Patches for Firmware 4.45.23646

[bluepeter]

Originally Posted by cmoim

The patch is not applied at all no matter what options I turned on "yes" ,
I generate the update file in the "out" folder just as normal.

However when I update my Kobo, no matter the patch I apply, it does not take effect.

Have you tried using @MrSilverstrike's web UI? (See post #14 in this thread.)

I've been having a little play with it this afternoon (and very nice it is, too, from the perspective of a prospective user with no relevant technical expertise). I happened to notice that the P365 is a device option within it.

[JSWolf]

@MrSilverstrike there is a serious issue here. If you pick a patch that does not apply, you have to start over. It should take you back to where you've picked your patches so you can unselect the patch that does not apply instead of making you start over.

[MrSilverstrike]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

@MrSilverstrike there is a serious issue here. If you pick a patch that does not apply, you have to start over. It should take you back to where you've picked your patches so you can unselect the patch that does not apply instead of making you start over.

Yup, that's definitely something that needs to be fixed, thanks for pointing it out. The front-end was slapped together in a day or so. I'm going to be making significant changes to that and handle the non-happy path(s) a bit better.

Do you know of a specific combination of patches that always fails to patch? Would be easy to have that as a reference point. If there's any known conflicts, perhaps that can be handled in the front-end too.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MrSilverstrike

Yup, that's definitely something that needs to be fixed, thanks for pointing it out. The front-end was slapped together in a day or so. I'm going to be making significant changes to that and handle the non-happy path(s) a bit better.

Do you know of a specific combination of patches that always fails to patch? Would be easy to have that as a reference point. If there's any known conflicts, perhaps that can be handled in the front-end too.

The ones mentioned in post #2 do not work. I don't know which others no longer work. Also, do you have the latest patches as the one to make both buttons go forward has been redone so it now works.

[bluepeter]

@MrSilverstrike I've been playing around with your web UI a bit more. As I said above, I think it's generally terrific. Thank you for developing it and making it available to us lesser mortals.

Having said that, if I just install NickelMenu using your UI without any configuration, it doesn't work as I'd have expected. I put in my own config file and found that I still had a load of menu items that I didn't want (presumably what you consider a basic set), in addition to those that I did want. I'm also not at all sure that I like replacing the name NickelMenu with Tweak - especially as "tweak", to me, means patches. Obviously, that's purely a matter of personal preference.

The only way that I could get it working as I wanted again was to do a factory reset and a manual reinstallation of NickelMenu.

Patching, however, worked as I expected, with the proviso that I consciously avoided patches that I knew wouldn't work.

Hardware used was a Clara BW (N365).

[MrSilverstrike]

Originally Posted by bluepeter

I put in my own config file and found that I still had a load of menu items that I didn't want (presumably what you consider a basic set), in addition to those that I did want.

Oh, that's a mistake then -- thanks for testing and letting me know. I'll make sure that's fixed. It's supposed to just install NickelMenu without a config file or the renamed item, it's definitely a bug if "Tweak" showed up on your device.

I'm currently fixing all of the bugs, this one should also be fixed soon. I'm making sure each of the flows is included in the end-to-end tests w/ expected output.

[bluepeter]

Originally Posted by MrSilverstrike

Oh, that's a mistake then -- thanks for testing and letting me know. I'll make sure that's fixed. It's supposed to just install NickelMenu without a config file or the renamed item, it's definitely a bug if "Tweak" showed up on your device.

I'm currently fixing all of the bugs, this one should also be fixed soon. I'm making sure each of the flows is included in the end-to-end tests w/ expected output.

Many thanks. As I said, I'm very grateful to you for making this UI available. It's a brilliant idea and, from a user perspective, generally very well executed.

In an ideal world, I suppose that what I'd really like to see is a long list of options for NickelMenu from which I can select the ones that I want - i.e., as you've done for the patches.

[JSWolf]

@MrSilerstrike there is something you can do to make this even better. In the ZIP file is the file kobopatch.yaml. That is where you put in all of your yes or no. Also in there are some comments that let you know that some patches do not work. What you can do is read that file and for the patches that do not work, display them, but say they don't work and don't allow them to be selected.

And one thing you can do that would help. If anyone using this selects a patch that throws up an error, log it and post in this thread that it doesn't work and I can update the ZIP file and the second post. Then you can read in the new file and so on. That way, we can whittle done which patches do not work.

Are you using the patches from the current ZIP file? There have been some changes since it was originally posted.

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And one thing you can do that would help. If anyone using this selects a patch that throws up an error, log it and post in this thread that it doesn't work and I can update the ZIP file and the second post. Then you can read in the new file and so on. That way, we can whittle done which patches do not work.

You know I wrote a tool for that which I use to maintain the patches (I should really get back to that...).

I could put together a guide (or otherwise show you and jackie_w) about how to do the whole patch thing and do proper releases on GitHub.

The main idea is:

1. Create a GitHub issue to track the stuff for the firmware version.
2. Run mktestdata in kobopatch-testdata on all firmware zips and ensure they're the same, then commit one of them (if I haven't already done that).
3. Extract the testdata.
4. Run symdump (from kobopatch) on nickel and libnickel (optional, but useful for debugging), and sort+diff the names (strongly recommended to get an idea of what changed).
5. Run strings on nickel and libnickel and diff it (strongly recommended to get an idea of what changed).
6. Run armqrc.py (from qrc) and qrc2zip on nickel (optional, but useful for writing patches).
7. Copy the previous firmware folder in kobopatch-patches src/versions to the new firmware version.
8. Run scripts/test to find the ones which don't work and fix the low-hanging ones.
9. Commit the changes.
10. Commit any fixes for other patches.
11. Test the final patch zip by running scripts/build with the firmware version.
12. Once ready, create tag with name v(prev+1).
13. Wait for the patch zips to be automatically built.
14. Write the release notes and publish the automatically created draft release.
15. Copy the last post from the mr-posts branch and update it for the new firmware info (use kobo-versionextract in koboutils to get it), then post it to MR and commit it back to the branch named after the post ID in the URL.

Alternatively, I could at least add the patch updates so far to the GH repo without creating a release and give you both write access (jackie_w already does) so you can make use of the automated testing without needing to set it all up locally.

[MrSilverstrike]

@bluepeter: Thanks! I will definitely look into a configurator for NickelMenu at some point.

@JSWolf: I last updated the patches in the repo on the 15th, so I think I'm up-to-date? I see the "## Does not work" comments, I should indeed be able to use those.

Alternatively, I could also just try to apply each individual patch programmatically, and see if the patch succeeds. That would also give us a list of broken patches -- but that does not account for patches that may apply but don't actually work as intended on-device.

I tried to generate a quick script that does this and here's the results: https://gist.github.com/nicoverbrugg...c104768c1febe3

Anyway, great idea. I'll put it on the list -- the patch selection screen needs to be updated anyway for patches that are intended to be user configurable.

(Ah, I missed the post from geek1011, oops. That's even better. If that's all automated I could just source the patches in the Web UI from there.)

[geek1011]

TLDR: kobopatch has a -t option to test patches

[Stefen]

Hello, new person here trying to create this patch. I am having the same issue @MrSilverstrike first reported that the patch doesn't seem to apply anything.

There are the patches I said yes to in the libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml file:

Hide browser from beta features
Always show confirmation dialog before upgrading
Never show Kobo Plus, wishlist, and points SmartLinks
FeatureSettings - MyWords


I am trying to follow the instructions provided. I extracted the kobopatch_4.45.23646_v2.zip file. Put the kobo-update-4.45.23646.zip file in the src folder. Changed the patches that I want to install from no to yes and then ran the bash script. I am not sure what I doing wrong here and any direction to apply the patch would be helpful, thank you.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Stefen

I am trying to follow the instructions provided. I extracted the kobopatch_4.45.23646_v2.zip file. Put the kobo-update-4.45.23646.zip file in the src folder. Changed the patches that I want to install from no to yes and then ran the bash script. I am not sure what I doing wrong here and any direction to apply the patch would be helpful, thank you.

Can you post the KoboPatch log file either using SPOILER tags to hide the text or by attaching as a text file?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Stefen

Hello, new person here trying to create this patch. I am having the same issue @MrSilverstrike first reported that the patch doesn't seem to apply anything.

There are the patches I said yes to in the libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml file:

Hide browser from beta features
Always show confirmation dialog before upgrading
Never show Kobo Plus, wishlist, and points SmartLinks
FeatureSettings - MyWords


I am trying to follow the instructions provided. I extracted the kobopatch_4.45.23646_v2.zip file. Put the kobo-update-4.45.23646.zip file in the src folder. Changed the patches that I want to install from no to yes and then ran the bash script. I am not sure what I doing wrong here and any direction to apply the patch would be helpful, thank you.

You've done it incorrectly. You have to put your yes in the kobopatch.yaml file. That has the list of all the patches where you put yes to the ones you want. The kobopatch.yaml file has overrides all of the yes you put in libnickel.so.1.0.0.yaml.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Can you post the KoboPatch log file either using SPOILER tags to hide the text or by attaching as a text file?

The yes need to go in the kobopatch.yaml file.