Geb2200 + Impserve / Gateway timeout

[Jmt]

Hi everybody

I recently found this website and so i dug out my Gemstar ebook.
On the backcover it is identified as GEB 2200.

After doing some research I downloaded impserve to add new ebooks to my reader.

Both my computer and the ebook reader are connected to my router. The ebook reader connects using DHCP and is successfully assigned an Ip adress. I start impserve with impserve.exe -a 192.168.2.101 (ip of my pc) -p 9090 shelf.

When I try to connect to the online bookshelf from my ebook reader I get: There was no response from the server...

In the status window of impserve I get:
192.168.2.104 - - [12/Feb/2011 22:33:04] code 504, message Gateway Timeout
192.168.2.104 - - [12/Feb/2011 22:33:04] "GET http://bookshelf.softbook.net/booksh...SHOW_HIDDEN=NO HTTP/1.0" 504 -

I can see in the status windows of my firewall that the pc is connecting to the ebook reader and that there is some communication.

If anybody would have any hint or suggestion as to what I am doing wrong it would be greatly appreciated

Thanks in advance.

[nrapallo]

Hi and welcome to mobileread.com!

You sure came to the right place with your issue(s)...

I've owned and enjoyed my REB 1200 (predecessor to the GEB 2200) for MANY years primarily due to the great underlying techology used to produce it! A device truly waaaay ahead of it's time....

Anyway, enough reminiscing/rambling, your firmware may not be up-to-date and as such your device's firmware still points to the old Gemstar/Softbook servers (softbook.net) that no longer exist.

ETI Technologies, Inc. supported the device after the demise of Gemstar and allowed these devices to be migrated to new servers (ebooksystem.net) so as to still enjoy ebook delivery of purchased content.

Perhaps your unit was never migrated?

Can you check the firmware version of your GEB 2200?

See this thread on how that's done. If it is lower than firmware 3.1 then you cannot upgrade your device yourself to the new servers, but can make a simple change to "impserve.py" to get it to work properly. To work with your (older) firmware, you need to tell impserve to look for the old server instead as was explained in this thread. Basically, just change any references of ebooksystem.net to softbook.net in "impserve.py".

While your are here, be sure to check out other GEB 2200-related freely available software in our IMP software wiki!

Enjoy!

[Jmt]

Hi nrapallo!

Thanks for the welcome and your fast response.

You are absolutely right about the device I feel no need to get another ebook reader anytime soon.

I have checked the firmware and it is at version 3.3. It seems not to be registered to anybody and most likely was never migrated.

Found the impserve.py and already made all the replacements. Just figuring out how to compile ebookutils with the changes included.

I have tried most of the other software available for serving content but will be looking closer into all the conversion options.

[Jmt]

Sorry for the doublepost. I seem to be unable to figure out how to edit my post (now I can see an edit button... )

Just wanted to report in that I got it to work . I had to take the impserve.py from the sourcecode and make the replacement just as described above. Works like a charm. I am still getting exceptions that happen in socketserver.pyo and baseHTPPSserver.pyo but I have no problems with the books I transfer.

Last question would be if it is advisable to upgrade the firmware after all? I read on the ETI website about various improvements but wasnt sure if there wouldnt be possible dangers when upgrading the firmware now, given that it is working as intended at the moment.

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by Jmt

Last question would be if it is advisable to upgrade the firmware after all? I read on the ETI website about various improvements but wasnt sure if there wouldnt be possible dangers when upgrading the firmware now, given that it is working as intended at the moment.

EDIT: Be careful!!! According to this post at the REB1200 for Dummies website:

GEB 2200 hardware

The 2200 is a completely new architecture compared to the 1200. We replaced the Motorola 68K CPU used in the 1200 with the Cirrus Logic 7312 (which is an ARM Ltd, RISC processor).
This means that the 2200 can render, and process about 60 times faster than the 1200. It may not be immediately obvious, since the 1200 was pretty good at this, but if you were to hold them side by side, you would notice the difference in drawing pages as you flip them fast.

The battery change on the 2200 was made for costs. A battery in a case and the associated connectors and mechanical parts (battery door, etc) are a significant cost. The goal is to produce a product that competes with the 1200, but can be sold for a lot less. Very few people were buying new batteries, so the decision was made that people would prefer to pay less than to have the removeable battery.

It's best you confirm that the GEB2200 can be migrated from the experts at ETI ( try emailing Garth Conboy gc@ebooktechnologies.com or John Rivlin john@ebooktechnologies.com )

This advice is for REB1200/GEB2150 and not necessarily for GEB2200 owners until verified!

There should be no dangers in upgrading your firmware to the latest. I have both of my REB1200's at the latest firmware, as offered by the ETI servers, and I don't regret it one bit!

Though you already have read the migration stuff on the ETI website, see this post for the advantages of such a firmware upgrade.

Then, you can even register it on www.ebookwise.com or www.fictionwise.com so that you can download current/mainstream ebooks...