No write access to Kobo internal memory (seemingly)

[simonk]

I'm experiencing a very weird problem with my girlfriends Kobo reader. In the past I've always been able to drag & drop ebooks to and from the Kobo. As of last week, that's no longer working. I've been in touch with Kobo support and when they finally understood the problem (after sending me some canned responses) they were equally clueless. I found this forum through searching, looked through some issues but weren't able to find a solution. I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I must say that I'm pretty computer savvy and have no clue why the Glo is acting the way it is.

Here's what's going on: I can no longer delete or add files from the Glo from my computer. I work on a Mac while my girlfriend uses a pc. I tried both, just in case. I'll describe below what I've already tried and what the result is:

- Connect Glo to computer.
- Drag book to Glo. This works, no errors, the book is listed in the filetree.
- Unmount Glo. Glo returns to homescreen.
- Added book can't be found on the device via the menu.
- Connect Glo to computer again.
- Added book is no longer in the filetree.

I basically did the same by removing ALL books on it instead of adding one. But again, upon disconnecting all books still show up on the Glo. Even though the filetree was empty when it was connected to a computer. No errors were shown and during deletion I saw a progress bar. I also noticed the reported free space on the device go up upon completion.

So next up I tried both basic and factory resets (from settings and manual). This seemed to work as the screen of the Glo showed an activity indicator. It finished without errors. But when it booted up again, all books were still present as if nothing had happened.

I also tried tools like Calibre. Calibre was able to list the books on the device and delete them without errors. I could even quit Calibre, keep the Glo mounted to my computer, restart Calibre and refresh the view. Calibre would report the Glo as being empty. Upon unmounting, the books were still visible on the device, and when connected to the computer again the books were again showing up in Calibre.

At this point I feel I should mention the Glo still works fine. Books can be read, and it remembers your reading position, indicating the device itself is still able to write to its memory.

I figured it was time for more drastic measures, so I decided to format the device' memory and put back a backup or just the most recent .kobo firmware (which I found on this forum). Formatting again is completed without any errors. The device appears empty. But when I unmount it, it starts up again and shows all the content that was supposed to be deleted.

I'm out of ideas to troubleshoot this, so anything that will help to fix this is very much appreciated.

[surquizu]

It seems that SD is broken. Open the reader and switches the SD to another with an image of the original SD

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=209122
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=210006

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by simonk

I'm experiencing a very weird problem with my girlfriends Kobo reader. In the past I've always been able to drag & drop ebooks to and from the Kobo. As of last week, that's no longer working. I've been in touch with Kobo support and when they finally understood the problem (after sending me some canned responses) they were equally clueless. I found this forum through searching, looked through some issues but weren't able to find a solution. I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I must say that I'm pretty computer savvy and have no clue why the Glo is acting the way it is.

Here's what's going on: I can no longer delete or add files from the Glo from my computer. I work on a Mac while my girlfriend uses a pc. I tried both, just in case. I'll describe below what I've already tried and what the result is:

- Connect Glo to computer.
- Drag book to Glo. This works, no errors, the book is listed in the filetree.
- Unmount Glo. Glo returns to homescreen.
- Added book can't be found on the device via the menu.
- Connect Glo to computer again.
- Added book is no longer in the filetree.

I basically did the same by removing ALL books on it instead of adding one. But again, upon disconnecting all books still show up on the Glo. Even though the filetree was empty when it was connected to a computer. No errors were shown and during deletion I saw a progress bar. I also noticed the reported free space on the device go up upon completion.

At any point while you were doing this did you see the black processing screen when you disconnected the device? And what progress bar are you talking about?

So next up I tried both basic and factory resets (from settings and manual). This seemed to work as the screen of the Glo showed an activity indicator. It finished without errors. But when it booted up again, all books were still present as if nothing had happened.

You chose the "Factory reset" from the "Device information" page of the settings? Did it just restart or did it show several different black screens for resetting the firmware and then updating it? By "manual" do you mean using the buttons?

I also tried tools like Calibre. Calibre was able to list the books on the device and delete them without errors. I could even quit Calibre, keep the Glo mounted to my computer, restart Calibre and refresh the view. Calibre would report the Glo as being empty. Upon unmounting, the books were still visible on the device, and when connected to the computer again the books were again showing up in Calibre.

That sounds about right. The driver is reading the devices database for the books. If you add books and don't disconnect the device, but do restart calibre, calibre won't see the books as they are not in the database. If you disconnect and for some reason the books aren't processed and added to the database, again, calibre won't see them on the next connection.

At this point I feel I should mention the Glo still works fine. Books can be read, and it remembers your reading position, indicating the device itself is still able to write to its memory.

I figured it was time for more drastic measures, so I decided to format the device' memory and put back a backup or just the most recent .kobo firmware (which I found on this forum). Formatting again is completed without any errors. The device appears empty. But when I unmount it, it starts up again and shows all the content that was supposed to be deleted.

How did you format the devices memory? From the Mac? Pull the internal card out and format that?

Unless I misunderstood some of what you have done, I can't think of a way this would be working. So, the simplest thing might be to restore an image as surquizu suggested. I have sent you a link to the image if you want to try that. And getting a new SD card might be an idea.

[simonk]

Thanks for the quick replies! I didn't know it was so easy to get to the internals of the Glo, and that it uses an SD card for storage internally as well. I swapped the SD card with another card and copied the contents of the old card to the new card. The Glo booted up normally and I can delete/modify files again as usual. So it indeed appears the SD card was somehow broken.

What still puzzles me is the fact that I wasn't getting any errors and that both Finder and Explorer reported the card as empty while it wasn't. I'm guessing the reader was interfering in some way, because when I put my micro SD in my computer directly it *does* alert me that deleting or formatting could not be completed.

Thanks for your help!