Firmware 4.1.7729

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by allovertheglobe

And in terms of unhelpful customer support: I know it's frustrating on your end, but on the other side the rep cannot magically come up with a solution or fix the firmware, that's the job of the engineer(s), who conveniently don't interface with you... and while the rep can forward the issue, they cannot enforce any kind of urgency.

Sometimes all the rep can do is try to be polite and suggest a generic solution, even if he/she knows it won't do much :/

Well, not a magical solution but listening to the customer. When you give information, and they have you some time following generic instructions you have said you've already done and then ask again about the initial info and say "nothing can be done" or "I'll give the info"...

[koboy]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I wonder what you have to say about Samsung and the Note 7 then. A considerably more expensive device with an even worse battery issue. At least, I haven't heard of any airplanes being evacuated for a KA1.

i wouldn't buy any of them obviously.

best wishes koboy

[rtiangha]

Originally Posted by koboy

my guess is that some of the KA1 just have crap batteries.

best wishes koboy

Could also be a fuel chip or its driver, if the KA1 has such a thing. These wild battery swings remind me of what my Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet had. The problem was Samsung's Dynamic Voltage Frequency Switching driver which eventually borked the fuel chip to the point that you needed to do a battery pull just to reset the chip so it could calculate the battery's remaining voltage properly (it'd shut the device off at 0% but in reality, there was still 60% worth of power left and charging or discharging would sometimes suddenly jump by 10s of percentage points). The workaround was to just disable the driver because it wasn't worth the grief (the intent was for better power saving by throttling the voltage during periods of low loads, but obviously, it didn't work properly). I wonder if it's something like that affecting the KA1s. It'd be easy to verify the amount of charge left on the battery with a multimeter to see if it really matches what the Kobo thinks it's at.

[koboy]

Originally Posted by rtiangha

Could also be a fuel chip or its driver, if the KA1 has such a thing. These wild battery swings remind me of what my Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet had. The problem was Samsung's Dynamic Voltage Frequency Switching driver which eventually borked the fuel chip to the point that you needed to do a battery pull just to reset the chip so it could calculate the battery's remaining voltage properly (it'd shut the device off at 0% but in reality, there was still 60% worth of power left). The workaround was to just disable the driver because it wasn't worth the grief (the intent was for better power saving by throttling the voltage during periods of low loads, but obviously, it didn't work properly). I wonder if it's something like that affecting the KA1s.

whatever is causing the problems with the KA1 let's hope Kobo can resolve them to the customer's satisfaction.

best wishes koboy

[manxam]

Originally Posted by allovertheglobe

For those who keep having the battery drain issue: Based on the release notes from the Goodereader page, it seems to be tied to syncing (automatically even when "asleep"). Have you tried manually disabling WiFi and only enable it for the duration of a manual sync?

I know it's less convenient, but I have always being doing that with all my readers to maximise battery life, and thus also with the KA1, and at least that is one issue I haven't had, even with the previous firmware...

And in terms of unhelpful customer support: I know it's frustrating on your end, but on the other side the rep cannot magically come up with a solution or fix the firmware, that's the job of the engineer(s), who conveniently don't interface with you... and while the rep can forward the issue, they cannot enforce any kind of urgency.

Sometimes all the rep can do is try to be polite and suggest a generic solution, even if he/she knows it won't do much :/

In my case, I have always kept WiFi off on ereaders as well as disabling auto sync as I sideload 99.99999999% of my books. The only time these are enabled is when a new firmware update has hit. Usually I'm too impatient to wait to get it and just end up sideloading that too

Regarding the CSR, I just want the RMA that they originally promised me back on Sept 18. Twice a day charging HAS to be hardware...

[allovertheglobe]

I proposed the WiFi off as a potential solution, or at the least one possibility to eliminate.

I haven't followed the thread in full, but if indeed the issue remains even with the WiFi radio turned off, then that seems to point to another problem indeed.

Could be the firmware (some process running amuck, not just using up power but also perhaps preventing the reader from going to sleep?) I've had that happen on computers, but of course there is no easy way to access the equivalent of a Task Manager or Activity Monitor on the Kobo, esp. stock.

Or otherwise indeed the hardware, i.e. battery, in which case there's no other fix than a replacement.

Battery life hasn't great on mine either, and the backlight is not super-even (I liken it to slightly unevenly yellowed paper, so in that sense it doesn't bug me), but nothing like some of the cases I've read about here... Maybe some QA issue as the orders were rushed out to meet the demand? I certainly hope it will be resolved one way or another!

[John F]

Originally Posted by allovertheglobe

...

And in terms of unhelpful customer support: I know it's frustrating on your end, but on the other side the rep cannot magically come up with a solution or fix the firmware, that's the job of the engineer(s), who conveniently don't interface with you... and while the rep can forward the issue, they cannot enforce any kind of urgency.

Sometimes all the rep can do is try to be polite and suggest a generic solution, even if he/she knows it won't do much :/

As far as customer support...

I don't care if it the reps fault, the engineer, the CEO, "the email server is down", "our computers are acting up", ... it is all bad Customer Service to me. Fix it.

[haydnfan]

I looked over this thread, might have missed, but it looks like no one has talked about the cover issues yet? Does this firmware update fix the problems with the ereader not properly sleeping and accidental page turns through the cover?

[soulfuldog]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

But that is standard CS, by my experience (and it always irks me)

Originally Posted by Katsunami

The one thing that is worse is if the CS-rep DOES listen to you telling him "I have already reboot, reset, formatted, whatever", and then says:

"Very good. It didn't resolve the problem?"
- "No, it didn't." (If it did, I wouldn't be calling... you feel this one coming...)
"Try it again. If it still fails, call again."

RAAAAARRGGGHHH.....

Hmm, yes depressingly true!

Still think linking to a goodereader article is less than impressive, even for Kobo CS.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by haydnfan

I looked over this thread, might have missed, but it looks like no one has talked about the cover issues yet? Does this firmware update fix the problems with the ereader not properly sleeping and accidental page turns through the cover?

So far it seems to have helped with the issue though I only noticed the page turn when closing/opening the cover a couple of times on the older firmware. On two occasions, I have noticed that when I left the cover open and the sleep timer kicked in, the light turned out but the page of text was still shown instead of the normal sleep screen.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I have installed the new firmware and am much happier with my KA1 now. The highlighting process seems to be significantly improved, although still not as good as my Kindles. I like the Downloaded filter and the ability to return Overdrive books.

[allovertheglobe]

Well, I finally got the update myself, and at least I can confirm that they DID fix the issue with being unable to connect to hidden WiFi networks that I had brought up earlier (in a different thread)

[Zaroff]

I read above the comment about CS being a tough job and all, but frankly, are Kobo CS playing idiots on purpose, or is it natural?

After telling them I did install 4.1.7729 and still having battery problems (twice more, after the first time I did tell them), here's the response:

"This update should have resolved these software issues. We highly recommend connecting your device to your computer and opening the Kobo Desktop Application to ensure that the update installed correctly."

How dumb can you get?

EDIT: Ok, these people are officially idiots. After explaining twice yesterday the hiccups and weirdness of battery stuff in details, here's what I get just now: "Can you please describe the battery issues that you are experiencing?"
I won't comment further or I'd get rude.

[Willa]

Originally Posted by Zaroff

I read above the comment about CS being a tough job and all, but frankly, are Kobo CS playing idiots on purpose, or is it natural?

After telling them I did install 4.1.7729 and still having battery problems (twice more, after the first time I did tell them), here's the response:

"This update should have resolved these software issues. We highly recommend connecting your device to your computer and opening the Kobo Desktop Application to ensure that the update installed correctly."

How dumb can you get?

EDIT: Ok, these people are officially idiots. After explaining twice yesterday the hiccups and weirdness of battery stuff in details, here's what I get just now: "Can you please describe the battery issues that you are experiencing?"
I won't comment further or I'd get rude.

I thought you were going to ebay yours - and go to a different supplier of tablets?

[Zaroff]

Indeed I'll be forced to, which sucks, because I absolutely love the hardware and the size. But I feel like beta testing the thing at best, which is not the experience I want to have with an ereader.

I was trying to check with Kobo if they had plans to further correct the problems me and a few others are having battery wise, but as described above, they're clueless.

So, yeah. I'm probably going to sell it, regretfully. If I could return it for a new one, I'd try that, but the nice delay on the firmware supposed fix took me past the return window where I bought it. So...