Kobo desktop app (v1.7 [Oct 15, 2010]) is slow

[taming]

I also wonder if signing out of the desktop application and then signing in again would help.

[kadnium]

digital_steve,

If by "sucky slow" you mean:
1. Window says "(Not Responding)"
2. Cannot move the window
3. pictures of books loads at about 1 picture every 1 minute
4. app takes a long time to load
5. scrolling thru books is choppy

Then yes.

Interestingly enough, the app syncs with my online library and kobo slowly but completes most of the time ... just annoyingly slow ... so slow you think its on a 300baud modem

If this is a past problem then it feels like bad regression testing.

[kadnium]

taming,

signing out and in does not work either. The entire process is painfully slow.
Its clearly a bug/feature in the software that is conflicting with something.

[zoran]

Originally Posted by taming

I can tell you stories about an HP machine I had not that long ago that seemed to be at war with with a small selection of (essential for me) things. New installs, nope. New drivers, nope. New bios, nope. It almost drove me mad. Never again...HP...never again.

Other vendors could be worse. I have to say all the best about HP.
Their servers are probably the first choice, if you ask me. Regarding
laptops, you are correct. Bios might be a bit strange, and it is inten-
ded to run win exclusively. Older lappers are fine. Mine nx9020 runs
freebsd without a glitch. Newer models could be tricky and not very
friendly to linux/bsd. Bigger irons for openvms are stable and expensive,
but they work for years without power down.
What model had you problem with, in fact?

[digital_steve]

Originally Posted by kadnium

digital_steve,

If you by "sucky slow" you mean:
1. Window says "(Not Responding)"
2. Cannot move the window
3. pictures of books loads at about 1 picture every 1 minute
4. app takes a long time to load
5. scrolling thru books is choppy

Then yes.

Interestingly enough, the app syncs with my online library and kobo slowly but completes most of the time ... just annoyingly slow ... so slow you think its on a 300baud modem

If this is a past problem then it feels like bad regression testing.

I feel your pain mate... it was a known issue with the original Kobo; to get the software to respond quicker to your inputs you needed to have the reader connected at the same time.
There is no resolution for the slow downloading of books from the kobo server via the software; to avoid that you could try the calibre software (i never touched the kobo software again after using calibre).

Interesting that this has popped up again; it'll be interesting to see if its an isolated case.

[taming]

I just had a PM conversation with someone posting on Face Book. She and her husband are both having problems with two different 64 bit machines and the 1.7 desktop. I asked her to come into the forum here and add her voice. I expect we'll see her after work (oh yeah, work--that place that pays me so I can buy toys--better go there myself).

[HamsterRage]

Overall, I've had a horrible experience, I've wasted many hours of my life trying to get this to work ... doing the kobo team's job of testing their shitty app.

that's an interesting suggestion but I am not going to waste time to do this; unless the kobo software team pays me my standard rates to do their job.

I've sitting on a response to this for a couple of days, just to see if I still give a damn... And guess I do because I have to say that the tone of this really rankles me.

First off, because all I've done to earn money for my entire adult life is to build software I know what it takes to get it right, I know how difficult it is and I know how complicated it is to test. And I know that there's no such thing as "bug free, non-trivial software". So for kadnium to extrapolate from his statistically insignificant sample of "one" that the Kobo team has produced inadequately tested, "shitty" software is just plain not fair.

Secondly, EVERYTHING that we've seen here on this message board indicates that the Kobo team is making a genuine effort to be way, way better than the other players in the marketplace. They started off by undercutting everyone else on price and triggering a price war, and they've continued and listened to our suggestions about how to make the product better. In many ways, I think they've been the victims of their own success - I don't think anyone expected that the first units would sell out here in Canada in two days - and they've stumbled from time to time. But my feeling is that these have been honest mistakes made by a new company finding its way. Certainly not because of the lack of commitment to quality implied by kadnium in those posts I quoted.

I am a very technical user and I am having issues; imagine a non-technical person experiencing this problem?

I'd be willing to bet that this is a problem that a non-technical person would never have. In my experience (and I'd be willing to bet in every software developers experience), "very technical" users are an absolute nightmare to deal with. They do obscure, and often silly, things to their systems tell you only the things THEY think you need to know, argue about solutions and generally think they know more about the software than the guy who wrote it. If I was running Kobo and someone opened a support call with, "...and I installed a virtual O/S to test...", I send him his $149 back, plus an Amazon gift card and tell him to buy a Kindle. Let the Kindle support team deal with him.

OK, so that was a bit of a rant. I've tried to stick to addressing the content that bugged me and not make this a personal attack. I hope I've at least managed to do that.

[timlegge]

Originally Posted by kadnium

There are some differentiators.
1.4 and 1.6 were clearly meant for the original kobo. 1.7 is meant for kobo wifi.

The 1.7 build must be using something new that isn't fully compatible my hardware; which in my opinion is bad product quality control. I am a very technical user and I am having issues; imagine a non-technical person experiencing this problem?

And you are right, it is interesting with the fact it is working for the other poster and the fact that no one else has reported any issues leads me to suspect that the issue is a small percentage. Perhaps a small percentage the kobo team will ignore as evidence by the unresponsiveness of their support team so far.

Probably not a surprise that few have reported it. I plugged in the kobo wifi for testing calibre and charging but since it syncs wirelessly I have not bothered to install the new desktop app. I thought of installing it to take a look but I am not that curious at the moment. Other than wanting it installed because it came with the device is there something it does that the device doesn't?

[digital_steve]

HamsterRage - in fairness, i think he's just frustrated... and also in fairness, the kobo desktop app is rather, err, well... shitty.
The reps have said that they recognise the issues and are working on it, so it's pretty well known the app needs some work.

I think the dude is just frustrated and venting; i wouldn't get too worked up mate.

[JCKobo]

We found the problem - 1.7 tries to use a proxy server if it can find it, and that seems to be very slow. In 1.7.1, which we are releasing late tonight, this will be off by default.

You can press Control-Shift-P while in your library to toggle this feature. Give it a try and see if it gets faster.

[Diane Stanley]

Taming it's Diane. We were talking on Facebook earlier. This is the message we are now getting from both 64 bit computers when we try to sync I am attaching the screen shot. It's the same on both computers. I'm not seeing if it attached so just in case here is the error message

"We are unable to update your devices database. Syncing cannot be completed."

I am running Windows Vista Home Edition and my husband is working with Windows 7 home edition.

My son did a diagnostic thing on my hubbies computer a few days ago that said the desktop device was not compatible with 64 bit systems, but neither of us are sure how he did this. Not sure when we will see him again as he works 2 jobs.

We are actually fine because we can either sync from a 32 bt laptop we have or buy books direct from the Kobo WiFi (We have done both) but there maybe people who don't have both of these options as we do.

Thenks Taming for all the advice you gave me earlier.

[Psyke]

Originally Posted by Diane Stanley

Taming it's Diane. We were talking on Facebook earlier. This is the message we are now getting from both 64 bit computers when we try to sync I am attaching the screen shot. It's the same on both computers. I'm not seeing if it attached so just in case here is the error message

"We are unable to update your devices database. Syncing cannot be completed."

I am running Windows Vista Home Edition and my husband is working with Windows 7 home edition.

My son did a diagnostic thing on my hubbies computer a few days ago that said the desktop device was not compatible with 64 bit systems, but neither of us are sure how he did this. Not sure when we will see him again as he works 2 jobs.

We are actually fine because we can either sync from a 32 bt laptop we have or buy books direct from the Kobo WiFi (We have done both) but there maybe people who don't have both of these options as we do.

Thenks Taming for all the advice you gave me earlier.

I've seen this message myself when I had first gotten my Kobo Wi-Fi; it had to do with the fact that I was using the 1.6 version that I had downloaded from Kobo's site prior to purchasing my first kobo. Using the 1.7 version of the software which was on the kobo wi-fi itself fixed this particular problem for me... Albeit, I haven't tried with a 64bit version of the OS... could always format one of my systems and test it out...

[Diane Stanley]

Okay I see I have the 1.6 version. How do I get the 1.7 version from the WiFi? This may sort that problem.

[kadnium]

Yes, I can confirm that if you run the version off of the web site (v1.6) on a 64bit machine then you will get this error message. If you install the version off of your kobo device (v1.7) then it will sync.

[kadnium]

Originally Posted by Diane Stanley

Okay I see I have the 1.6 version. How do I get the 1.7 version from the WiFi? This may sort that problem.

Its on the kobo device. You can run it when you hook up your device to your computer. Its in the "[DRIVE LETTER]:\Desktop Installers\Windows" folder.