Kobo Firmware 3.11.0

[arspr]

But sharpness is just reduced to the edge of the font. It just make the font smooth but slightly blurry or sharp but somehow "aliased".

I wouldn't say that sharpness/smoothness is seen as darker/lighter...

[Risto40]

omg, wanted to continue to read my pdf book today (hadn't read any pdf book on firmware 3.11). They still hasn't fix the HUGE delay issue, which started a few firmware versions ago. So angry.. shut down Glo without reading any line. Why they break working things?

[Chi Cygni]

For what's it worth I got 3.11.0 OTA today on H2O, straight from 3.7

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Risto40

omg, wanted to continue to read my pdf book today (hadn't read any pdf book on firmware 3.11). They still hasn't fix the HUGE delay issue, which started a few firmware versions ago. So angry.. shut down Glo without reading any line. Why they break working things?

Which firmware version was it OK in?

And I wouldn't expect any change. PDF problems are almost definitely low priority as the overall experience reading PDF on a 6" e-ink screen is not good.

[arspr]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Which firmware version was it OK in?

And I wouldn't expect any change. PDF problems are almost definitely low priority as the overall experience reading PDF on a 6" e-ink screen is not good.

I haven't experienced it but in the dedicated thread ottdmk said that FW 3.2 was OK.

And I'm not going to say anything about priorities and Kobo leaving BUGs forever and ever without resolution...

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by arspr

I haven't experienced it but in the dedicated thread ottdmk said that FW 3.2 was OK.

From that post, it probably is the updated RMSDK. That was rolled out in 3.5.0. If that is the case, then it needs a fix there.

And I'm not going to say anything about priorities and Kobo leaving BUGs forever and ever without resolution...

Personally, I hope that improving the performance of PDF reading is down near the bottom of Kobo's priorities.

[aceflor]

Originally Posted by arspr

But sharpness is just reduced to the edge of the font. It just make the font smooth but slightly blurry or sharp but somehow "aliased".

I wouldn't say that sharpness/smoothness is seen as darker/lighter...

It may appear darker in some cases, but most of all it appears.. sharper. Duh, I know, but for me, in my reading experience, it makes a huge difference. I wear glasses to read and they make me see everything so much sharper (the new ones I had made this summer really changed my reading and working life) so I indeed do see the sharpness difference for instance between the H2O and the KV when I am wearing them, and I see the sharpness or lack of it on some fonts that I have sideloaded. I don't want them bolder, I want them sharper. Bolder used to work for me with my old glasses but not with the new ones. I want sharp. But I understand it's probably only me and not relevant for others.

[Risto40]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Which firmware version was it OK in?

And I wouldn't expect any change. PDF problems are almost definitely low priority as the overall experience reading PDF on a 6" e-ink screen is not good.

If I am correct, then there was not delays in 2-3 versions ago. Sadly I do not remember the correct fw number. Currently I need to wait 30-60 seconds to turn page. And several minutes to open a pdf book.

[lensmann]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I had completely forgot about this, but, Kobo removed the annotation option from the menu when reading PDF in 3.11.0. But, they didn't take away the ability to create a bookmark. There are two ways to get to them. From the tile and from the library list. If you long press on a book in the library, the menu will have an "Annotations" option if the book has annotations.

Thank you for the reply. Do you know if it was a deliberate design decision, or an unintended change? It seems an odd move. The Aura HD is the best PDF reading device out there, and I'm sure I'm not the only one for whom that was a factor.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by lensmann

Thank you for the reply. Do you know if it was a deliberate design decision, or an unintended change? It seems an odd move. The Aura HD is the best PDF reading device out there, and I'm sure I'm not the only one for whom that was a factor.

I suspect it was an unattended change when they upgraded the Adobe RMSDK to version 10.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by lensmann

Thank you for the reply. Do you know if it was a deliberate design decision, or an unintended change? It seems an odd move. The Aura HD is the best PDF reading device out there, and I'm sure I'm not the only one for whom that was a factor.

It was a deliberate change. I commented on it during the beta as they removed the menu item but you could still create bookmarks and access the annotations in other ways.

[filmo]

Adobe is well known for good PDF software and I think it should be really embarrassing to have Adobe name associated with such poor PDF book reading software if it is part of Adobe RMSDK to version 10. I know better free/open source PDF reading software is available than what comes with Kobo readers.

[PeterT]

I remember this discussion before on the PDF issues. Did we ever get a test document that could be shown to be faster on the old f/w than the new?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I remember this discussion before on the PDF issues. Did we ever get a test document that could be shown to be faster on the old f/w than the new?

Not to my knowledge. I just dropped the PDFs that I had in my test library onto my Glo. The largest has 1272 pages but, apart from the first page, it is all text. That opened in less than five seconds and turn pages in less than 1.

Then I looked through the MR library. I started at the top looking for things that might be big and have images. I didn't look very hard but found https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21585, https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=102775 and https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=161140. Probably not big enough and not many images. But, still no problems opening them.

Then I remembered I have some manuals. The instruction manual for the TV is 21.2MB and reasonably complicated. And similarly, the manual for the soundbar is 7.44MB. Both of these have a complicated layout with lots of images.

The TV manual opens quickly and turns pages reasonably quickly. The page turns that are slow are to more complicated pages. It isn't fast, but it is better than I expected. The longest was maybe ten seconds. Most are well under five.

The soundbar manual might be the test case. It is taking close to 30 seconds to open. Turning the page depends on the page. Turning to the text only contents page is less than a second.But, turning to page before or after is a lot slower. Still, not many pages took 10 seconds to turn. Again, most were under five.

Is that slow? Yes. It is slower than I would like, but, based on the comments made, I was expecting it to be a lot worse. Maybe that means these manuals aren't good tests. If someone tries them on older firmware and they are a lot quicker, then there is a case. Otherwise someone needs to find a test case that more of us can look at. Even better would be several test cases. That would help to work out if there is a pattern or if it is just the one book.

And I should say my testing is on beta firmware*. It is possible I am seeing different results than 3.11.0, but I wouldn't expect it to be different. If someone wants to check them, that would be good.

* Don't ask, I'm not going to answer even with a redacted list. Or at least, not yet

[arspr]

About pdf tests:

Slow PDF sample. Ottdmk opened a Dropbox link with one slow file. And it's not a bit slower, it's FREAKISHLY slower, it's not a question of "why is my pdf reader 1s slower now"?

The problem is that it's a copyrighted book so you cannot freely post it (or even commenting about sharing it even for testing purposes). Nevertheless, I've just tested the Dropbox link and it's fully alive. But as you can imagine I'm not going to forward it to anybody.

I haven't found any free sample. The problem is that this issue doesn't seem to be related to the book size. That conflictive file is just 16 Mb and I've tested 90Mb books without trouble.

Crashing PDF sample. Canon EOS 7D Mark II AF Guide (6.6 Mb) This file also has some trouble with Calibre and other software like Nitro PDF reader, (as PeterT posted).

Calibre cannot access it to extract the cover. I even opened a bug report to Kovid, and at the end he said it must be a problem in pdftoppm module from poppler and suggested opening a bug there, what I did.

In this case my wild guess is that the AES encryption with 256bit long key is causing havoc in obsolete unprepared renderers.

Nevertheless, as there's a dedicated thread for these issues I suppose we should use that thread instead of this general FW 3.11.

Originally Posted by filmo

Adobe is well known for good PDF software and I think it should be really embarrassing to have Adobe name associated with such poor PDF book reading software if it is part of Adobe RMSDK to version 10. I know better free/open source PDF reading software is available than what comes with Kobo readers.

Adobe is the PARENT of pdf... So I agree with you, if pdf are managed through RMSDK (I really don't know) and the problem is in RMSDK and not in Kobo implementation of it, yes it's should be quite embarrasing for them, because, as Ken Maltby insisted, Koreader has no problem rendering them...