Firmware 4.31.19086

[rashkae]

Looks like it's been over 2.5 months since this train wreck has been released, and neither fixed nor pulled. This is really really bad. I'm able to work around the problem myself, but I could never suggest buying a kobo to a lay person.. Heck,, I could not at this time, in good conscious, even give one away. It's only a recipee for needing tech support.. and nobody wants another device they need tech help with to read books..

And the thing is,, after this experience and treatment from kobo,, even if they released a fix the second I hit 'Post'... unless something *really* drastic changes, I have 0 faith that
they won't do something like this again at some time in the future.

And that makes me sad, because after having gotten used to the remarkably superior kobo screens, using a Kindle again, even the new PW5, is a painful experience.

[compurandom]

Originally Posted by rashkae

And that makes me sad, because after having gotten used to the remarkably superior kobo screens, using a Kindle again, even the new PW5, is a painful experience.

I'm still not convinced this is a new bug. I think it's been around a while, it just got worse.

It seems like a race condition, those are hard to fix.

[Quoth]

January to mid April, more like 3 months.

Writing good software is slow. Testing and debugging can take x10 longer. These are intermittent bugs so hard to find. Then the sw needs rewritten and tested again.

I've seen many worse versions of Windows. At least unlike the Kindle you can revert to earlier 4.29.x or 4.28.x firmware, quite easily. No reversion on Kindle at all without a jailbreak, which isn't always possible.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by Quoth

More Sage bugs on this FW:
1) Occasionally Page Forward and Page Back buttons stop working
a) Sometimes after swipe they re-activate.
b) If a swipe doesn't reactivate the buttons, then Home does.

2) On one occasion after going to "Home" screen the last read book (created/converted by Calibre & passing checks) wouldn't open. Error something like Adobe Digital Editions not authorised. Sleep/wake didn't help. Power off and on resulted in it being "fixed", but book position was earlier in the chapter.

The first was around in earlier firmware 4.31 reduced how often I’ve seen it pop up, and reduced the number of times going to the Home Screen or sleeping the Sage were needed.

The second has been around for a lot longer and on multiple devices. Though I’m not sure what causes it. It’s not something to lay at the feet of this firmware version.

[rashkae]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I've seen many worse versions of Windows.

I've seen worse on Windows, and I've seen worse on Kindle,, but you know what? When MS or Amazon let something like this out the gate,, it gets pulled.. there is no excuse to still be forcing this update to people months after it was revealed to be so defective. (And pls, spare me the 'you can hack the device so it's not really forced.... I know.)

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by rashkae

… When MS or Amazon let something like this out the gate,, it gets pulled.. there is no excuse to still be forcing this update to people months after it was revealed to be so defective. …

WinME didn't get pulled (The earlier Win 98SE was the last proper release in that family), but usually such disasters are rolled back. Win 7 ought to have been free to Vista users, it was really just a bug fix. I don't understand why even last week 4.31.19086 is still the automatic OTA update rather than the last one for a model before 4.30.x; it's baffling.

Perhaps very few people are complaining? The lack of repeatability of the bugs is unusual and may lead them to think the situation is better than it is.

Most people with a Kobo would not know this site and only a subset of users of Kobos on this site know how easy a revert to an earlier version is.

[mesamay2003]

I have not had any of these issues, and I side load most of my books via calibre on my Libra 2. The only issue I've had with the latest firmware (and it might be unrelated to the firmware) is that my Libra will freeze in sleep mode using certain usb-c chargers.

[Calenorn]

We don't know if Kobo is aware of these issues.

If they are, we don't know if they find them important enough to try to fix.

If they do, we don't know whether they will push revised firmware, or wait for the next version.

Not knowing is frustrating.

What I DO know, is that every time we plug a Kobo into a PC, we're gambling with database corruption. It detracts from my enjoyment using the device.

[ownedbycats]

I believe davidfor confirmed that Kobo is aware, though I can't find the post (it's possibly in a different thread).

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by Calenorn

We don't know if Kobo is aware of these issues.

If they are, we don't know if they find them important enough to try to fix.

If they do, we don't know whether they will push revised firmware, or wait for the next version.

Not knowing is frustrating.

What I DO know, is that every time we plug a Kobo into a PC, we're gambling with database corruption. It detracts from my enjoyment using the device.

I asked earlier in this thread I believe if using Sherman’s KoboUNCaged mod ran the same risks. Would be great if someone who’s been able to reproduce these bugs reliably could chime in on that.

In conjunction with NickelSeries this could alleviate a lot of the need to plug in your Kobo to transfer books.

Obviously we’d all like to see Kobo resolve this issue but at least this could be used in the interim.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Calenorn

We don't know if Kobo is aware of these issues.

If they are, we don't know if they find them important enough to try to fix.

If they do, we don't know whether they will push revised firmware, or wait for the next version.

Not knowing is frustrating.

I seem to remember that it has been posted several times that Kobo is aware of the issues and is working on them. This suggests that it is important enough for them to fix. As an erratic problem, it's going to be fun to make it reproducible and so fixable.

My opinion is that the fix will be in the next firmware release.

Originally Posted by Calenorn

What I DO know, is that every time we plug a Kobo into a PC, we're gambling with database corruption. It detracts from my enjoyment using the device.

As far as I can tell and I do plug my Kobo's into my computers, often multiple times per day, the problem does not happen everyday. My answer was to have the database backed up on every connection so I don't lose much information. Oddly, it adds to my zest in using the device as I find enjoyment in running into problems and trying to locate root causes.

Given my opinion that the majority of Kobo users do not plug their Kobos into a computer once per month much less multiple times per day and once again the ereader users found around MobileRead are not representative of the majority of the users. I base that opinion on the Kobo users I know who use WiFi for obtaining books whether purchased or library loans.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Given my opinion that the majority of Kobo users do not plug their Kobos into a computer once per month much less multiple times per day and once again the ereader users found around MobileRead are not representative of the majority of the users. I base that opinion on the Kobo users I know who use WiFi for obtaining books whether purchased or library loans.

While all my books are sideloaded and I don't read library books, I plug my Kobos into my PC once in a couple of months or so. I just load a lot of books at once, so I have no need to do it again for a long while (unless there's a book I want to read immediately, but that doesn't happen very often).

[JLB14]

Hi,

I'm on 4.30 (patched Sage), better to avoid 4.31 ?

Thanks.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by JLB14

Hi,

I'm on 4.30 (patched Sage), better to avoid 4.31 ?

Thanks.

If you sideload frequently, I'd suggest staying on 4.30 for now.

[JLB14]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

If you sideload frequently, I'd suggest staying on 4.30 for now.

Duly noted, I'm staying on 4.30, thanks.