Firmware 4.38.21908

[npr]

4.38.21908 is showing again on https://pgaskin.net/KoboStuff/kobofirmware.html

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by npr

4.38.21908 is showing again on https://pgaskin.net/KoboStuff/kobofirmware.html

Thanks for that. I'll have to download this in case of any changes.

Just have to wait for the patches before I install.

[tschucha]

Originally Posted by npr

4.38.21908 is showing again on https://pgaskin.net/KoboStuff/kobofirmware.html

Just downloaded this and did a byte for byte comparison. It is exactly the same as the earlier one that was posted ... at least for the Elipsa 2E

[icallaci]

Good to know it's been re-released. Some of the patches from 4.37.21586 don't work on 4.38.21908, though, so apparently there are some significant changes in 4.38.21908. I applied the ones that did work and am hoping Geek1011 has time to look at it and make the necessary changes to the patches.

[franklekens]

Originally Posted by compurandom

I've done this enough times that I have a work around for that.

I use reading list to sync books to the device. When I want to add a book, I add it to a reading list that adds a tag to the book and syncs everything on the list on next connect and clears the list.

I have another reading list that is sync'ed from what is on the device, and sets the flag, so everything on the device gets the flag set eventually.

I have saved searches that give me lists of books that are suppose to be on the device but are not (in case I finish a book and delete it, now I can go mark the book as done and clear the on device tag).

It is possible to soft reset the device and have it rebuild the database without needing to re-sideload all the books (just delete the database), but even if the side loaded books get wiped, I can just select the ones with the tag and schedule them to be sync'ed again. Or weed out the list before I do that. Or send them in small batches over a couple of days when it is convenient...

Thank you, and others for any tips.
I'm not quite sure I understand what this "reading list" is? Is it a feature in Calibre?

Anyway, I was grumbling before I actually did the reboot on the Sage. When I tried re-sideloading my books in batches of 500 at a time, I noticed that wasn't working so well. And I noticed that the device seemed to rebuild it database by itself, althought it seemed to need a few reboots to do it, it couldn't do it all in one go.

All it seemed to be able to rebuild though, was the division into shelves. I had lost all my reading progress on the books I'd been reading *and* any annotations/highlights &c I had added. So the're still annoying, these reboots.

I do have Calibre make a backup of the database every time. Maybe next time I'll try and figure out if I can reinstate that and whether that has better results. (Are highlights &c saved in the database? Or in some other file, so this won't help?)

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by franklekens

Thank you, and others for any tips.
I'm not quite sure I understand what this "reading list" is? Is it a feature in Calibre?

Anyway, I was grumbling before I actually did the reboot on the Sage. When I tried re-sideloading my books in batches of 500 at a time, I noticed that wasn't working so well. And I noticed that the device seemed to rebuild it database by itself, althought it seemed to need a few reboots to do it, it couldn't do it all in one go.

All it seemed to be able to rebuild though, was the division into shelves. I had lost all my reading progress on the books I'd been reading *and* any annotations/highlights &c I had added. So the're still annoying, these reboots.

I do have Calibre make a backup of the database every time. Maybe next time I'll try and figure out if I can reinstate that and whether that has better results. (Are highlights &c saved in the database? Or in some other file, so this won't help?)

Sounds like you have a database corruption. You shouldn’t be running into reboots when sideloading.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by franklekens

Thank you, and others for any tips.
I'm not quite sure I understand what this "reading list" is? Is it a feature in Calibre?

Anyway, I was grumbling before I actually did the reboot on the Sage. When I tried re-sideloading my books in batches of 500 at a time, I noticed that wasn't working so well. And I noticed that the device seemed to rebuild it database by itself, althought it seemed to need a few reboots to do it, it couldn't do it all in one go.

All it seemed to be able to rebuild though, was the division into shelves. I had lost all my reading progress on the books I'd been reading *and* any annotations/highlights &c I had added. So the're still annoying, these reboots.

I do have Calibre make a backup of the database every time. Maybe next time I'll try and figure out if I can reinstate that and whether that has better results. (Are highlights &c saved in the database? Or in some other file, so this won't help?)

The question is, how many of those eBooks have errors? It's possible that the errors in some of the eBooks could be causing the problem.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The question is, how many of those eBooks have errors? It's possible that the errors in some of the eBooks could be causing the problem.

Nope. I've never had this problem with my Sage and I don't check for errors. It must be something else.

[compurandom]

Originally Posted by franklekens

Thank you, and others for any tips.
I'm not quite sure I understand what this "reading list" is? Is it a feature in Calibre?

This is the Reading List plugin... also I use the Smart Eject plugin to automatically check for sync and run the searches before ejecting.

Anyway, I was grumbling before I actually did the reboot on the Sage. When I tried re-sideloading my books in batches of 500 at a time,
[...]
And I noticed that the device seemed to rebuild it database by itself, althought it seemed to need a few reboots to do it, it couldn't do it all in one go.

I've had that issue too. It seems to time out while scanning large numbers of books. I'm not sure if it's an extra large book in the batch or just the large number of books overall. I have eliminated a few books from the device because I thought they were causing problems, but it still takes two or three reboots to get through them all. Side loading in smaller batches does help, but then you have a higher chance of recorrupting the database. (Rebooting between loads might help.)

I had lost all my reading progress on the books I'd been reading *and* any annotations/highlights &c I had added.

I also have the Kobo extended driver plugin and the Kobo Utilities plugin.
The latter can save and restore your reading positions. Unfortunately, there is no functionality to save and restore annotations on side loaded books. If forgot that got lost on reset.

I haven't had a major database corruption in a month or two.
I am still having issues though -- something keeps the database open (sometimes sync, sometimes maybe the reader, sometimes neither but something else), but Calibre has been detecting it instead of messing with the database and warning me. Then I eject and reboot the kobo and reconnect and all is fine.

In the past, when I had database corruption, I have restored from backup and rebooted and it was fine, but I haven't had to do that since I upgraded to the latest version of Calibre. I probably haven't had to rebuild the database from scratch in at least 4 months, and I haven't had to re-sideload all my books since I discovered I could just delete a corrupted database to get it to rebuild. (Alas, this loses annotations.)

[JSWolf]

I just eject using calibre's eject and if I'm not running calibre, I use the eject from Windows Explorer.

[Artemide]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Try the following. Use calibre. But before you side load any eBooks, check them first with epubcheck in the editor and fix any errors until epubcheck says there are no errors. See if you still have any crashes. Most eBooks will be OK.

Thank you for the tip, Libra 2 were very slow opening 3 or 4 ebook. In this case, it needs to wait a little bit until ereader terminate operation.

When Libra 2 remains blocked, I think it depends on memory cache, it happens after a long time that the device is on without power off. Screen doesn't power on and it needs to force restart with button.
But strange things happens also with smartphones and also pc without reboot for a long time.
So for me this is not a problem, but a normal behaviour of an electronic device

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Artemide

Thank you for the tip, Libra 2 were very slow opening 3 or 4 ebook. In this case, it needs to wait a little bit until ereader terminate operation.

When Libra 2 remains blocked, I think it depends on memory cache, it happens after a long time that the device is on without power off. Screen doesn't power on and it needs to force restart with button.
But strange things happens also with smartphones and also pc without reboot for a long time.
So for me this is not a problem, but a normal behaviour of an electronic device

One other thing. Before you plug in the Libra 2 to the USB port, make sure you are at the home screen.

[taki]

I'm on a Mac running updated Sonoma version of OS with latest version of Calibre, and for I've been getting this the past week or two when I try to send epub books to my Kobo Libra 2 in Calibre. Note it does actually send the book, but I'm not sure if it's been converted to kepub or what.

Warning: Failed
Kobo database version unsupported

calibre, version 6.25.0
WARNING: Failed: Kobo database version unsupported - See details

Your Kobo is running an updated firmware/database version. As calibre does not know about this updated firmware, database editing is disabled, to prevent corruption. You can still send books to your Kobo with calibre, but deleting books and managing collections is disabled. If you are willing to experiment and know how to reset your Kobo to Factory defaults, you can override this check by right clicking the device icon in calibre and selecting "Configure this device" and then the "Attempt to support newer firmware" option. Doing so may require you to perform a Factory reset of your Kobo.

Discussion of any new Kobo firmware can be found in the Kobo forum at MobileRead. This is at https://www.mobileread.com/forums/fo...play.php?f=223.

Device database version: 174.
Device firmware version: 4.38.21908

Has anyone else had this issue or and know how to handle it? I haven't seen any new updates to the Kobo-specific plugins, namely KoboTouchExtended and Kobo Utilities.

[Aleron Ives]

If you update your Kobo firmware before Calibre gets an update for that firmware, you'll always see an "unsupported firmware" error. If Kobo didn't make any changes to the database, it's safe to use Calibre normally. If Kobo did make changes to the database format, you may corrupt the database.

It's a "use at your own risk" type of situation. If you want to avoid such Calibre errors, then don't update your Kobo until Calibre also has an associated update. Kobo doesn't change the database very often, so it's usually safe to ignore the error, as long as you keep database backups just in case.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by taki

Has anyone else had this issue or and know how to handle it? I haven't seen any new updates to the Kobo-specific plugins, namely KoboTouchExtended and Kobo Utilities.

To quote a message from a few years back:

Originally Posted by davidfor

Each time a new firmware comes out and we get a bunch of these posts, I try to work out how to change the message to improve it. About the only thing I can come up with is to add a suggestion to check the Kobo forum. But, it is already long and can't think of how to word it. If anyone has a suggestions, I'd like to hear them.

The alternative would be to change the style of the warning completely. Instead of the standard calibre exception error, display a warning message with a button to open the driver configuration so people can fix it. And a link to open the Kobo forum. It could probably change the setting, but, that would probably need another warning - "Are you sure you want to do this?"*


* Voiced in my brain by HAL and I could swear there was a blinking red light.

As mentioned, the instructions to override this error until a new version of calibre is released with the updated version:

you can override this check by right clicking the device icon in calibre and selecting "Configure this device" and then the "Attempt to support newer firmware" option.

Basically, open the configuration for the KoboTouch or KoboTouchExtended driver depending on which you are using. I open the configuration from Kobo Utilities => Driver => Configure current Driver => the Metadata, on device & advanced tab on the configuration dialog. Check the Attempt to support newer firmware checkbox. See attached image.

Please note that while @davidfor included a warning about possibly needing to factory reset your Kobo ereader, I have never run into that in the years that I have used that option. It was basically a CYA warning.