Aura Kobo Aura ONE issues

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Arbait

No problem to connect KA1 firmware 7729 by USB to the KOBE desktop / file explorer of my PC win 10 pro 1607 / 64 BUT as soon that i connect the ereader with Calibre (portable 2.70) i get a BSOD.

As well as DNSB's suggestions, was calibre running when you connected? There have been some problems were calibre isn't recognising devices properly if it is running when the device is plugged in. But, everything is OK if they start calibre after the OS has finished mounting the device. It's something in the timing of everything involved. I don't expect BSODs with calibre, but that's about the only thing I can think of.

[gtim108]

Originally Posted by Zaroff

EDIT: There are the screens variations. No way that can be justified, or excused. Besides, which one am I supposed to determine looks normal and the way it has to?

It seems that the time setting are different on those two devices. Could you, please, check the date/time on them.

[Zaroff]

Not sure how you thought that was the case?

But no, they're both set at the exact same date/time (just verified), and if you look closer you'll see that the automatic triggers for light/natural light are disabled, so that couldn't account for the spectacular difference.

[gtim108]

Thought that it could be not a hardware problem, but a software. May be it anyway decides to use auto triggering even if it is off. If this was the reason it could be also because one of the device still has a plastic cover on the screen.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Zaroff

I've read in some other thread that it's to be "expected" since it's part of battery calibration. Really? I've owned many more portable/rechargeable devices than I care to remember, from cellphones to laptops to iThings to DAPs etc, and I've never met some such battery "conditioning".

Originally Posted by Zaroff

I understand what you mean, but as much as a lot of devices do have battery recalibration option (which I do regularly on a Macbook for example), wild fluctuations all over the place the way KA1 does, while in use, I've yet to see.

When I last updated the battery firmware on my laptop, the % and/or hours remaining (depending on which I had set to display) jumped all over the place until I did the battery gauge reset. I had 2 or 3 virtual machines open and the remaining run time jumped from 30 minutes to 3 hours and then back to 30 minutes within a 5 minute period. What I've seen on a KA1 is more in the of a fast drop in a short period rather than wild fluctuations which would suggest a swing in both directions.

OTOH, I do find the discrepancy between your two posts quoted above to be a bit odd. You've never seen any battery recalibration or 'met some such battery "conditioning"' as you referred to it and you do it regularly on a MacBook?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Zaroff

I'll clarify:

The 10% drop is what happened to many, i.e. starting to use the device and reading and, a few minutes later, dropping 10% battery level. When I say a few minutes, it's five, max. And that indeed does remain with 4.1.7729. As well as the bug regarding the auto sleep, but that's another story, I could live with that.

And did it drop another 10% in the next five minutes? And what was the device doing before this? Was it sleeping, you woke the device, checked the battery level read for five minutes and checked the battery level again. If that is close to what you were doing, it is likely that the first level had not been updated yet from what it was before the device went to sleep.

At the end of the day, owing to the screen/battery cocktail, that's 2 failing units out of 2. That computes to 100% lemon. 100% dud.

I maintain KA1 wasn't fit for release so soon. Stubborn facts demonstrate it.

P.S.: I should also note that all the above happened with, very probably, two different batches, since the reseller went out of stock between my first and second unit. So there's that.

Have you compared the serial numbers to see if they are from the same batch?

Originally Posted by Zaroff

Sorry to burst your bubble, but as far as I am concerned (quote me mentioning all the KA1 out there are lemons), it is indeed factually 100% dud. I didn't speak for others' units, I mentioned the two I had, in a row. Both of which indeed are badly flawed.

Yes, you have two devices that the firmware 4.1.7729 didn't help, and others have reported similar things. But the reports of it helping far outnumber the reports that it didn't. That suggests that it is your devices or something you are doing that is using the battery heavily. it could just as easily be a faulty device as faulty hardware.

Other than that, there are other threads where not only such things re battery have been mentioned (which, again, as best I remember, didn't assert every KA1 out there meets their case), but also sport photo evidence of the ridiculous screen variations. Which makes choosing a KA1 a visual Russian roulette.

You may not like posts tarnishing your fave brand, but then again, had they gotten their act together (KA1 from what I can see generates many more problems than other models, I never had any worries with the Glo HD for example), these posts wouldn't spawn up as much as they are now. Eh.

And over the last couple of months while I have been running exactly the same firmware on my Glo HD as is run on the Aura ONE. I have been seeing unexpected high battery usage and I have seen those problems fixed with firmware 4.1.7729. There are obviously reasons that the Aura ONE would use power when the Glo HD doesn't and I can't test those, but I think the worst culprit was fixed.

Please note: I am not claiming that firmware 4.1.7729 is perfect. Obviously it is not. But, it is much better than the previous release.

[Zaroff]

First, thanks for the lengthy addressing of the various problems, and thanks to all trying to help here.

So:
-I woke up the device, and since I've become rather wary, started by checking the battery level from the home page, which was then 72%. I opened the book I currently have ongoing, which was like 20 seconds after waking up, checked again, 72%. I didn't time it, but between 2 or 3 minutes after reading proper started, I rechecked, and it was then at 61%.

-I was wondering about that. How is the SN structured? Maybe that can be easily determined.

-I'm not sure what I could be doing that would trigger the faults I observed; I've wondered about that too. I sideload 99% of the books I read, and after that, basically do nothing but open and close books. That's it. No fancy stuff, no internet browsing, no OverDrive, etc. When I'm done reading, I put it to sleep, and that's it.

-And that's the interesting thing: did you observe anything alike to such problems on the Glo HD at all? If not, then it would suggest to me that at least a sizeable portion of the KA1 out there have a faulty battery controller, which would make it a hardware issue. And that's much more of a problem than eventually waiting for a FW correction.

Hope that helped.

[Zaroff]

Originally Posted by DNSB

OTOH, I do find the discrepancy between your two posts quoted above to be a bit odd. You've never seen any battery recalibration or 'met some such battery "conditioning"' as you referred to it and you do it regularly on a MacBook?

My bad, what I meant was that I haven't seen, on another device, when you look at the remaining battery measured in percentage -not time, such wide fluctuations while in use that I'm observing with both KA1. In other words, if battery is miscalibrated, it can be off a few percent globally until you recalibrated, but it doesn't jump around like KA1 does.

Of course battery recalibration is a fact of life on most modern devices using that type of battery. Sorry that was unclear.

[hkckoo]

Zaroff, about the QC, no one evergave me a straight answer on this. do you also have a small gap around your whole front panel? I have it on mine, the gap on left side is even bigger than the other sides. so I can say the front panel isnt even centered right. the gap si 1mm wide, 2mm on left side. (what is the point of a flush screen at this point?) the gap is collecting dust like crazy and its been bugging me since day one. its like humans were assembling them together and not machines. Im not even going to dip it in the water at this point.

[Zaroff]

I do have the gap on the left side on the replacement unit. The previous one, "Orange" KA1 as I've grown fond of calling it, doesn't, the front panel is centered correctly. And yes it attracts dust, which it shouldn't.

[hkckoo]

jesus christ, thanks for the info. this is really something, premium e-reader all right. I will never undestand why they decided to put in a flush screen and then left a gap around the whole front panel, so dust can still accumulate, wth.

[Arbait]

Originally Posted by DNSB

So the blue screen does not occur when you connect the KA1 without Calibre? The Kobo desktop app and Windows Explorer are able to mount the exposed partition, update, copy files, etc.? Have you tried installing the 64bit version of Calibre instead of using the portable version? Have you checked your computer manufacturers site for any driver updates (especially any that are USB related if you are using a USB 3.0 port)?

Originally Posted by davidfor

As well as DNSB's suggestions, was calibre running when you connected? There have been some problems were calibre isn't recognising devices properly if it is running when the device is plugged in. But, everything is OK if they start calibre after the OS has finished mounting the device. It's something in the timing of everything involved. I don't expect BSODs with calibre, but that's about the only thing I can think of.

Thank you guys. Here a movie with Win 10 BSOD with KA1 + Calibre on my PC.
Kobo desktop app and Windows Explorer, all OK, mount the partition, copy files... Immediately after i start 64bit version of Calibre i get a BSOD.
View My Video

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Zaroff

First, thanks for the lengthy addressing of the various problems, and thanks to all trying to help here.

So:
-I woke up the device, and since I've become rather wary, started by checking the battery level from the home page, which was then 72%. I opened the book I currently have ongoing, which was like 20 seconds after waking up, checked again, 72%. I didn't time it, but between 2 or 3 minutes after reading proper started, I rechecked, and it was then at 61%.

How long was it sleeping? And did it keep going down at that rate?

After waking, the device does do a few things such as attempt to sync the status for the current book. That shouldn't use that much battery, so I'm tending towards it taking more than a few seconds before it gets the battery level. Unfortunately, I can't think of an easy way to prove it.

-I was wondering about that. How is the SN structured? Maybe that can be easily determined.

The first four characters should be the model number. The rest, I don't know. But, the more similar they are, especially if only the last two or three characters are different, the more likely they are from the same batch.

-I'm not sure what I could be doing that would trigger the faults I observed; I've wondered about that too. I sideload 99% of the books I read, and after that, basically do nothing but open and close books. That's it. No fancy stuff, no internet browsing, no OverDrive, etc. When I'm done reading, I put it to sleep, and that's it.

Nothing unusual in that. There have been some problems with books with errors that trigger a problem and leave a background task running. Or killing a background task. Until the device is restarted, the background task is using power.

Also, a book with unusually large internal files would probably use more CPU when rendering a chapter. That shouldn't be the case here, but it could be an attributing factor.

-And that's the interesting thing: did you observe anything alike to such problems on the Glo HD at all? If not, then it would suggest to me that at least a sizeable portion of the KA1 out there have a faulty battery controller, which would make it a hardware issue. And that's much more of a problem than eventually waiting for a FW correction.

I saw the problems related to sync that were being reported. There were one or two other things that happened to drain the battery quickly, but, they always happened at a time I couldn't do any investigation. In all cases, restarting the device stopped the drain for a while. Of course, if it is a hardware fault in the Aura ONE, then comparing to the other devices won't help.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Zaroff

My bad, what I meant was that I haven't seen, on another device, when you look at the remaining battery measured in percentage -not time, such wide fluctuations while in use that I'm observing with both KA1. In other words, if battery is miscalibrated, it can be off a few percent globally until you recalibrated, but it doesn't jump around like KA1 does.

Of course battery recalibration is a fact of life on most modern devices using that type of battery. Sorry that was unclear.

That clarifies it. Thanks.

[crissman]

How long does it take for the firmware to update after sideloading the files and unmounting? My KA1 hasn't updated yet and it has been 15 minutes? I kinda expected it to do it immediately. I received my KA1 September20 after 2 days I contacted Kobo and after several, do this, email us that.. I get a email saying take a photo of the front and back of the KA1 and email your Proof of Purchase and they will respond in 24-48 hours.. that time passed (4 days) and I resent the required info and get a response saying please wait 24-48 because it now needs to be elevated to the replacement dept. Ok now it has been 7 days. I sent them another email asking WHATS UP!!! It has been 3 weeks since i received the device.. SO frustrated and now the sideloading update doesn't seem to be applying.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Crissman