Aura HD becoming finicky to connect to windows, calibre

[stumped]

I have an aura HD , I guess about 3 years old now ? bought when new and shiny. It is on permanent loan to my son who brings it here occasionally to add books to.
But it's becoming harder and harder to persuade windows, & hence calibre to " see" the device., so lots of plug / unplug various cables into various usb ports until it suddenly shows up as a connected device in windows .
the reader will always say computer detected, and then connected and charging., it will say that as soon as the 1st pins make contact, even before the cable is pushed firmly in - I guess the charging pins connect before everything else
probably this is old age and so there is no fix, except to keep trying to push cables firmly into the socket. The socket does not seem loose at all. and the reader is good , for actully reading, but it is as if some cables for sure are not going deep enough into the socket to give a connected device status

I am posting in case any one has remedial suggestions , other than start saving up for a newer one.
I doubt the PC or that cables are at fault as my Kindle paperwhite connects reliably with the same cables to the same PC USB ports . we used to have a Kobo arc tablet that developed similar problems and eventually the kobo port just died,

as an alternative, is it possible for that aura HD to get at dropbox via its basic web browser and pull books from my calibre library backup in drop box, if the device socket degrades to be a charging-only socket ?

[ReaLx3m]

Since you are sure that it isnt the cables or pc, the next logical step would be to check the e-readers micro usb port.

Since the "revolution" in electronics by using lead free solder, cracked solder joints on ports that are frequently used became a more common occurence, as lead free solder is not as "elastic" as common leaded type.

If youre good with a soldering iron, you could try to open up the reader and just reinforce the joints on the port by adding little solder on each contact.
If you cant solder , than i would suggest taking it to your nearest electronics shop and have them do it for you, it shouldnt cost much.Or entirely replace the micro usb port on the e-reader for a new one.

Hopefully its not something more serious , and this procedure will help.

[stumped]

i am not handy with soldering, unfortunately. & anything involving a shop is likely to cost more than the device is worth?
what is a fully working aura HD worth nowadays ? ( UK)
as we only re-up books to it about once a month, and as the port seems OK for charging still, we'll continue to muddle on I guess,

[ReaLx3m]

Originally Posted by stumped

i am not handy with soldering, unfortunately. & anything involving a shop is likely to cost more than the device is worth?
what is a fully working aura HD worth nowadays ? ( UK)
as we only re-up books to it about once a month, and as the port seems OK for charging still, we'll continue to muddle on I guess,

Here it would cost not more than 10-15$ for that kind of work, but UK is a different beast i suppose

Originally Posted by stumped

as an alternative, is it possible for that aura HD to get at dropbox via its basic web browser and pull books from my calibre library backup in drop box, if the device socket degrades to be a charging-only socket ?

You can download books from calibre via WiFi , using the calibre content server an the inbuilt kobo browser.
On top bar on calibre there is a "Connect/Share" button.Press that and press start content server.After it started it will show the ip address and port of the content server, something like "192.168.1.101:8080" . So you enter that address in the kobo browser and you can browse and download from your calibre library

Edit:
Pc running Calibre and the e-reader should be connected to same WiFi router.

[stumped]

Ok thanks, I already run calibre content server, so I will give that method a try next time the device is here to test with
But when I go via wire the handy extended driver plug in kicks in which converts each epub to kepub on the fly, I guess I lose that by going wireless ?. Or I need a different plug in to pre convert in batch before starting to transfer

[ReaLx3m]

Originally Posted by stumped

Ok thanks, I already run calibre content server, so I will give that method a try next time the device is here to test with
But when I go via wire the handy extended driver plug in kicks in which converts each epub to kepub on the fly, I guess I lose that by going wireless ?. Or I need a different plug in to pre convert in batch before starting to transfer

Cant offer any insight on that, hopefully someone else will chime in.

Never used kepub, so maybe i would convert if id try who knows? . Either way I dont feel epub is lacking, at least with my type of usage - open and read and very rare use of dictionary.

[stumped]

I use kepub for that device only, as it renders better or offers a better range of text sizes or there was some other device specific benefit. Tbh I forget exactly how I reached that conclusion

[ReaLx3m]

Originally Posted by stumped

I use kepub for that device only, as it renders better or offers a better range of text sizes or there was some other device specific benefit. Tbh I forget exactly how I reached that conclusion

Dont quote me on this, but as far as i recall , i read here that at some point kobo changed the way nickel renders epubs, so kepub no longer has that benefit over epub.
I find the range of available text size in epub very good.
I was considering doing kepub conversions few months ago, but by reading around the forum the comparisons and oppinions about both formats, wasnt enough for me to even bother and try it. Only function that i wouldnt mind having in the epub is the correct page numbering(which kepub does correctly), other than that... idk.
To each his own i guess .

Best is to try and see if you notice a difference between the two, and if you misss some cruicial functionality that kepub offers over epub.

[dordale]

The Aura HD has a micro SD card slot--why not just add the books to a micro SD card use that with the Aura HD?

I'm pretty sure you can do a conversion in Calibre to convert from ePub to kePub before sending the book to its destination. If you do it this way, both the ePub and kePub versions will show up in Calibre.

[stumped]

Originally Posted by dordale

The Aura HD has a micro SD card slot--why not just add the books to a micro SD card use that with the Aura HD?

I'm pretty sure you can do a conversion in Calibre to convert from ePub to kePub before sending the book to its destination. If you do it this way, both the ePub and kePub versions will show up in Calibre.

another good idea - I may even have a micro SD card somewhere _ I'd forgotten that that slot exists
and i think you ar right about that plug in option also - i need to look through all the various extended drivers and see what it is called. i used the on-the-fly one as I dont need to keep the extra format in the library once sent.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by stumped

and i think you ar right about that plug in option also - i need to look through all the various extended drivers and see what it is called. i used the on-the-fly one as I dont need to keep the extra format in the library once sent.

I'm pretty sure that the driver used won't affect this. There does seem to be a case where the connection drops because after a bit of use. But, the only extra that the KoboTouchExtended driver might do that could affect this, is fairly early in the connection jobs. Nearly all the extra work it does is to copies it makes of the books on the hard disk. Then it copies the book to the device in exactly the same way as the KoboTouch driver.

[stumped]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I'm pretty sure that the driver used won't affect this..

that is correct, when the device is being " unseen" it is unseen by windows as well as unseen by calibre. once a proper connection is made, then it appears in windows as a drive and in calibre as a device, and all is good, until the next time
The on-device screen where it asks for permission to connect to computer and then says connected and charging - that happens i think as soon as the charging pins make contact. it is triggered by the charging pin detection which happens as soon as I just touch the usb cable end to the ports without even pushing it home.
but I have several workarounds not, thanks to the contributors to this thread,

When i look at my various micro usb cable ends, the melal end which goes into the deviceport is shorter/longer on different cables, It could just be a depth thing. the end goes in until stopped by the plastic casing on the cable and it seems touch and go as to whether it goes in far enough. I've lost my genuine kobo cable , so trying with a kindle cable & with various 99p ebay specials
PS if you happen to know the name of the driver / plug in that does epub to kepub conversions in caliber in advnace of connecting the device, that will save me some searching.
I get from the other conmments that such a conversion may no longer be beneficial, but i am used to a particular workflow, and as my son is the actual reader, I don't want him coming back saying that last batch of books you sideloaded all have text that is too small/ too large/ some other defect. Maybe we went for kepub to get the pages left in chapter display to work on the device ? it was a long time ago that I set it all up.
Most of what we sideload are conversions of my amazon books as we shop there, not at kobo, for stuff that can be made to work on all devices

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by stumped

that is correct, when the device is being " unseen" it is unseen by windows as well as unseen by calibre. once a proper connection is made, then it appears in windows as a drive and in calibre as a device, and all is good, until the next time

Different problem to the one I was thinking of. Some people have a problem where the connection drops after a bit.

The on-device screen where it asks for permission to connect to computer and then says connected and charging - that happens i think as soon as the charging pins make contact. it is triggered by the charging pin detection which happens as soon as I just touch the usb cable end to the ports without even pushing it home.
but I have several workarounds not, thanks to the contributors to this thread,

When i look at my various micro usb cable ends, the melal end which goes into the deviceport is shorter/longer on different cables, It could just be a depth thing. the end goes in until stopped by the plastic casing on the cable and it seems touch and go as to whether it goes in far enough. I've lost my genuine kobo cable , so trying with a kindle cable & with various 99p ebay specials

I did have a problem at the device end of the cable. When I looked in the socket, there was a little bit of something jammed into the bottom. It was just thick enough that the plug didn't always go in enough to connect.

But, my usual problem is at the other end of the cable. The socket in the laptop has become a little lose, and I if I don't make sure the plug is in properly, it doesn't connect.

PS if you happen to know the name of the driver / plug in that does epub to kepub conversions in caliber in advnace of connecting the device, that will save me some searching.

You want the Kepub Output plugin for the conversion. And you should install the Kepub Metadata Writer and Kepub Metadata Reader plugins.

[stumped]

Update.
Idly googling this issue I find a 15 page thread on problems getting windows and kobo to play nice. All sorts of fixes suggested.e.g install kobo desktop again, go via a usb hub.... I wonder if the issue is not with my device port after all but may have been triggered by installing windows fall creators update ?
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...-kobo-ereader/
I don't have kobo desktop installed, I could go get latest version, from kobo I assume.. Theory is that it may install newer drivers ?

[davidfor]

The suggestion for Kobo desktop is a red herring. A lot of people don't have it. It doesn't install any drivers. Windows just treats the device as a MSD and uses its own drivers.

Something you could try is deleting the USB configuration using USBDeview.. This will show all USB devices connected or previously seen. Find any entries for Kobo device, and uninstall them. Then reboot and try connecting the device. This has solved connection problems for a few people, but usually they cannot see the device ever.