Kobo touch problem

telr · 02-28-2016, 06:16 PM

Hi all,
I have been advised to ask again as previous threads are quite old, and there may be new info. on this problem. I have a 4 (about) y.o. Kobo touch 905B which has given great service, but has now started freezing at irregular intervals, when nothing works, home button, sleep/power slider. Sometimes, the reset hole also fails to work, and I need to "force" a reset holding the slider for 10 -15 secs, releasing, then holding on until a blue led then green comes on then releasing (from an older thread here then trial& error!) After this, I get back to home screen, and can then get back to the previous point where the unit was powered off, few or many pages back. This is obviously upsetting, and I have tried several factory resets, long charging , it has always been regularly synced on Kobo desktop. As a retiree, I don't want to have to replace it, and have a lot of books from Kobo I don't want to lose. Any help greatly appreciated.

madhg · 02-29-2016, 10:26 AM

I have a Kobo Touch 905B, which has been giving more and more problems. In the end, I gave up, and bought another e-reader. In the UK its not so easy to buy one that is not Kindle or Kobo. I bought another Kobo (Glo HD) which works very well.

About losing your books: if you bought books from the Kobo store, you can download them again at any time, so they won't be lost. The same probably goes for books bought from other vendors.

If you have a PC, you can connect the Kobo to it, and copy all the files to a folder on your PC.

I hope this helps.

PS The Kobo Touch is not a conventional touch-screen. I think I read that there are many beams of infrared light shining across the screen, so that when you touch it, the lights that are interrupted tell the device which part of the screen you touched. I suspect that this system has failed on my Touch. The new ones have proper touchscreens, similar technology to a tablet or smartphone.

shalym · 02-29-2016, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by madhg

...The new ones have proper touchscreens, similar technology to a tablet or smartphone.

Actually, only the Kobo Aura has a capacitive screen like a tablet or smartphone. The Glo, Aura HD and Aura H2O all have the same infrared screen that the original touch has.

Shari

Ken Maltby · 02-29-2016, 05:28 PM

Also, the IR touchscreen tech has the advantage of not needing layers of plastic that dim/compromise the image a little.

Luck;
Ken

MGlitch · 02-29-2016, 05:44 PM

IR also doesn't need whatever you touch it with to be conductive, which means you can wear gloves and read. You can get (or make) gloves that will conduct through your skin for the capacitive screens, but from experience they're a bit hit or miss.

telr · 02-29-2016, 08:24 PM

Just as a further clue, after one charge/sync cycle, the computer stopped recognising the reader, after several resets and a change of lead it began existing again, the lead change did not make a difference at first, but I left it there, the connection felt cleaner than the original.

meeera · 02-29-2016, 11:45 PM

When you say that you have done factory resets: what procedure did you use, and what did the LED lights and the device do with the reset?

Meanwhile, be aware that no matter what the issue is right now, your device is going to be getting near the end of its battery life soon - perhaps very soon - so it's worth starting to budget for a replacement now. Frontlighting is rather a revelation unless you're always reading outdoors in the daytime, so you'll have some benefits from the upgrade also.

telr · 03-01-2016, 05:32 PM

The first factory reset was done from the info in the reader itself, there was an entry reading "perform factory reset" and I followed instructions, think screen said "restoring" or something similar, then an hourglass, and I eventually got an info. screen about how to use the reader, and needed to return to Kobo desktop to restore books, pc for others. Other resets were inadvertent, trying to force resets by holding down home and power switches 20 sec., releasing, then sliding until blue, then green led's then releasing (for minor reset), if held too long red led flashing & the dreaded restoring, then hourglass, then same start as before. Hope that isn't too garbled, I just kind of thrash around & hope when trying to get any electronic items to obey me!

davidfor · 03-01-2016, 08:06 PM

About your "inadvertent" factory resets. One of the steps in doing a factory reset using the buttons is to "hold the home button down while turning the device on". So, with what you are doing, I'm not surprised you are having factory resets happen.

From your reports, I can't tell what is really happening. It this the Touch is freezing while you are reading and you are randomly pressing buttons until something happens. While that gets you going again, it doesn't help work out what the problems is and how to fix it. When you get a hang on a Touch, there are only a limited number of things you can do:

Wait. Maybe it hasn't really hung, but got really busy for some reason. But, waiting more than five minutes isn't reasonable. I have waited a lot longer and had it come back, but I'm not normally that patient.
Push the slider to put the device to sleep, wait 30 seconds and wake it up. There's a freeze related to selecting text that this solves. Bad timing when swiping can trigger this.
Push the reset button. This should restart the device. It won't do anything if the device is powered off.
Hold the power switch in the off position for 20 to force a power off. Then turn it on again.
Plug it in and charge it. This can trigger a reaction. And if the hang is a runaway process that consumed the battery, it will start the device after a few minutes of charge.
Do a factory reset using the buttons.

Of those, 3, 4 and 5 can result in data loss. Depending on what was happening, these might mean the latest state of the book wasn't stored in the database. That usually means the book reopens to the last place you opened it to, rather than where you were up to.

Losing the status is also a sign of a corrupt database on the device. The corrupt database means the device cannot save any status changes to the database but using it seems OK. When you restart the device, it can only read the old version of the database, and reopening a book goes to an earlier location. The factory reset will fix this as it generates a new database. But, if there is some other issue causing the database to be corrupted (hardware, not safely ejecting the device, pressing the reset button rather than powering of properly) then this could happen again. And a wonky USB cable could cause some problems such as disconnects when you bump the cable.

If it is a hardware problem with the device, at four years old, Kobo won't be interested. The only replaceable part in the device is the internal micro SD card. If this is failing, it could explain the problems. You can open the device, and replace the card. The new card has to be prepared by writing an image for the Touch to it, but that is not to hard and the image is available.

telr · 03-02-2016, 04:57 PM

Many thanks, everyone, I think I have a better grasp on what's happening now, and a possible way forward, hopefully without replacement, the reader has become a faithful companion, so a little reluctant to go to something newer. Davidfor, just to prove my ignorance, when you say the image is available, where? I know my pc develops an image during backup, but how can I access it for thee reader? Sorry for the basic questions, but I just use the electronics, without knowing much about why & how they work! Thanks again everyone for your assistance.

PeterT · 03-02-2016, 05:12 PM

The image of the SD card is not publicly available; davidfor will send you a link.

telr · 03-02-2016, 07:19 PM

Many thanks, have a new mini sd card ready, have worked out where to put it, pretty tricky to open reader, but credit cards have many uses!

davidfor · 03-02-2016, 08:41 PM

PM sent. I suspect you have found Memory Upgrade Mod Guide or similar for instructions. If not, that is for the Glo, but the basic steps and tools (eg. Credit card) needed are the same.

IamPablo · 03-12-2016, 08:45 PM

I've got the same issue with my Touch N905B. About two years ago I got the image from davidfor and I re-imaged my SD card. Things seemed to have worked ok for a while. I haven't used my Kobo for ~1 year as I recently moved and finally found the device again! When I turned it on and synced it, it had a software upgrade. Since then, I've been having the issue where the device freezes after reading a book for a short period of time. Only solution I've found is to hold the power toggle for 20 seconds and then turn it back on again. Of course, I lose all data and have to find my page again - quite frustrating.

Last week I decided that I would give a new SD card a try. I found an unused 2GB Samsung SD card that came with an old phone. I imaged the SD card with the image provided by davidfor and then swapped out the old SD card. After booting it up and going through the desktop sync and software upgrades it seemed to be working much better!

Only a few days later the same issue started happening again. I'll try seeing if its related to the number of page turns or the amount of time the device is being used and report back.

As it was working perfectly when I was last using it consistently ~1 year ago - it stands to reason that the issue could be with the software updates.

Current software: 3.19.5761 (0e028f3185 12/29/15)

Is there any way to get an image with a previous software version to test my theory?

robko · 03-12-2016, 10:45 PM

Are you PROPERLY EJECTING the device after you have it connected to a computer? This sounds like the database on your device is getting corrupted and not ejecting is often the cause. While most USB sticks and devices don't need you to do this these days, Kobo's are sensitive to having the USB removed from the computer without a proper ejection.

02-28-2016, 06:16 PM	#1
telr Member Posts: 11 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2016 Location: Tasmania Device: kobo touch N905B	Kobo touch problem Hi all, I have been advised to ask again as previous threads are quite old, and there may be new info. on this problem. I have a 4 (about) y.o. Kobo touch 905B which has given great service, but has now started freezing at irregular intervals, when nothing works, home button, sleep/power slider. Sometimes, the reset hole also fails to work, and I need to "force" a reset holding the slider for 10 -15 secs, releasing, then holding on until a blue led then green comes on then releasing (from an older thread here then trial& error!) After this, I get back to home screen, and can then get back to the previous point where the unit was powered off, few or many pages back. This is obviously upsetting, and I have tried several factory resets, long charging , it has always been regularly synced on Kobo desktop. As a retiree, I don't want to have to replace it, and have a lot of books from Kobo I don't want to lose. Any help greatly appreciated.

03-01-2016, 08:06 PM	#9
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,907 Karma: 47303748 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	About your "inadvertent" factory resets. One of the steps in doing a factory reset using the buttons is to "hold the home button down while turning the device on". So, with what you are doing, I'm not surprised you are having factory resets happen. From your reports, I can't tell what is really happening. It this the Touch is freezing while you are reading and you are randomly pressing buttons until something happens. While that gets you going again, it doesn't help work out what the problems is and how to fix it. When you get a hang on a Touch, there are only a limited number of things you can do: Wait. Maybe it hasn't really hung, but got really busy for some reason. But, waiting more than five minutes isn't reasonable. I have waited a lot longer and had it come back, but I'm not normally that patient. Push the slider to put the device to sleep, wait 30 seconds and wake it up. There's a freeze related to selecting text that this solves. Bad timing when swiping can trigger this. Push the reset button. This should restart the device. It won't do anything if the device is powered off. Hold the power switch in the off position for 20 to force a power off. Then turn it on again. Plug it in and charge it. This can trigger a reaction. And if the hang is a runaway process that consumed the battery, it will start the device after a few minutes of charge. Do a factory reset using the buttons. Of those, 3, 4 and 5 can result in data loss. Depending on what was happening, these might mean the latest state of the book wasn't stored in the database. That usually means the book reopens to the last place you opened it to, rather than where you were up to. Losing the status is also a sign of a corrupt database on the device. The corrupt database means the device cannot save any status changes to the database but using it seems OK. When you restart the device, it can only read the old version of the database, and reopening a book goes to an earlier location. The factory reset will fix this as it generates a new database. But, if there is some other issue causing the database to be corrupted (hardware, not safely ejecting the device, pressing the reset button rather than powering of properly) then this could happen again. And a wonky USB cable could cause some problems such as disconnects when you bump the cable. If it is a hardware problem with the device, at four years old, Kobo won't be interested. The only replaceable part in the device is the internal micro SD card. If this is failing, it could explain the problems. You can open the device, and replace the card. The new card has to be prepared by writing an image for the Touch to it, but that is not to hard and the image is available.

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02-29-2016, 10:26 AM	#2
madhg Member Posts: 19 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2012 Device: Kobo Touch	I have a Kobo Touch 905B, which has been giving more and more problems. In the end, I gave up, and bought another e-reader. In the UK its not so easy to buy one that is not Kindle or Kobo. I bought another Kobo (Glo HD) which works very well. About losing your books: if you bought books from the Kobo store, you can download them again at any time, so they won't be lost. The same probably goes for books bought from other vendors. If you have a PC, you can connect the Kobo to it, and copy all the files to a folder on your PC. I hope this helps. PS The Kobo Touch is not a conventional touch-screen. I think I read that there are many beams of infrared light shining across the screen, so that when you touch it, the lights that are interrupted tell the device which part of the screen you touched. I suspect that this system has failed on my Touch. The new ones have proper touchscreens, similar technology to a tablet or smartphone.

02-29-2016, 05:28 PM	#4
Ken Maltby Wizard Posts: 4,465 Karma: 6900052 Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: The Heart of Texas Device: Boox Note2, AuraHD, PDA,	Also, the IR touchscreen tech has the advantage of not needing layers of plastic that dim/compromise the image a little. Luck; Ken

02-29-2016, 05:44 PM	#5
MGlitch Wizard Posts: 2,840 Karma: 22003124 Join Date: Aug 2014 Device: Kobo Forma, Kobo Sage, Kobo Libra 2	IR also doesn't need whatever you touch it with to be conductive, which means you can wear gloves and read. You can get (or make) gloves that will conduct through your skin for the capacitive screens, but from experience they're a bit hit or miss.

02-29-2016, 08:24 PM	#6
telr Member Posts: 11 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2016 Location: Tasmania Device: kobo touch N905B	Just as a further clue, after one charge/sync cycle, the computer stopped recognising the reader, after several resets and a change of lead it began existing again, the lead change did not make a difference at first, but I left it there, the connection felt cleaner than the original.

02-29-2016, 11:45 PM	#7
meeera Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,658 Karma: 66417824 Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Libra 2, iPadMini4, iPad4, MBP; support other Kobo/Kindles	When you say that you have done factory resets: what procedure did you use, and what did the LED lights and the device do with the reset? Meanwhile, be aware that no matter what the issue is right now, your device is going to be getting near the end of its battery life soon - perhaps very soon - so it's worth starting to budget for a replacement now. Frontlighting is rather a revelation unless you're always reading outdoors in the daytime, so you'll have some benefits from the upgrade also.

03-01-2016, 05:32 PM	#8
telr Member Posts: 11 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2016 Location: Tasmania Device: kobo touch N905B	The first factory reset was done from the info in the reader itself, there was an entry reading "perform factory reset" and I followed instructions, think screen said "restoring" or something similar, then an hourglass, and I eventually got an info. screen about how to use the reader, and needed to return to Kobo desktop to restore books, pc for others. Other resets were inadvertent, trying to force resets by holding down home and power switches 20 sec., releasing, then sliding until blue, then green led's then releasing (for minor reset), if held too long red led flashing & the dreaded restoring, then hourglass, then same start as before. Hope that isn't too garbled, I just kind of thrash around & hope when trying to get any electronic items to obey me!

03-02-2016, 04:57 PM	#10
telr Member Posts: 11 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2016 Location: Tasmania Device: kobo touch N905B	Many thanks, everyone, I think I have a better grasp on what's happening now, and a possible way forward, hopefully without replacement, the reader has become a faithful companion, so a little reluctant to go to something newer. Davidfor, just to prove my ignorance, when you say the image is available, where? I know my pc develops an image during backup, but how can I access it for thee reader? Sorry for the basic questions, but I just use the electronics, without knowing much about why & how they work! Thanks again everyone for your assistance.

03-02-2016, 05:12 PM	#11
PeterT Grand Sorcerer Posts: 12,155 Karma: 73448616 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Toronto Device: Nexus 7, Clara, Touch, Tolino EPOS	The image of the SD card is not publicly available; davidfor will send you a link.

03-02-2016, 07:19 PM	#12
telr Member Posts: 11 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2016 Location: Tasmania Device: kobo touch N905B	Many thanks, have a new mini sd card ready, have worked out where to put it, pretty tricky to open reader, but credit cards have many uses!

03-02-2016, 08:41 PM	#13
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,907 Karma: 47303748 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	PM sent. I suspect you have found Memory Upgrade Mod Guide or similar for instructions. If not, that is for the Glo, but the basic steps and tools (eg. Credit card) needed are the same.

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03-12-2016, 08:45 PM	#14
IamPablo Junior Member Posts: 7 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2014 Device: Kobo Touch	I've got the same issue with my Touch N905B. About two years ago I got the image from davidfor and I re-imaged my SD card. Things seemed to have worked ok for a while. I haven't used my Kobo for ~1 year as I recently moved and finally found the device again! When I turned it on and synced it, it had a software upgrade. Since then, I've been having the issue where the device freezes after reading a book for a short period of time. Only solution I've found is to hold the power toggle for 20 seconds and then turn it back on again. Of course, I lose all data and have to find my page again - quite frustrating. Last week I decided that I would give a new SD card a try. I found an unused 2GB Samsung SD card that came with an old phone. I imaged the SD card with the image provided by davidfor and then swapped out the old SD card. After booting it up and going through the desktop sync and software upgrades it seemed to be working much better! Only a few days later the same issue started happening again. I'll try seeing if its related to the number of page turns or the amount of time the device is being used and report back. As it was working perfectly when I was last using it consistently ~1 year ago - it stands to reason that the issue could be with the software updates. Current software: 3.19.5761 (0e028f3185 12/29/15) Is there any way to get an image with a previous software version to test my theory?

03-12-2016, 10:45 PM	#15
robko Wizard Posts: 2,454 Karma: 5469320 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: Kobo	Are you PROPERLY EJECTING the device after you have it connected to a computer? This sounds like the database on your device is getting corrupted and not ejecting is often the cause. While most USB sticks and devices don't need you to do this these days, Kobo's are sensitive to having the USB removed from the computer without a proper ejection.