Direct Links to Kobo Firmware

[ichrispa]

Originally Posted by Reaper1242

Nothing worked for me at all. Tried power cycle, soft restart, both factory reset methods. Opened it up and pulled the battery and internal SD.
Tried connecting to USB and didn't pick up. Overnight charge on mains, nothing.
It did flash green and blue, but that was the end of it's activity. I have a hunch it was a hardware failure that just happened to coincide with the update.

From my chat with a Kobo agent they still aren't even acknowledging the release of 2.3.2. I wonder if they're skipping it outside of Japan and running straight to 2.3.3.

Sorry to hear that nothing worked, but what you describe is exactly the behavior I saw on my misupdated kobo.

As far as I can tell the hardware restore function is handled by a software interrupt, meaning the kernel must be up and running for the reset sequence to work. The update overwrites the kernel and bootloader images, meaning that if they go wrong the kernel won't even be loaded. The flashing LEDs are propably a function of the bootloader or even an even lower function from the MX processors internal program memory.

So I will speculate that by updating the reader with the wrong firmware, either uboot or the kernel fail to load properly on boot. That means you see the flashing led's, but after that the kernel panics and the software interrupt doesn't work anymore.

Restoring the internal sd card with an image also restores the original bootloader and the kernel image. So I was able to do a factory reset after that.

The only alternative to that would propably be JTAG debuggung. I found an unused serial port when I opened my kobo (4 vias marked RX,TX,+,GND on the USB side of the PCB), but failed to locate a jtag interface. It must still be on the board somewhere and this post suggests that the individual pins are located on the "down" side of the board. But if I reach the point that I need to resort to JTAG it is really much easier to call on the waranty.

Note to Kobo Developer: You are checking the PCB Version of the board in the 10th line or so of rcS script. Would it hurt to run a version check against the Update before unpacking it to the partition!??

[Reaper1242]

Originally Posted by ichrispa

Sorry to hear that nothing worked, but what you describe is exactly the behavior I saw on my misupdated kobo.

As far as I can tell the hardware restore function is handled by a software interrupt, meaning the kernel must be up and running for the reset sequence to work. The update overwrites the kernel and bootloader images, meaning that if they go wrong the kernel won't even be loaded. The flashing LEDs are propably a function of the bootloader or even an even lower function from the MX processors internal program memory.

So I will speculate that by updating the reader with the wrong firmware, either uboot or the kernel fail to load properly on boot. That means you see the flashing led's, but after that the kernel panics and the software interrupt doesn't work anymore.

Restoring the internal sd card with an image also restores the original bootloader and the kernel image. So I was able to do a factory reset after that.

The only alternative to that would propably be JTAG debuggung. I found an unused serial port when I opened my kobo (4 vias marked RX,TX,+,GND on the USB side of the PCB), but failed to locate a jtag interface. It must still be on the board somewhere and this post suggests that the individual pins are located on the "down" side of the board. But if I reach the point that I need to resort to JTAG it is really much easier to call on the waranty.

Note to Kobo Developer: You are checking the PCB Version of the board in the 10th line or so of rcS script. Would it hurt to run a version check against the Update before unpacking it to the partition!??

I probably could have fixed it if I'd bothered but with an easy replacement I couldn't justify the time and effort. I tend to be much lazier about fixing thing under warranty.

I'd probably be less likely to side load an update in the future and just wait for the official update unless I need to get rid of a major bug or something.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by ichrispa

Sorry Mrs_Often, I forgot to answer your question.

No problem, thanks for getting back to the question

Originally Posted by ichrispa

Sorry: bought in autumn, manufactured in the summer of 2012. It's in the image of my sd card. The Files on the original backup partition (the one used to restore using hard reset) all date to the 18th of July 2012. Also, when looking at the raw sdcard image, the first couple of bytes contain the serial number, which looks like "N-N**************_1207180919". I bought the Kobo in October 2012, so it does make sense to me that the 18th July 2012 is the manufacturing date of my device. But it stays of course an assumption.

There is another possible hint to the manufacturing date of the hardware (which in no sense says anything about the device in general) on the integrated circuits inside the device. The processor (yes, I looked. I was curious ) at least does bare a 1/12 marking, which could mean that it was manufactured on the first or second quarter of 2012. But the markings are manufacturer specific and could really mean anything.

Thanks for that! So basically, you can only find out if you open up your device? Gah. Shouldn't there be an easier way? Like say, all those numbers at the bottom of the device the right of the micro usb socket?

I definitely have an "old" Touch and it says:
FCC ID: ZJLKOBON905
IC: 8912A-KOBON905
MODEL: N905 (obviously)

Originally Posted by ichrispa

Note to Kobo Developer: You are checking the PCB Version of the board in the 10th line or so of rcS script. Would it hurt to run a version check against the Update before unpacking it to the partition!??

Yes please!

[ichrispa]

You don't necessarily need to open it. If my assumption of the SD Card containing a serial number incl the manufacturing date is true, try doing

# busybox head -C 256 /dev/mmcblk0 | busybox hexdump -C

on a telnet prompt on your kobo. That should dump the Serial number. As I said I suspect the part after the SNr to be the manufacturing date.

MODEL: N905

Mine is definetely a "new" Kobo (as in 'requiring Glo Firmware') and is a N905C.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by ichrispa

You don't necessarily need to open it. If my assumption of the SD Card containing a serial number incl the manufacturing date is true, try doing



on a telnet prompt on your kobo. That should dump the Serial number. As I said I suspect the part after the SNr to be the manufacturing date.



Mine is definetely a "new" Kobo (as in 'requiring Glo Firmware') and is a N905C.

Great! Thanks for al that info

[Chocky]

My model number is N905B, any idea what download of 2.3.2 I should use?

Just done the device manager thing and PID is 4163 and 2.3.1 rev 0110

Thanks.

[ichrispa]

Depending on how expirienced you are with hacking you Kobo I suggest that you don't update for now.

If you know how to create an sdcard image and are familiar with restoring disk images try to use the Kobo Touch update. Be prepared to go through the entire restore ordeal though.

[Chocky]

Originally Posted by ichrispa

Depending on how expirienced you are with hacking you Kobo I suggest that you don't update for now.

If you know how to create an sdcard image and are familiar with restoring disk images try to use the Kobo Touch update. Be prepared to go through the entire restore ordeal though.

Not experienced at all, just fed up with the bugs with 2.3.1, oh well waiting game again.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by Chocky

My model number is N905B, any idea what download of 2.3.2 I should use?

Just done the device manager thing and PID is 4163 and 2.3.1 rev 0110

Thanks.

If you bought your Touch before the Glo came out, you probably have an "old" Touch and should use the Touch version.

OR

You could test which firmware you get by factory resetting, and then doing the setup via the Desktop software, and monitor which firmware link is used to load 2.3.1. I forget where people find this link in their Desktop app cache files probably. But once you have the link you could compare it with the links given here in this thread: if it's the Touch's, use the Touch's 2.3.2; if it's the Glo's, use the Glo's 2.3.2

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

You could test which firmware you get by factory resetting, and then doing the setup via the Desktop software, and monitor which firmware link is used to load 2.3.1. I forget where people find this link in their Desktop app cache files probably. But once you have the link you could compare it with the links given here in this thread: if it's the Touch's, use the Touch's 2.3.2; if it's the Glo's, use the Glo's 2.3.2

A simpler way is to look at the files downloaded to the device and compare them to the contents of the manually downloaded file. For 2.3.2, file KoboRoot.tgz in the Glo package is about 85MB vs 68MB for the Touch. The files in the update directory are also different as well.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by davidfor

A simpler way is to look at the files downloaded to the device and compare them to the contents of the manually downloaded file. For 2.3.2, file KoboRoot.tgz in the Glo package is about 85MB vs 68MB for the Touch. The files in the update directory are also different as well.

Ah good idea. I didn't know the Touch/Glo firmwares differed so much in size.

[ichrispa]

Originally Posted by Chocky

Not experienced at all, just fed up with the bugs with 2.3.1, oh well waiting game again.

What you can do and what should be safe is updating half the Kobo. Here's what I mean: Download the 2.3.2 and unpack it somewhere - but not on your kobo. Then copy only the KoboRoot.tgz file to your .kobo folder on the reader.

What this does is to update the userland binaries, such as the reader apps. This is what I did and PDF's are finally readable. What will not be updates is the kernel an uboot, so the power consumption issues are ony mildly better.

On the other hand, it won't ruin your Kobo Touch... even if it needs Glo Firmware.

[Chocky]

Originally Posted by davidfor

A simpler way is to look at the files downloaded to the device and compare them to the contents of the manually downloaded file. For 2.3.2, file KoboRoot.tgz in the Glo package is about 85MB vs 68MB for the Touch. The files in the update directory are also different as well.

Where do I find the KoboRoot.tgz file?

I can't find it anywhere on my Kobo, even with a search for KoboRoot.

[ichrispa]

Originally Posted by Chocky

Where do I find the KoboRoot.tgz file?

I can't find it anywhere on my Kobo, even with a search for KoboRoot.

You find it inside the kobo-update-2.x.y.zip file. That file gets downloaded by the desktop application to a temporary folder somewhere in Your Documents I think. Alternatively you can use the links at the beginning of this thread ^^

If you copy that file to your .kobo folder on the kobo, it will use it to update itself, then delete the file. After you updated successfully, there should be no KoboRoot.tgz in your .kobo folder anymore.

[Chocky]

Ah, OK.

Thanks for the explanation.

Just searched my PC and it comes up with 2 files

KoboRoot (zip file) 20/12/2012 65.7Mb
KoboRoot (zip file) 01/10/2012 61.7Mb

Also, clicking on the kobo-update-2 zip file the KoboRoot.tgz (zip file) is 68.9Mb

So I assume I have the Touch firmware.