How to change covers?

[Loss Stop]

Greetings, bought it today. Using Calibre, but can't seem to get the covers I pick to show up on the power off screen (works fine on with the included books). The cover shows up when browsing books, or in books I am reading, just not on the powered off screen.

Also, how do I updated the firmware? I loaded up the kobo software on my mac, but don't see anyway to check my version number or to check for updates.

[wrenn1]

Many people are asking how to get rid of the covers on the off screen. :-) No idea how to get them to show.

A firmware update was promised for mid June but then changed to the end of June last I heard.

[eythian]

Originally Posted by Loss Stop

Greetings, bought it today. Using Calibre, but can't seem to get the covers I pick to show up on the power off screen (works fine on with the included books). The cover shows up when browsing books, or in books I am reading, just not on the powered off screen.

Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. I have a book where the kobo will show the cover if it's the one selected in the list of books I'm reading when I turn it off, but if the book is open, it won't show up. However, the one I'm reading now happily shows up when I'm in the book when I turn it off. I have yet to figure out the rhyme or reason behind this.

Also, how do I updated the firmware? I loaded up the kobo software on my mac, but don't see anyway to check my version number or to check for updates.

I'm sure that I saw that somewhere, but I can't seem to find it now

[Stinger]

Note1: If you have an epub without a cover, and just add a cover in Calibre, you need to (re)convert the book so that new cover is packaged into the epub.

Note2: The Kobo caches the cover art, but doesn't seem to delete this cache when you delete the epub from the device. If this is the cause of your issue, delete the epub from the kobo, then navigate to \.kobo\images folder and delete the 3 cached image files: 'file____mnt_onboard_[PATH]_[FILENAME]_epub - [FORMAT].parsed'

You'll find 3 of these cache files per book, in 3 different [FORMAT]'s.
Once you've deleted the epub and these three files, unplug and replug the Kobo, load the book back on and the Kobo will re-extract these thumbnails when it's processing that book.

[Loss Stop]

Thanks, seemed to make a little progress there. It is still not showing the cover, but the first page of the epub, which has the title of the book on it. So I guess that works. Would be nice for it to display the image like its supposed to though.

In calibre I have this option off in the saving options, "save cover separately".

[Loss Stop]

Alright, opened the file epub with Sigil to edit the page that was being displayed as the cover and inserted the cover. Shows now, not full screen, still has double borders around edge. Really not a solution at all. Whats the problem exactly? Why is it using the first page rather than the cover I choose in calibre? Is this a calibre issue or a kobo one?

Are there alternatives to calibre to test?

[artificial]

Originally Posted by Stinger

Note2: The Kobo caches the cover art, but doesn't seem to delete this cache when you delete the epub from the device.

I noticed that too. Somewhat worrying, as conceivably over a (very) long period of time your Kobo Reader's disk space might be entirely consumed by its image cache unless you manually purge it.

I imagine there is a hard limit on the amount of space the cache is allowed to monopolise (in the same way that web browsers have a max size for their offline cache), but still, I think that when the Kobo does its "processing new content" routine that it ought to perform a cache cleanup at the same time.

[PeterT]

I wonder though if a part of the reason retaining info, is to speed up the reprocessing of books on an SD card if you remove it and readd the card ?

[Stinger]

Originally Posted by artificial

I noticed that too. Somewhat worrying, as conceivably over a (very) long period of time your Kobo Reader's disk space might be entirely consumed by its image cache unless you manually purge it.

I imagine there is a hard limit on the amount of space the cache is allowed to monopolise (in the same way that web browsers have a max size for their offline cache), ...

There doesn't seem to be a limit. I've read a couple posts where people put a large library on an SD card, and it completely filled the Kobo main memory with these cache images and just froze.

... but still, I think that when the Kobo does its "processing new content" routine that it ought to perform a cache cleanup at the same time.

I'd even be happy with a purge option somewhere in the settings on the Kobo and/or on the desktop app. We don't want the processing time slower than it already is eh?
A maximum limit on this cache is probably a good idea. Maybe even an option to store the cached images for SD card books directly on that card?

[artificial]

Originally Posted by Stinger

There doesn't seem to be a limit. I've read a couple posts where people put a large library on an SD card, and it completely filled the Kobo main memory with these cache images and just froze.

Nasty!

I had thought it would only be in very "edge" cases that a user would add enough books to overload the Kobo. But clearly it's something that affects people in "real world" scenarios.

From what you're saying it sounds as if the Kobo loads all of the images into memory? That seems like a strange thing to do, I would expect it only to pull them from the cache as required (i.e. when viewing the "now reading" list or browsing the library).

In any case, this is the sort of less obvious improvement that should be included in the "firmware wishlist" thread.

Originally Posted by Stinger

We don't want the processing time slower than it already is eh?

You said it!

[Stinger]

From what you're saying it sounds as if the Kobo loads all of the images into memory? That seems like a strange thing to do, I would expect it only to pull them from the cache as required (i.e. when viewing the "now reading" list or browsing the library).

My fault for using an ambiguous term. By 'main memory' in that context I mean the internal 1gig, not system RAM or anything of that sorts. As in it filled up the \.kobo\images folder with cached images until there was no more room.

You're right that this particular case is a pretty 'fringe' situation. I don't imagine many people will be loading a library of thousands. But it could accumulate over time like you said as people load/delete content via normal usage (even a factory reset doesn't delete this image cache, I checked). We'll see if they address the issue before this accumulation affects Joe Everyday.