A small review of the iRiver Story HD

[jaxsnop]

Originally Posted by Roelo

Here is an alternate download link,

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24944123/201...7331069226.zip

(Thanx to a nice user of GoT Sc0rPi0N for uploading this)

I'm really pleased. TYVM.

[zarandok]

jaxsnop, did you resolve the "Updating DB" problem?

I have the same: after loading of about 700 books in main memory and restarting the system I observe such a picture: interchanging screens "Updating DB. Please wait" and the black screen. All of this repeats with the period of about 7 sec.
Soft reset (20 sec. power switcher) launches, but after reloading it's the same situation. The computer does not recognize the e-book.
Some more suggestions?

[zarandok]

Postscriptum to my last message (#92):
Firmware version in my ebook is 1.10

[frostschutz]

Originally Posted by zarandok

I have the same: after loading of about 700 books in main memory and restarting the system I observe such a picture: interchanging screens "Updating DB. Please wait" and the black screen. All of this repeats with the period of about 7 sec.

Hum, if several people are having this issue, maybe we should make use of the SD card slot until it is resolved. At least with the SD card if there is ever a problem you can just take it out.

Other readers have some kind of secret key combination (like press Home + Up when turning on the device) that will result in a formatting / factory reset of the internal memory. Doesn't the Story HD have something like this as well? The manual only describes factory reset through the options menu.

Otherwise I guess like jaxsnop you'll just have to contact customer support.

[jaxsnop]

Originally Posted by zarandok

jaxsnop, did you resolve the "Updating DB" problem?

I have the same: after loading of about 700 books in main memory and restarting the system I observe such a picture: interchanging screens "Updating DB. Please wait" and the black screen. All of this repeats with the period of about 7 sec.
Soft reset (20 sec. power switcher) launches, but after reloading it's the same situation. The computer does not recognize the e-book.
Some more suggestions?

No I didn't. Finally, I had to send the device to the support service. The only solution they gave me was to make the reset with the power button but it was always unsuccesful.

It remind me I had previous problems using a SD card with several files and the device froze too but after removing the SD card and reseting with the power button the ereader "survived" but not this time when I introduced the files directly in the hard disk.

[jaxsnop]

Originally Posted by jaxsnop

No I didn't. Finally, I had to send the device to the support service. The only solution they gave me was to make the reset with the power button but it was always unsuccesful.

It remind me I had previous problems using a SD card with several files and the device froze too but after removing the SD card and reseting with the power button the ereader "survived" but not this time when I introduced the files directly in the hard disk.

P.S. I've not received the device repaired yet. The support service said to me to wait for 2 or 3 weeks.

I've downloaded the fw 1.13 and I'll install it when receive my repaired device because the description says "for system stabilization".

[pepe2602]

I am also suffering from the DB-Updating problem.

I don't have a remedy but sometimes the following things work:

1) Reset to factory settings (without SD-Card inserted)

or:

2) Go to main system memory, folder 'system'. Delete the database-files (.idx etc.) , restart

or:

3) Reduce drastically the amount of books you have stored on your SD-Card (I know ... that doesn't make sense because we we want to carry as much books with us as possible ....)

or/and:

4) On your SD-Card: Make upmost folders 'book' and 'comic' (as is automatically done in the main memory section) and put your files in the respective folder. Try again ...

The problem seems to be be induced by the iriver's software which stumbles over large amounts of files for which it is not uncommon, that one or the other has defective entries for 'author' or other info and is obviously not related (well: in most cases...) to defective hardware (e.g. SD-Cards).

A cry to iriver in this place:

Give us a switch to completely disable the DB-Updating or update DB only on users demand. Working with folders will suffice for most users and will reduce the complaints dramatically. BTW: You could more often switch your device then to completely 'OFF' without the waiting time to have the DB checked. If the device finds the file, it's OK. If not, an updating of the device could be done easily. A fix, so easily done that maybe no highly trained engineer thinks of ....

n.b.:

An advice to German customers: The customer service for iRiver is now in Eschborn/Ts. I myself was mislead by the official homepage of iriver to two outdated addresses in Germany. Seems they are updating their own databases not very frequently also. Mrs. Lee in Eschborn was very helpful but, the 'repaired' device shows now the same problems as before ...

n.n.b.: Sorry for my poor english, I'm no native speaker ...

[pepe2602]

I sent in the iriver story hd for repair or replacement since the device hung up when updating the db even when there was no SD-Card inserted.
Even an hard-reset was impossible.
Good news: I received the reader two days later as "repaired".

Inspected the device. They had managed to restart it, delete all the books on the main memory and had put three (in digits: 3) ebooks for test purposes on it.

Filling up the device with more books and sd-card: same problems as before.

Asking the support for a replacement, they denied and blamed it to the sd-card.
There is definitely no problem with my three tested sd-cards, which work in my wife's story hd without complaint.

Interesting what they stated in their reply (my translation from german, with comments):


...updating a database of 10GB files can last up to several hours...
Well, and the same procedure the next time the iriver was completely shut off, since you can't avoid the db-updating when restarting ?

...the battery can be uncharged during the process ...
I suspected so and had left the iriver connected via USB.

...this is no hardware-failure, other eBook-readers behave in the same way ...
Really, what is the experience of users of other machines?

...You should only put small amounts of data on your SD-Card...
This is like selling a bus and stating that only two persons should be driven at the same time ...

... if files on the SD-Card are damaged, the reader will hang up...
Does a proper implemented linux behave in such a way when accessing data-files?

...if files of a non-supported format are on your SD-Card, the reader will hang up...
Well, you managed to accidentally put a mobi-file on your reader and it crashes ?

... if it has problems to read it will hang up ...
If the kids from elementary school have problems to read, they will go on strike?

My experience: Very interesting device. Inacceptable software. Not to recommend for larger amounts of ebooks.

And this is what google recommends?

[frostschutz]

I can understand about there being limits to the number of books. The devices are small and have to work with a limited amount of memory and storage. Some readers don't even offer an SD card slot, so you're stuck with 1-2GB at most.

Most books are below 1MB in size so to fill 10GB you'd have to have tenthousands of books. What have you on there, the entire Project Gutenberg? Is that even 10GB?

I've been using ereaders for a year and I still don't have a hundred ebooks yet... total size below 50MB. I probably won't be able to fill my 2GB SD card for another decade... well, maybe with comics it's a different story.

It shouldn't hang up in any case, though. If it comes across an invalid file or I/O error it should display a proper error message instead so you can fix/remove the offending file or replace a broken SD card. I hope they will improve on that with a firmware update.

[boren]

Originally Posted by pepe2602

Give us a switch to completely disable the DB-Updating or update DB only on users demand. Working with folders will suffice for most users and will reduce the complaints dramatically.

I think this is the key point. Folders are ten times more convenient to use than flat lists based on the database. It would be best to have have option that disables the database all together.

Pepe, have you contacted iriver with this suggestion? I doubt they follow this forum...

[toomuchtoread]

I'm glad I returned my iRiver Story HD when I still had the change.

Should only put a small amount of books on my SD-card?!? Are they nuts? My Sony 650 is carried along with 16GB and that SD-card is full. Never a problem. Same with the Bebook Mini. Oh wait, the Bebook Mini is very old and supposed to be very slowww. No problems either.

I loved the screen of the Story HD. But the software is too buggy. I ordered another Sony instead, the PRS-T1.

[frostschutz]

The Sony isn't an option for me... I'm sure it's a fine device but the case alone would drive me nuts. EDIT: Also regarding buggy software, there's a thread over in the Sony forum about freezing T1's, so ...

As for buggy software on the Story HD, I've had worse - my old PB360 used to crash every so often and you had to open it up and press a hidden reset button to get it going again. The Story HD on the other hand, rock stable. In fact so far I haven't seen a single bug in the software.

Even so, I was curious. I took the largest SD card I have (only 4GB unfortunately), filled it up to the brim with ebooks (actually I just took my own collection and made several copies of it until the card was full), and put it in the device just to see what would happen...

4GB SD card, 6450 epub files on it in total. Cold start and DB update took 2 minutes 39 seconds. Reader was usable, I browsed a book list of 625 pages, selected one, book loaded fine and was readable like normal. Pressing the back button and getting back into the 625 page book list however took several seconds. Switching operating mode from DB to Folder List (folder list being what I use normally anyway) resolved that issue as I have only a limited number of books per folder. I didn't test putting thousands of books into a single folder.

I don't have a 16GB card to test with and I won't buy one just for this purpose, but at least with a full 4GB set of epub books, I do not experience the hanging / reset issue.

The Story HD works fine for me and I'm very happy to have it.

[jaxsnop]

Definetely, the support service had to send to me a new ereader. The other didn't work anymore.

[pepe2602]

There is a new Firmware out for the iRiver HD (Basic) with number 1.27.

Beware: Many people in Germany report that their device is completely locked up after trying to update. The device is completely bricked with no chance (e.g. HW-Reset) to restart.

[frostschutz]

Originally Posted by pepe2602

Beware: Many people in Germany report that their device is completely locked up after trying to update.

As far as I'm aware that's what happens to people who use the patch file to update instead of the full firmware. Never ever use the patch file. I'm not sure why it's even in the archive. It doesn't contain half of the files that were changed in this firmware version (630 files were changed between 1.13 and 1.27, the patch contains only 27).

The patch files themselves seem to be mostly identical. The only difference I could make out without looking deeper into it is that the cn/au patch change the firmware version string in the system information from "1.27 EU" to "1.27 CN" and "1.27 AU". There may be other minor changes (such as changing the default language without actually adding any files). It's unlikely that there are any more significant changes as the patch file sizes are too similar (if not to say exactly the same) for that. The main file is the EU version already so there's no change between the EU patch and the full version.

I assume that if anything, those patches are supposed to be used after the 1.27 update and not before (and not at all for the EU version as the main file is already EU according to the version string).

Another thing that all patches do is delete the device's registry (which contains settings such as device idle timeout, identity, last book, etc). So in a way it also acts as a factory reset of sorts

Anyway, don't use the patch files. Always use the full firmware to up- or downgrade the device.

EDIT:

iriverrussia.com has more detailed upgrading instructions (they also have the Basic version without Wifi there).

http://iriverrussia.com/file/200/

As I guessed earlier the instructions say (according to Google translate) that the full hex file should be used first, and then the russian patch file afterwards. Unfortunately I can't find these instructions anywhere in English or German.