Touch Quality check before loading to KT?

[GvilleBridge]

The basic problem is that the Kobo refuses to load some ePubs, freezing the gadget while Processing Content (sometimes wrecking everything and necessitating a Reset) while declining to specify what it doesn't like, offering fixits, or just skipping the bad book.

The latest: after seeing the Masterpiece version of Dickens' Edwin Drood, I sought out the PG edition plus two related titles there. I also got MS Word to save the Wikipedia article on the book as Filtered Web Page, then got Calibre to pick it up and convert it to ePub. Well, one or maybe all of those 4 ePubs snarled the KT. I tried this and that and the other thing--all too tedious to relate--but now it looks like I'm doomed to a Reset...for maybe the 5th time in a year.

Why can't the Kobo folks add a function to the desktop app that examines ebooks the user wants to put on the KT and says either Go Ahead and Load It or Something Wrong With That ePub?

I suggested this in March and am peeved that this company doesn't seem to pay any attention at all to the numerous loading problems that users experience, as can be seen from the traffic in this forum.

Are you there, Kobo? Are we ever going to get a firmware update? (Sorry to overdo the smileys.)

[taming]

Originally Posted by GvilleBridge

I suggested this in March and am peeved that this company doesn't seem to pay any attention at all to the numerous loading problems that users experience, as can be seen from the traffic in this forum.

Are you there, Kobo? Are we ever going to get a firmware update? (Sorry to overdo the smileys.)

The loading problems almost never seem to be with an actual book that one bought either from Kobo, or from another actual retailer and then converted to ePUB, removed drm etc. It is almost always with an ePUB someone created out of something else or downloaded as part of those unbelievable collections of hundreds of books from various sources.

Kobo seems to handle properly formatted ePUB standards compliant books just fine.

Over the past two years, approximately 300 books have successfully made it onto my Kobo without problem. One book did not--and that was a public domain book that I thought might be an issue because its file size was unbelievably large. I was right. I removed the book and all was well.

[GvilleBridge]

I guess I overdid the smileys a couple of hours before my post above as there is now new firmware. I did a Factory Reset and now am loading the new OS.

[taming]

Originally Posted by GvilleBridge

I guess I overdid the smileys a couple of hours before my post above as there is now new firmware. I did a Factory Reset and now am loading the new OS.

I heard a voice from on high saying that the new firmware was created just for you, so thanks GvilleBridge! Some nice changes there.

[GvilleBridge]

Well, I like some of the new 2.0 features but the problem of one bad ebook (corrupted format or whatever) causing the entire KT to crash still exists, and I think the Kobo folks still need to equip the desktop app with a quality (integrity) check to filter out bad ePubs before they get near our little gadgets.

Last night, in installing 2.0, I first removed the SDHC card with the 1 to 4 bad books referred to above in post #1.

Before reinserting the card, I deleted the 4 books (via Windows Explorer as I couldn't do it with Calibre if KT wouldn't finish loading my library).

Then I inserted the card and prayed. And I guess the KT would still be Processing Content till kingdom come. So now I have to reformat the card and begin the tedious process of sideloading hundreds of ePubs a couple dozen at a time either in main memory or onto the card.

? or am I doomed to spend time in tech-hassle hell tonight rather than reading a newly purchased ebook (Rebecca Stott's Darwin's Ghosts) in bed?

[BensonBear]

Originally Posted by GvilleBridge

Well, I like some of the new 2.0 features but the problem of one bad ebook (corrupted format or whatever) causing the entire KT to crash still exists, and I think the Kobo folks still need to equip the desktop app with a quality (integrity) check to filter out bad ePubs before they get near our little gadgets.

If the desktop could do it, then there is no reason the Kobo itself could not do it. The code would be essentially the same. (although it would be nice to offload as much of the "moment" of "processing content" as possible onto a more powerful device). However, let us suppose it is just too darn hard to do this. Then at least the Kobo should leave behind some information saying what file it was working on before it hung or crashed. It could save a list of its planned order of checking files and which files it had checked. This file could be examined upon recovery so one knows where the error lies, and which files can be added safely. This does not require them to figure out how to do a "quality check" correctly and can be very easily added.

[GvilleBridge]

Brilliant! Please send in an employment application right now.

I guess I was proposing that the Kobo desktop app do it because, well, a PC or even a Mac is a lot more robust and faster than our shiny gadgets.

Really, the app should have a lot of the same management functions as Calibre (Kovid Goyal, please send in a proposal to Kobo soonest), and leave the Kobo to concentrate on displaying books nicely. Which it does...once it figures out how to load a bunch of books without crashing.

[GvilleBridge]

Sorry for perhaps sounding sarcastic in my reply to BensonBear because, seriously, implementing something like his proposal would be one of the best things for the poor Kobo user who sees the endless marching squares or Processing Content indications and deserves to know what exactly is hanging the thing. This is especially a problem when sideloading dozens of ebooks at a time. The only sure way I can think of to quality-check ebooks--being certain items are not malformed or whatever--is to load them one at a time, eject, unplug, see what the Kobo does (or not).