Touch 15 month old Kobo Frozen on "Powered Off" screen

[VirgoGirl]

15 minutes ago, I was just reading a book I just put on the the micro sd card, hit the screen and got the problem where there is an underlined word but the taps don't respond. I powered off the KT, tried to power it on and nothing. NOTHING!

I got a paper clip, stuck it in the back, all I got was a blue light. I plugged it in, screen still frozen but the light turned green. I tried the paper clip again, nothing but the blue light. I removed the micro sd card, tried powering it on again, nothing. The screen is still frozen showing my book cover and 40% read and "powered off".

I've kept the card out, plugged it back in, but I am really worried about the reader. I really don't want to have to do a restore - don't know how I would with the screen frozen - as I'm very happy with firmware .17. I can't return it as it's 15 months old, but I am really unhappy and very frustrated!!!

[VirgoGirl]

I just got off the phone with KOBO. I was advised to press the Home button and slide the Power slider to do a factory restore. If that doesn't work, the next step is "a more extreme restore, one you shouldn't do too often", which is pressing the Home button and inserting the paper clip in the back. If that doesn't work, "you have to buy a new one". There is no fix, only replace.

According to the customer service rep, "you have to keep up to date with the firmware updates or it will cause problems".

You called us today because your Kobo Touch is frozen and not responding. You told me that you have already charged your device and tried the basic reset (with the paperclip). The next set you have to follow is a Factory Reset:

A factory reset deletes all content on your eReader. This means that it:
Deletes any books you've added to your eReader.
Deletes your bookmarks and annotations.
Deletes your account information.
Resets all your settings (for example, Reading Life and text settings).
Returns the eReader to its original settings.
To perform the factory reset:

If possible, back up any books or documents that you added to your eReader using Adobe Digital Editions, or that you manually added using your computer. You do not need to back up any books you bought from the Kobo Store.
Press the Home button.
Tap the Settings icon an the top left-hand corner of the screen.
Tap Settings.
Tap Device Information.
Tap Factory Reset.
Tap Reset Now.
To use your eReader after a factory reset you must:

Set it up again using the free Kobo Desktop software.
Sync your library to restore any Kobo books you own.
Reconfigure any settings you had changed.
Add any books or documents you previously added using Adobe Digital Editions, a Micro SD card, drag-and-drop on your computer, or other means.


If this steps don't solve you issue you can try the most extreme Factory Reset that you have. If your device doesn't respond after that it means that it is not working. The steps you need to follow are:
Press and hold the Home Button
While you are pressing the Home Button slide a paperclip until you feel a click
Your device should restart

Since you're not under warranty anymore and you didn't purchased an extended warranty you will have to buy a new device if yours doesn't respond after this steps.

[VirgoGirl]

Did a factory reset by holding down Home button and power slider, but it's doing nothing but blinking blue at me. Still frozen.

It's been 10 minutes or more of the blue light blinking and the screen still frozen. How long would this restore take if it were working??

[VirgoGirl]

Okay, so it seems that you are supposed to get a red light on the Kobo, not just a blinking blue. After repeated attempts, it didn't work. So I did the paper clip in the back of the reader and that gave me a red light.

I lost about 150 Reading Life "read books" and I now must upgrade to the latest firmware, but hopefully this means I can use the reader again. Until the next time.

[filmo]

Some KT firmware version had bugs or problem could have started with book with format problem or how you unplugged from computer. The latest greatest firmware is a keeper for me likely better for you also. Let us know how it works for you.

[VirgoGirl]

So far, I'm not that happy with the newest firmware. It seems to be running more slowly than .17, and it doesn't support subfolders - by that I mean I cannot get covers on epubs in sub folders. For example, I used to have folders set up like this on the micro sd: "A Christie> Miss Marple> <epub name>. That didn't give me a cover, but just dragging and dropping onto the micro sd card seems to. I hate that as I had my files nicely organinzed by genre.

[tshering]

I use the same subfolder system as you without problem, only exception I use underscores instead of filenames. I am not sure whether this makes a difference.

[VirgoGirl]

I don't know wha's going on with my Touch. Covers are now coming and going as they see fit, sometime there will be a cover, sometimes nothing but the generic cover created by the Touch. I've added more ebooks to the card, and the previous covers disappeared. I have no idea what the heck is going on, I'm ready to throw the damn thing at the wall.

[PeterT]

Try running without the SD card... I've tried a few cards and never had a good experience with them.

For instance, with ANY SD card in, my unit will not sleep; the sleep process starts, a cover is displayed and then 4 seconds later.... the unit is awake again.

[RG1]

The new firmware will generate the images for content on sd-card "on-the-fly". This will take some time if you have a lot of books on your sd-card. Cover images with big file sizes will decrease the performance of "on-the-fly" image creation.

[murg]

Originally Posted by VirgoGirl

Okay, so it seems that you are supposed to get a red light on the Kobo, not just a blinking blue. After repeated attempts, it didn't work. So I did the paper clip in the back of the reader and that gave me a red light.

I lost about 150 Reading Life "read books" and I now must upgrade to the latest firmware, but hopefully this means I can use the reader again. Until the next time.

The factory reset lights are, if I'm remembering correctly, blink red, wait 1 second, blink red, wait one second, white (flashing fast enough to be almost solid).

I had to press the home key while holding the paperclip in, while powering on the device.

[VirgoGirl]

Originally Posted by RG1

The new firmware will generate the images for content on sd-card "on-the-fly". This will take some time if you have a lot of books on your sd-card. Cover images with big file sizes will decrease the performance of "on-the-fly" image creation.

I usually store 500 to 600 books on the reader, so "on the fly" cover creation is going to be a HUGE problem. GAH!

[quote=murg]The factory reset lights are, if I'm remembering correctly, blink red, wait 1 second, blink red, wait one second, white (flashing fast enough to be almost solid).[/murg]

That's what I got, finally, when I used the paper clip and the home button. Kobo was surprisingly lacking in information when I called them. I thought the flashing blue light meant it was reformatting. Thank god for the internet.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by VirgoGirl

I just got off the phone with KOBO. I was advised to press the Home button and slide the Power slider to do a factory restore. [...]

Originally Posted by VirgoGirl

Did a factory reset by holding down Home button and power slider, but it's doing nothing but blinking blue at me. Still frozen.[...]

Maybe the 'regular' factory reset didn't work for you because your Kobo was secretly on, even though the screen was stuck on the "off" screen. The advice you got from Kobo (press home button and slide the power button) only works if the device is off... So before you do this reset, you have to slide and hold the slider for at least 3 seconds to be sure the device is off. Then you can do the home button + slider for resetting.

Glad you got your device working again. Sorry about the covers issue. I was annoyed by this too. For me, the solution was to tell Calibre's new Kobo driver to always send the cover along when transferring the books to the device. (See the Calibre sticky thread in the Kobo device forum.)

But, I don't know how this would work when transferring to an SD card as I don't use one. And from what I can see from your posts, it seems you prefer to transfer books directly to the Kobo memory by "hand". I can understand why, with the nice genre-sorted system you have. Then again, you could use Calibre to genre-sort your books into shelves (see the sticky again to see how), and then the sort you have will also show up in the ereader. Shelves work nicely in the new firmware, and are really a big improvement over 1.9.17. Of course it's up to you if you'd want to take the step

[VirgoGirl]

The Kobo may have been on, but I couldn't do anything with it.

I'm not really happy with the upgrade, the new bug is the "Welcome to Kobo" and "Read On" kpub show up as being unread, despite my having "finished" them.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by VirgoGirl

I'm not really happy with the upgrade, the new bug is the "Welcome to Kobo" and "Read On" kpub show up as being unread, despite my having "finished" them.

Strange! I didn't have that problem until just now. I added another book using Calibre, and both the Welcome and Read on things re-appeared on my home screen (even though I've added new books the same way before without them turning up). But, they both disappeared when I opened them and paged forward till the end...