to Sony for the epub capability upgrade though I seem to remember that was supposed to include a hardware as well as firmware mod. Alternative firmwares, scripts to modify the behaviour and allow alternative fonts. Eeyup, no one had issues with the Sony ereaders nor did they post enough complaints on Mobileread and elsewhere about such issues.

Originally Posted by johnnyb

The fact that Kobo is collaterally introducing new bugs and other quibs with every firmware release is just subpar, period. Of course if I just read a couple of novels that I purchase from Kobo, I have less problems than if I use calibre in conjunction with my Kobo and have to restart the device after adding new books because my Kobo only registered half of them on first try (and database is likely to corrupt if I just ignore the discrepancy between files on the device and in the database, just a random bug in 3.13.1)...
I really don’t care if most people are generally satisfied with their Kobos, they are just bad devices, starting with subpar eink drivers (largely responsible for the sluggish behavior) all the way up to the random quibs like random unregistered highlights...

Hmmm... last time I did a factory reset on my H2O, I copied over ~2800 epubs to the external uSD card using Calibre. Ejected and left overnight so the processing occurred while I slept. Next morning all the ebooks were processed and my H2O was a happy camper. I did have processing hang at times in the past but since I went the route of error checking and correcting my epub collection including any new epubs I add to my collection, I haven't seen that issue recur.

It would be nice if Kobo had better error trapping for non-compliant epubs but since I have seen no issues with epubs that are standards compliant, it's hard to blame them. It's not that hard to use epubcheck and Flightcrew to check your epubs for errors so if you insist on feeding garbage epubs in, I don't see you as having much of a right to complain that you are getting garbage out.

Looking at your comment on "subpar eInk drivers", I'm having trouble deciding whether you might have sufficient background in programming drivers of any kind to make such a comment meaningful or you are simply whinging. At this time, I'm leaning towards the whinging. Looking at your device listing (Kindle, iPad, iPhone) and calling yourself an evangelist might have something to do with that decision. Hmmm... Kindle evangelist complaining about Kobo ereaders.

"To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture." Thomas Paine

[jackastor]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Without any patches I got a reboot 100% of the time when accessing Awards (which is not something I do very often), and soon after a restart it would reboot about 50% of the time when tapping the reading stats tile, and about 25% of the time when opening a KePub book by tapping its cover tile which are things I do very often.

The fact that my last KePub read that I was using to test with was a huge Peter F. Hamilton doorstop might be a factor, but it was a book bought and synced from Kobo. I had no problems opening sideloaded ePubs.

which book was it?
Jack

[Ripplinger]

The largest PDF I currently had on my reader was only 2.44MB, and that opened just fine. So I tried transferring 2 others, 94.2MB (purchased science book, heavy with images) and 86.5MB (one I put together as a PDF from images, fully searchable at least on my PC). Both books opened in about 3-4 seconds without a problem. Searching through the book I put together doesn't seem to work on the Kobo, it just forever keeps searching. I let it keep going for over a minute and it didn't timeout or reboot so I finally cancelled the search. So I'm not experiencing the problem at all, unless it's some quirk about specific PDF files. I have GeoffR's patch installed, but not the patch for the sickel timouts.

What I did notice though is searching in your current read always brings up the previous book the first time you search. Once you cancel that, reopen the correct book, and search again it will finally search in the book you have open. The first time it happened I thought I screwed up. Luckily I don't search often through books, this bug could be really annoying otherwise.

[johnnyb]

Great that we are discussing this here: incidentally, I just turned my H2O on and all my collections are empty... And I havent connected the reader to PC for weeks... Great stuff! I think this may be the straw that lets me switch back to Kindle. Will finish that book I am reading and then move on quickly...
Good luck to the rest of you!

[murg]

Originally Posted by Desdinova

Oh god. I've done little bits here and there, but I can imagine you must have an eye twitch every time you hear the word feature... ;-)

A feature is a bug in a tuxedo.

[arspr]

Originally Posted by patrik

I just let Calibre transfer two PDFs to my Aura HD (I generally don't use pdf on it).
One is 32 MB, the other was the largest I got (in Calibre), 204 MB.

The 32 MB one seems to work. I have tried several times.
The larger one, always trigger a reboot... tried several times as well.

Just curiosity. Are they formed only by images? Or are they mixed text and images?