Weird problem with Aura HD

Synth · 03-30-2021, 12:09 AM

Hello everyone, I'm having a little issue here and haven't found a solution here which is kind of surprising...

I recently updated my Aura HD to the newest firmware and while it has some nice upgrades I'm having the following issue:
When I turn it on the Home Page is empty until I click on something (anything, including the sync icon and canceling) and go back to the Home Page. At that point it populates the books on the SD card and everything works...
What am doing wrong here?

I used the Calibre KoboUtilities "Check Database" tool which of course said all was well. The only thing I can think of doing is formatting the SD card, reinstalling the firmware and allowing Calibre to build the database again from my Calibre Library...

Is this my only option?

Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks!

davidfor · 03-30-2021, 12:54 AM

Are all your books on the SD card? What happens if you boot without the card? And then insert it?

I do have an external card in my Aura H2O with a few books on it. But most are on the internal storage. After a restart, I think there is a second flash of the home screen that might be when the books on the SD card are checked. I don't watch it closely enough to be sure. What you are seeing sort of sounds like this, but, the refresh to the home screen doesn't happen. Anything you do that does trigger an update does end up displaying all the books.

Synth · 03-30-2021, 01:32 AM

All my books are on the external. I tried what you said and right when I put the card in it populated the Home Page... Turned the device, then back on the problem persists. Weird stuff.

davidfor · 03-30-2021, 03:14 AM

I did have something like that with my N905 Touch. The card wasn't recognised properly at boot time. To see the books, I had to eject and insert it again.

I'll have to play with my devices and see how they are behaving. But, they all have books in the main storage. Removing them isn't really possible as some are purchased from Kobo and they are downloaded to the main storage unless it is full.

How long have you waited before tapping the screen? And how many books are on the card? The more books, the longer the scanning process to look for the changes. That might be affecting when it updates the home screen.

Synth · 03-30-2021, 04:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidfor

I did have something like that with my N905 Touch. The card wasn't recognised properly at boot time. To see the books, I had to eject and insert it again.

I'll have to play with my devices and see how they are behaving. But, they all have books in the main storage. Removing them isn't really possible as some are purchased from Kobo and they are downloaded to the main storage unless it is full.

How long have you waited before tapping the screen? And how many books are on the card? The more books, the longer the scanning process to look for the changes. That might be affecting when it updates the home screen.

I don't have to eject for it read them, I just have to tap on something before they appear. I was surprised that hitting the sync icon and canceling made them pop up as I was still on the Home Page when I did it. Before I noticed that I was tapping "My Books" and then hitting "Home" and they would pop up.
There is about 260 books on the 32gig SD card btw. I'm hoping theres a simple solution to this, is there a specific way one should format the SD card for the Kobo?
Thanks for your input and willingness to help David!

Synth · 03-31-2021, 06:54 PM

No else has had this problem I'm guessing? Weird...

RowdyRuff · 03-31-2021, 07:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Synth

No else has had this problem I'm guessing? Weird...

My Aura HD does not have this problem, but then it doesn't have an external SD card in play.

davidfor · 03-31-2021, 07:58 PM

I haven't had a chance to test my devices yet. But, it's a long weekend starting tonight, so I should have time.

As to others seeing it, what you are doing is actually not that common. As much as some people think that Kobo removing the external SD card was a crime against humanity*, not that many people used them. And even fewer used them without any books on the internal storage. Plus, the last device to have one was the original Aura H2O, so the number of people that can do this is getting less all the time. I have an SD card in my Aura H2O, but, it is there as much so I don't lose it as for actually having books on it. And the cover on my Glo actually covers the slot. Something I didn't notice until six months after I got the cover.

We also don't know if this is a general problem for all devices with an external SD card, or an Aura HD specific problem. But, it does mean it could be a very small number of people with the problem and then they need to be here to report it.

It has been in the back of my mind and there are a few things you can try.

A couple of the suggestions will mean losing the reading status of the books. If the problem is fixed, that might be OK. If it isn't, it is not good. You can get around this by taking a copy of everything on the book partition of the device and restoring that afterwards if it doesn't work. I do this frequently when testing various things. It gets me back to the starting point. You can also use the Kobo Utilities plugin to save the reading status for the books on the device and restore it later. That doesn't save the annotations but at least gets the books back to the correct status.

The simplest is to add some books to the internal storage. I can easily see there being bug related to only having books on the external storage.

Manually install the firmware update for your current firmware version. This is just to make sure everything was applied properly. It shouldn't work, but, there have been plenty of strange issues that it has fixed.

If you are using patches or something like NickelMenu, then remove them. I have no idea if any of these could be affecting things, but, there is always the possibility and returning to the baseline helps to prove things one way or the other.

Removing the "Kobo Reader.conf" file will reset a lot of settings. Some are visible, some are not. This shouldn't trigger a full reimport of the books on the SD card, but, I haven't tried it on a device with an SD card in it for a long time.

You could try using a different SD card with a few books on it. But, if you do this, it will remove all the current books from the internal database and when you go back to the original card, it will load them again.

Sign out of the Kobo account will regenerate the database and other files that Kobo uses. The books will be reimported, but, you lose the status.

And of course a factory reset.

The order above is roughly the order of how likely you will be of losing the reading status of the books. But, it is also in order of how likely I think it is that the problem will be fixed. If a factory reset doesn't fix it, then it is a bug. Or, possible a "feature" as something might have happened that Kobo have needed to change the behaviour.

* I'm exaggerating, but, not by as much as you would think.

compurandom · 04-01-2021, 12:43 AM

I have an Aura H2O and use the sdcard heavily because the internal card isn't big enough to hold my side loaded library. However, I always have a few books on the internal card anyway.

I have noticed occasionally that when the device "wakes up" after usb eject from a sync, I get a blank screen. Not an empty home screen, but a blank screen. If I tap the screen anywhere, everything comes up normally.

Also, occasionally I get the message "your sd card isn't formatted <OK>" and only internal books show on the home screen. If I ignore that and don't press OK, some few minutes later I see the book import dialog and the error dialog goes away by itself and everything is OK. I suspect it is running a chkdsk/fsck on the sdcard in the background before mounting it, and nickle is just being impatient.

I think the external sdcard on this device is not very well secured; I think only the rubber stopper holds it in, and when I open it for USB charging and side loading, the card slips. I use to have a lot of problems with it until I secured the card by other means so it can't move.

The only reason I use the sdcard is because the internal one is so dinky. I have had both phones and tablets with sdcard slots. It's nice to have, but typically I change that card out maybe once or twice (usually to double size) for the life of the device. If they put a big enough one in the device in the first place, I wouldn't need it at all.

03-30-2021, 12:09 AM	#1
Synth Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2021 Device: Kobo Aura HD	Weird problem with Aura HD Hello everyone, I'm having a little issue here and haven't found a solution here which is kind of surprising... I recently updated my Aura HD to the newest firmware and while it has some nice upgrades I'm having the following issue: When I turn it on the Home Page is empty until I click on something (anything, including the sync icon and canceling) and go back to the Home Page. At that point it populates the books on the SD card and everything works... What am doing wrong here? I used the Calibre KoboUtilities "Check Database" tool which of course said all was well. The only thing I can think of doing is formatting the SD card, reinstalling the firmware and allowing Calibre to build the database again from my Calibre Library... Is this my only option? Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks!

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03-30-2021, 12:54 AM	#2
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,907 Karma: 47303748 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	Are all your books on the SD card? What happens if you boot without the card? And then insert it? I do have an external card in my Aura H2O with a few books on it. But most are on the internal storage. After a restart, I think there is a second flash of the home screen that might be when the books on the SD card are checked. I don't watch it closely enough to be sure. What you are seeing sort of sounds like this, but, the refresh to the home screen doesn't happen. Anything you do that does trigger an update does end up displaying all the books.

03-30-2021, 01:32 AM	#3
Synth Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2021 Device: Kobo Aura HD	All my books are on the external. I tried what you said and right when I put the card in it populated the Home Page... Turned the device, then back on the problem persists. Weird stuff.

03-30-2021, 03:14 AM	#4
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,907 Karma: 47303748 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	I did have something like that with my N905 Touch. The card wasn't recognised properly at boot time. To see the books, I had to eject and insert it again. I'll have to play with my devices and see how they are behaving. But, they all have books in the main storage. Removing them isn't really possible as some are purchased from Kobo and they are downloaded to the main storage unless it is full. How long have you waited before tapping the screen? And how many books are on the card? The more books, the longer the scanning process to look for the changes. That might be affecting when it updates the home screen.

03-31-2021, 06:54 PM	#6
Synth Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2021 Device: Kobo Aura HD	No else has had this problem I'm guessing? Weird...

03-31-2021, 07:58 PM	#8
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,907 Karma: 47303748 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	I haven't had a chance to test my devices yet. But, it's a long weekend starting tonight, so I should have time. As to others seeing it, what you are doing is actually not that common. As much as some people think that Kobo removing the external SD card was a crime against humanity, not that many people used them. And even fewer used them without any books on the internal storage. Plus, the last device to have one was the original Aura H2O, so the number of people that can do this is getting less all the time. I have an SD card in my Aura H2O, but, it is there as much so I don't lose it as for actually having books on it. And the cover on my Glo actually covers the slot. Something I didn't notice until six months after I got the cover. We also don't know if this is a general problem for all devices with an external SD card, or an Aura HD specific problem. But, it does mean it could be a very small number of people with the problem and then they need to be here to report it. It has been in the back of my mind and there are a few things you can try. A couple of the suggestions will mean losing the reading status of the books. If the problem is fixed, that might be OK. If it isn't, it is not good. You can get around this by taking a copy of everything on the book partition of the device and restoring that afterwards if it doesn't work. I do this frequently when testing various things. It gets me back to the starting point. You can also use the Kobo Utilities plugin to save the reading status for the books on the device and restore it later. That doesn't save the annotations but at least gets the books back to the correct status. The simplest is to add some books to the internal storage. I can easily see there being bug related to only having books on the external storage. Manually install the firmware update for your current firmware version. This is just to make sure everything was applied properly. It shouldn't work, but, there have been plenty of strange issues that it has fixed. If you are using patches or something like NickelMenu, then remove them. I have no idea if any of these could be affecting things, but, there is always the possibility and returning to the baseline helps to prove things one way or the other. Removing the "Kobo Reader.conf" file will reset a lot of settings. Some are visible, some are not. This shouldn't trigger a full reimport of the books on the SD card, but, I haven't tried it on a device with an SD card in it for a long time. You could try using a different SD card with a few books on it. But, if you do this, it will remove all the current books from the internal database and when you go back to the original card, it will load them again. Sign out of the Kobo account will regenerate the database and other files that Kobo uses. The books will be reimported, but, you lose the status. And of course a factory reset. The order above is roughly the order of how likely you will be of losing the reading status of the books. But, it is also in order of how likely I think it is that the problem will be fixed. If a factory reset doesn't fix it, then it is a bug. Or, possible a "feature" as something might have happened that Kobo have needed to change the behaviour. I'm exaggerating, but, not by as much as you would think.

04-01-2021, 12:43 AM	#9
compurandom Guru Posts: 919 Karma: 417282 Join Date: Jun 2015 Device: kobo aura h2o, kobo forma	I have an Aura H2O and use the sdcard heavily because the internal card isn't big enough to hold my side loaded library. However, I always have a few books on the internal card anyway. I have noticed occasionally that when the device "wakes up" after usb eject from a sync, I get a blank screen. Not an empty home screen, but a blank screen. If I tap the screen anywhere, everything comes up normally. Also, occasionally I get the message "your sd card isn't formatted <OK>" and only internal books show on the home screen. If I ignore that and don't press OK, some few minutes later I see the book import dialog and the error dialog goes away by itself and everything is OK. I suspect it is running a chkdsk/fsck on the sdcard in the background before mounting it, and nickle is just being impatient. I think the external sdcard on this device is not very well secured; I think only the rubber stopper holds it in, and when I open it for USB charging and side loading, the card slips. I use to have a lot of problems with it until I secured the card by other means so it can't move. The only reason I use the sdcard is because the internal one is so dinky. I have had both phones and tablets with sdcard slots. It's nice to have, but typically I change that card out maybe once or twice (usually to double size) for the life of the device. If they put a big enough one in the device in the first place, I wouldn't need it at all.