Kobo Glo Stuck + Home with Black Bar

[crimsonsnow]

Yesterday I bring my Kobo Glo in my bag for about 2-hour travel. The last time I read with it was two days ago, the battery was about 20%. When I arrived home, there was a low battery warning, so I connected it to the computer also loaded a few books and deleting many comics. After that, I went for usual process, ejected it from the computer and waited. The progress bar was stuck on 9%, so I reset the device.

The problem was after I reset it for quite a number of times, it was alternating between:
- stuck at 5 blocks progress after the green light off
- showing the home screen blocks with latest activities but completely black on top and the bottom
and this one time, it was
- showing home screen with black bar on top and bottom with three lines supposedly at the menu but without the blocks

(I am at uni right now so I couldn't upload the picture)

Is it a screen problem? I am quite scared that it is, if there is something that I can do other than reset it or contacting Kobo, please tell

[TechniSol]

I think I understand what happened. If the screen was okay prior to resetting it, it sounds like the firmware got trashed, possibly with battery too low to complete.(or the internal sdhc card may be bad) The question is what happens if you fully charge it and then factory reset(hold switch off for 15 seconds then hold light button and flick power switch)? If it doesn't improve, I'd suspect you may need a new internal sdhc card and a new image, or more remotely that something happened to the screen driver chip...

My bet is on lack of charge, maybe messed up internal sdhc. Probably fixable as you can ask for someone to send you an image if you need it and find instructions in the Developer's Forum.

[robko]

When you say "reset" do you mean the hole in the bottom? It sounds you interrupted the update of the database when you reset it at 9% (FYI, for some reason in my experience it often seems to spend a lot of time at 9% when it's updating the database, so be patient) and probably scrambled the database. If that's the case, charge the device up, turn it off (HOLD the power button ON for 10-15 sec) and press and hold the light button while you power it on. This will wipe everything on the device unfortunately, so if you haven't synced annotations etc the info it will be gone.

[crimsonsnow]

Ah, thank you for the suggestions. I'm quite happy if it's not a hardware problem. If it's the internal SD card, at least I can still fix it.

It was stuck in 9% for about an hour already, so I reset it, I am quite an impatient person sadly. I will try to fully charge it and do as you all suggest tonight and then update you about the result.

[robko]

Originally Posted by crimsonsnow

It was stuck in 9% for about an hour already, so I reset it, I am quite an impatient person sadly. I will try to fully charge it and do as you all suggest tonight and then update you about the result.

OK, an hour isn't normal and you're not impatient for stopping it at that point . It still does sound like charge and factory reset would be in order anyway to fix.

[PeterT]

Do remember it's also the classic issue of eInk screens; if the battery dies during the database update process, the screen will keep displaying the status screen and you will not know it's dead.

[TechniSol]

Is there an echo in here? ;-)

[jackastor]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Do remember it's also the classic issue of eInk screens; if the battery dies during the database update process, the screen will keep displaying the status screen and you will not know it's dead.

This will also sometimes happen at the sleep screen and it may show a battery that is fully/partially charged indicator because it has not updated due to the sleep screen image. Caught my stepmother off guard that way and frustrated her to no end, after explaining it to her I gave up because she still does not understand e-Ink screens and honestly it can be disorienting even for the best of us. (learning curve is harsh sometimes.)

regards

Jack

[crimsonsnow]

Update is that after I charged it for about two hours, I've tried to turn it back on (still the same two conditions) and reset (same). I also tried to factory reset it but it was also showing progress bar and got stuck.

I'll try to go to the other suggestion to flash a SD card then. I'll go the the image request thread, or anybody have an image to spare?

Thank you for all the suggestion and help, really. I use my Sony more than my Kobo and sometimes forget that the environment is a little bit different.

[davidfor]

crimsonsnow: I have sent you a PM with the link.

[Athropos]

Sorry for jumping in, but can the database be garbled to the point that the device will no longer boot up? Isn't the DB solely used for storing books metadata and their state? I understand that interrupting the DB update process may corrupt the DB, and thus lead to the malfunction of the device, but how is it possible that it no longer boots up and doesn't even react to a factory reset?

I'm very happy with my Aura HD, but the more I read posts like this and the more I wonder how much lucky I am to have avoided this kind of issue...

[windyvincent]

Originally Posted by Athropos

Sorry for jumping in, but can the database be garbled to the point that the device will no longer boot up? Isn't the DB solely used for storing books metadata and their state? I understand that interrupting the DB update process may corrupt the DB, and thus lead to the malfunction of the device, but how is it possible that it no longer boots up and doesn't even react to a factory reset?

I'm very happy with my Aura HD, but the more I read posts like this and the more I wonder how much lucky I am to have avoided this kind of issue...

I known someone in the same situation. His glo cannot bootup in nickle. The external SD boots up android so cannot use hardware reset. He nearly disassemble it to flash the image. I told him maybe boot in android and delete the database file can do the work. And then it works.

[tshering]

Originally Posted by Athropos

Sorry for jumping in, but can the database be garbled to the point that the device will no longer boot up?

The database cannot prevent the device from booting, but it can prevent the GUI from working. But a factory reset will bring the device back to normal. So apart from data loss, there is not much to fear.

[TechniSol]

I read it started with 20% charge, got some charge while doing housekeeping/deleting files, then got stuck on 9% for an hour prior to multiple manual resets... so it sounded like there was a problem processing content, then another resetting. Altogether that sounds like maybe a bad internal sdhc or charge was borderline and probably it shouldn't have been reset with charge that low. It think that's why it sounded like a Db problem causing a firmware issue, coincidence, possible power related and sdhc is fine, or just needs a new image.

I think the thing to take away here is to always make sure you have a pretty decent charge if attempting a factory reset or anything else that may suck up some power like adding a bunch of titles, etc. or just leave it plugged in while doing it. Restores and the like always make me jumpy. I'm used to having direct access to flash memories with microcontrollers so if something goes wrong I can just flash them again. I hate dealing with android and clockwork recovery and all that jazz, despite liking android as a platform, and I'm not much more fond of the factory reset/restore/recovery with the Kobos, but you gets what you gets -it works.

[crimsonsnow]

Thanks for David and all of your suggestion, I can now flash the internal SD card back and syncing my Pocket articles back. I will take this as a lesson to frequently charge the device and not waiting for the battery to the minimum.

Before I don't think that it was necessary to open the device or tweak it because I already root my T1. Since now it is all opened already, I am tempted to try to change the SD card or trying Android in it.