Kobo E_Reader wifi upgrade gone bad

[Uschiekid]

Originally Posted by Altivo

Even on Windows I've not seen any Calibre release higher than 0.9. I do accept those updates whenever I get the prompt for them.

Weird...I think the last update prompt I got was 1.17 on linux. If you aren't getting prompts (actually I think I only get prompted if I open calibre on a friday), look in the bottom right-hand corner for blue highlighted writing...there will be an update links there...

Actually, I can give you the linux link:
http://calibre-ebook.com/download_linux
And it's actually currently up to 1.18.0

[PeterT]

Remember; there is more than just accepting the update. You download it and then have to install it.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Altivo

Even on Windows I've not seen any Calibre release higher than 0.9. I do accept those updates whenever I get the prompt for them.

I'd suggest going to Calibre's download page and manually downloading the latest update from there, http://download.calibre-ebook.com/ and then checking the Calibre download_for_Linux page at
http://calibre-ebook.com/download_linux

The command line with destination directory shown on that page works for me.

Good luck!

David

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Altivo

Well I did check Calibre (version 0.8.38) and it no longer recognizes the Kobo wifi. Totally invisible, though the Linux OS does see it as a mountable external storage device.

Others gave commented on the versions. But, the version that the different Linux distros have tends to be a long way behind.

Calibre looking at the test case book was inconclusive. It displays some but not all the Italics (others appear with the [_ _] around them, and some bold text has [* *] around it too) and shows chapter headings all caps and right justified the way the upgraded Kobo does. This book, being something that was apparently passed through OCR and incompletely proofed and formatted afterward, is probably not a good evaluation tool. I'll have to look at a professionally produced title instead.

Yes, that looks like some sort of markup that hasn't been converted. For a test book, I suggest something from the library here. They tend to be well built plus others can see the same book for testing.

Downloaded the firmware but after looking for explicit instructions on how to install it manually and finding only vague generalities, decided not to mess with it.

The method for the current readers is simple. I don't have a WiFi so I haven't looked. I'd be surprised if it was any more difficult.

Likewise, cloning the internal SD memory from the second Kobo doesn't seem like a good option. Opening the cases appears to be questionable and as with the firmward upgrade, the available information is vague and doesn't feel comfortable to me.

Sorry, I haven't seen one for a while so can't help. The SD card copy imaging is easy,

[Altivo]

Yes, I've been installing Calibre upgrades as they are offered, but I started with the Linux distribution release which still tells me it is current. I was not referring to the actual Calibre web page. I'll see if I can install the latest from there. Fortunately, I'm not dependent on Calibre and was just using it as a comparison tool. It looks like I have the dependencies for the latest version, though. (I usually lag a release or two behind the bleeding edge with my Linux install, and prefer to keep the LTS version rather than replacing everything twice a year.)

As far as performing manual upgrades or manipulating the Kobo hardware, I'm finding it extremely difficult to locate reputable information. These forums, though extensive, are so cumbersome for me to sift through that I tend to give up before finding things. Or when I do find information, it is often contradictory and confusing. Searching for information specific to just the N647 wifi model is difficult. I keep getting material on later versions of the Kobo hardware that obviously does not apply.

In fact, it seems to me that these operations (since they aren't authorized or supported by Kobo) are often treated at the same level as DRM removal, where people say "It can be done but we don't talk about it here" or "The information is common knowledge" or "You'll find it in Google."

I believe I'm a fairly competent technician when it comes to both software and hardware. I've worked in the field for nearly 40 years now, but have grown very cautious when it comes to messing with things that lack "official" documentation.

I will try the factory reset approach, however, and report the result here.

[Altivo]

OK, factory reset done. Things still seem weird.

There are some improvements, but I'm not sure the behavior is what it should be. I thought the reset would put me back at the original firmware and I could reapply the 1.9.11 update. That didn't happen. The reset did erase all my settings and the books in the main/internalmemory, but remained on version 1.9.11. So I put the settings back in, time, date, and so forth.

The only book showing on the home screen was the Kobo ereader user guide. The settings screen did not show the external memory chip, which has been one of my complaints all along. So I got daring and popped the SD chip out while the device was powered on.

To my surprise, the display announced that the SD had been removed, please wait while we update, etc. So I waited. When the display came it did the "adding new content" thing, which took several minutes. There are 150 books on the SD chip.

When it finished, all those books appeared as "new" titles on the home display. However, instead of showing the actual title of the book, the display showed the file name. This is OK if the file name is a reasonable representation of the book title, but they are not always so. The old firmware displayed the title from the internal metadata in the file. However, I was pleased that at least the external memory was recognized, and now it showed on the settings screen. I was able to open a couple of books and scroll through pages.

Then I powered the Kobo down. When powered back up, it no longer could see the external memory and all of the 150 titles, including the ones I had opened, were gone from the books list and the "I'm reading" list.

I ejected the SD again, got the same "wait for update" messages, and this time when I reinserted the SD nothing at all seemed to happen. However, when I flipped over to the book list, the 150 titles from the SD were back in the list. The ones I had opened were retaining my last page read information as well, and reappeared on the "I'm reading" list after being opened.

Unfortunately, each time I power the Kobo down, it loses awareness of the SD card. It only recognizes it again after I eject and reinsert it. And it does not keep the currently active book on the "I'm reading" list, which means I have to go retrieve it from the 250 titles in the books listing (including the pre-loaded books) which is slow, cumbersome, and pointless.

Oh, and the test book I was using earlier in this thread now displays with margins and a much more readable page. I haven't gotten far enough to see what happens with the Italics, etc.

I found a Windows box with a current (1.18) version of Calibre, and it does indeed recognize the Kobo now, but sees only the internal storage. If I eject and reinsert the SD chip while connected to Calibre, an error message appears saying that Calibre failed to access the external/auxiliary storage in my device. It suggests that the card is corrupted or needs to be reformatted. If I'm interpreting the messages correctly, it says that it got a permission denied while trying to write Calibre status info to the drive.

So now a new question arises. As far as I can tell, the SD chip I'm using is formatted in Windows FAT32, and has no errors. The write protect tab is set to "off", and both Windows and Linux are perfectly happy to read and write to it. Could there be something wrong that is too subtle for Windows scandisk to catch? I seem to recall being told to format the SD for the Literati by inserting it into a camera rather than letting Windows format it. This one is using the pre-written FAT32 format that was installed to it by the manufacturer, I believe.

This all represents some progress, though things still are not quite what I expected.

[robko]

I haven't used my wifi in a long time, but I think there were some issues like you are describing with SD cards. The work around for having to wait for it to re-read the SD card is to simply sleep the device rather than completely powering it down. There shouldn't be a big power drain difference between the two.

[Altivo]

I have wondered in the past about the difference in battery drain between "sleep" and actual "powered off" states. With the older firmware version, things were remembered through the power off just fine.

Since I have been in the habit of removing the SD card and loading additional books onto it with my laptop, then reinserting it, there may still be an issue. I'll have to see about that. I'm well convinced at this point that my next purchase will not be a dedicated e-reader device from any of the big 3, Kobo, Amazon, or B&N. All of them seem like bumbling stooges when it comes to support and software design.

[Altivo]

Now that I've had a chance to actually read from the device and play with title display and selection, here is my assessment of 1.9.11 after the factory reset.

Some things do not work at all. One of these is display font selection. Although the settings still allow you to choose a sans-serif font for the display, it does not alter the actual display which remains in serif font. This used to work.

Power off does change the device to a powered off state. However, after doing this your access to titles on the "outboard memory" or external SD is lost and must be recovered by ejecting and reinserting the SD chip. This was not necessary with the older release. Also, regardless of the setting made for whether to display the book cover when powered down, the screen always goes to the default Kobo powered off display, showing no information about the current title. I consider these issues to be bugs in 1.9.11.

Sleep mode does work and does retain access to the external SD materials when reawakened. In sleep mode the device does display the cover image of the current book if that option is turned on in settings.

After upgrading Calibre to version 1.18 on Linux, Calibre does see the device and is able to display directories of the content on both main and outboard memory. Using Calibre to load a book to the main memory works as expected. Using Calibre to load a book to the SD or "outboard" memory appears to succeed and Calibre says the book is now loaded, the device does not see that book even after it processes new content. Examination of the content of the actual SD chip does not find the book, even though Calibre reported a successful transfer. I consider this to be a bug in 1.9.11.

Formatting issues I reported originally in 1.9.11 appear to have resolved themselves after the reset, with the exception of the inability to change the displayed font. Em dashes in the text are now correctly displayed. Italics are displayed in properly formatted epub files. The book I had been using for tests that showed some Italics and bold text as encllosed in square bracket escape tags (in both Calibre and on the Kobo reader) no longer shows the spurious tags, nor does it show those Italics as tagged. The chapter headings in that book now display on the reader as they did formerly, which is bolded, centered, and with numerals for the chapter number. Interestingly, on Calibre they still display right justified with the number spelled out in all caps. I believe this is a formatting issue in the particular e-book file, and not an actual problem of the Kobo reader. Further investigations of chapter headings, comparing the two displays, are a future consideration but primarily out of curiosity.

At this point the Kobo wifi ereader is once again usable, provided I do not power it off as was my practice in the past. The bad results of power off, the inability to change display fonts, and the inability of Calibre to write books to the outboard memory chip are nuisance factors, but not insurmountable. This still suggests that insufficient effort was put into testing and debugging the 1.9.11 firmware, and I don't particularly recommend installing this version if you are happy with what you have now.

Late addition: One other thing. I happen to be in the habit of reading multiple books at once, switching between them depending on my mood. The old firmware was quite cooperative with this, keeping books on the "I'm reading" list and showing percentage read no matter how many I had open at once. The 1.9.11 version seems to limit this capability to 5 titles or perhaps 6. When I open more than that, the oldest one disappears from the "I'm reading" list even though I haven't finished or closed it. Worse, in the listing of all books, it appears as "unread," though when opened again it returns to the page last displayed as it properly should do. This also seems like a pointless change on the part of the software developers. True, most readers probably read books sequentially; but I know that I'm not the only one who reads multiple books simultaneously. It really wouldn't take much to accommodate this, and especially so since they had it working in the past.

[Bookworm2013]

I've got one of the older Kobos too. Did the upgrade yesterday and now my reader won't work at all.

The desktop also had an upgrade so not just the WiFi. I did mine hard-wired to the PC.

My Kobo seems to be stuck in a start-up loop. All it has is "Kobo Read On" and the little boxes at the bottom just keep flashing. Nothing else.

We've tried every way of rebooting it we know and still nothing.

Beginning to think this is Kobo's way of getting us to buy one of the newer ones. I've only had mine a couple of years so haven't really had that much use out of it yet - maybe read about 30 books in total.

I've been having problems with mine for a few months - have a thread elsewhere about it. Downloading books via the PC and only getting the chapter titles and page numbers on the reader with nothing inbetween. Last book I downloaded I had to read on the PC!

I did look at the Kobo Mini a couple of months ago but had to road tax the car instead so that got put on the back burner for a while. What annoys me is I have a nice case for mine which, of course, will be no use for a new Kobo.

[flyboy320]

My apologies for not updating my original post sooner (had subscribe to threads set to notify weekly and not instant).

As I wrote on the second post, I was able to get my reader back up and running correctly. I had to remove the micro SD card from the reader by removing the back cover (very easy to do), and I used the program win32diskimager (with Windows XP) and wrote a good image to the card. After I replaced the micro SD card in the reader, it worked just as it should.

My original problem was the reader was not seeing any books either on the external SD card, or books on the reader itself, even the user guide could not be accessed, and every time I rebooted the device, it would say "updating your reader", which seemed odd. Once I flashed the good image back on the micro sd card, it's back to normal.

The original update (over wifi) went OK, but after the second day, it crashed/froze when I opened a book I was reading, and I had to do a hard reset on it. After that, that's when the problems started.

If anyone wants the image file, PM me and I'll send you a link to it (about 2gb in size).

[speterson]

Originally Posted by flyboy320

Well I managed to get a sd image from another member here and flashed that to the internal sd card. All is good now...

I have the exact same issue, do you still have the SD image or can you provide the contact of provided it to you? Thank you

[flyboy320]

Originally Posted by speterson

I have the exact same issue, do you still have the SD image or can you provide the contact of provided it to you? Thank you

PM sent.

[Bookworm2013]

Have given up with my old Kobo and bought a new Kobo Touch. For under £30 at that price can't really go wrong.

[flyboy320]

Originally Posted by Bookworm2013

Have given up with my old Kobo and bought a new Kobo Touch. For under £30 at that price can't really go wrong.

As someone else said....it's a ploy by the people who write the firmware to get you to upgrade the reader...I swear they write bad/buggy firmware for this reason....