Firmware Update - 4.6.9960

[robko]

Originally Posted by Dryhte

Thanks.

I installed it on my Aura and don't have problems with it - but I also installed it on my son's Kobo Touch hoping that it might fix his issue where the reader doesn't remember his position in the book he's reading; however that doesn't get fixed.

After going back to the home screen and re-opening the book, he consistently is brought back to a position pages and pages 'ago'.

Any ideas anyone? (he had it on the previous firmware and on the current, and on some other firmwares before)

He's forced to use bookmarks to get back to where he stopped reading. Quite frustrating for a budding reader (he's only 9yo)

Likely a corrupted database on the device (most often from unplugging the device without properly ejecting it from Windows). Calibre may be able to confirm this. Signing out of the account and back in may solve this without having to go the full reset route, but you'll potentially lose some of the reading stat information, current location info etc.

[Caine]

For what it's worth, there are no noticeable performance problems on my H2O with this firmware. But then, I never turn my reader off and I only have like 200 books on it at any given time.

While everything seemed working well there was an incident last Saturday. A couple of days after successfully upgrading the reader I couldn't turn it on (from sleep mode), no matter what I tried. Connecting to a power socket did nothing to help it along. Connecting it to my PC did the trick, though; my H2O turned itself on and acted like nothing ever happened. Just like using the sleep cover. Battery was almost full at the time, around 85 percent.

This has never happened to me before and it hasn't happened since. I'm keeping an eye on it.

[tiltowait]

I'm just itching for them to release the fixed firmware. I know I could risk it and install the pulled firmware, but I'd rather not have to go through the song and dance of applying patches when it's certain a new FW is coming very soon.

[fehim]

Originally Posted by Cyfranek

There is also one new option "Large Print Mode" in "Beta Features". You can use ereader even without reading glasses

How do you take a screenshot?

[compurandom]

Originally Posted by Dryhte

Thanks.
but I also installed it on my son's Kobo Touch hoping that it might fix his issue where the reader doesn't remember his position in the book he's reading; however that doesn't get fixed.

After going back to the home screen and re-opening the book, he consistently is brought back to a position pages and pages 'ago'.

Could be database corruption. You can use the database tools in calibre's kobo utilities plugin to verify your database is OK. If it isn't, there are several ways to repair it. The easiest (but most destructive) is to log out and back in.

[compurandom]

Originally Posted by robko

Signing out of the account and back in may solve this without having to go the full reset route, but you'll potentially lose some of the reading stat information, current location info etc.

You can back up reading state information for side loaded books with the kobo utilities plugin in calibre.

Somehow, I always forget to do this right before I do a firmware reset. :-/

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Dryhte

Thanks.

I installed it on my Aura and don't have problems with it - but I also installed it on my son's Kobo Touch hoping that it might fix his issue where the reader doesn't remember his position in the book he's reading; however that doesn't get fixed.

After going back to the home screen and re-opening the book, he consistently is brought back to a position pages and pages 'ago'.

Any ideas anyone? (he had it on the previous firmware and on the current, and on some other firmwares before)

He's forced to use bookmarks to get back to where he stopped reading. Quite frustrating for a budding reader (he's only 9yo)

Reopening a book to the wrong place usually means a problem with the database, or a problem with the book. And it does depend on what "pages and pages 'ago'" means. And the book format.

If it always opens to the same place, then it is probably the database. Especially if it does this after a restart. This will mean a corrupt database. You can check for this using my Kobo Utilities plugin in calibre, or an SQLite database management tool.

If it is the book, it will depend on the book and what has happened. Sideloading an epub as a kepub without adding the Kobo spans will mean the book always opens at the start of a chapter. The chapter plus spans are used for storing the reading locations, and if they are missing or wrong, the start of the chapter is the best the device can do.

The firmware doesn't really support replacing a book. Strictly, if you update a book on the device, it is removed from the database and imported as a new book. The KoboTouch driver in calibre cheats and if you are replacing a book, makes sure it is not seen as changed. This works OK if you are doing things like fixing spelling, grammar or styles. But, if the structure is changed, ToC or the internal files, it doesn't work. When the book is first imported, the metadata and ToC are extracted and stored in the database. If the book is replaced by calibre, these are not changed. And the ToC in the database will be out of sync with the ToC in the file. If you simply open the book and read from the start to the end, it will probably be OK. But, navigation via the ToC probably won't work, and closing and reopening the will probably take you to the wrong place. Exactly where depends on what the changes to the ToC and file structure was, but it will frequently mean you go to the beginning of the book each time.

The "pages and pages 'ago'" might be one of the above. Another place the book might reopen to is the beginning of the current "Adobe page". I'm sure you have noticed that when reading an epub, the page number at the bottom does not go up with each page turn. It can take several page turns depending on the font size and other settings. There has been an occasional problem where after a navigation event (reopen book, using the navigation bar) takes you back to the beginning of the Adobe page. And depending on the font size, that could be a lot of taps to get to were you were. When I have been looking at these sort of problems, I turn the page number in the margin on. That allows me to easily see the start of the page and hence were I returned to.

I have no idea if any of that helps. But, what I would suggest is:
- Check the database for corruption.
- For a book that this is happening with, remove it from the device and then send it again. If it still happens after this, then it's probably something wrong with the book.

If you want someone to look at the book or something else, I'd be happy to help, but I would suggest starting a new thread for the discussion.

[jackastor]

I have over 5000 Books, On my A1, and I can't imagine what the delay would be for this number of books. All it takes is one small error in encoding to create havoc for the world...

regards

Jack

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by fehim

How do you take a screenshot?

On the Kobo device in the ".kobo" directory, there is a "Kobo" directory. Inside that directory, there is a file called "Kobo eReader.conf". Open that file with an EOL respecting text editor (I use Notepad++ under Windows). Look for a line reading [FeatureSettings] and insert a line reading Screenshots=true under it. if [FeatureSettings] doesn't exist, insert both lines.

[FeatureSettings]
Screenshots=true

Now when you press the power button, your Kobo will do a screenshot. If you don't have a sleep cover, you are going to have issues waking your Kobo up from sleep since the power button will do a screenshot of the sleep screen. This is why I enable screenshots, take my screenshots and then disable ( Screenshots=false ).

[Dryhte]

Thanks all for your help...

From the replies I got, I gathered this was a case of corrupted database; Since the device was not too full of books (only 50ish, of which only 10 read and 1 reading), I did a factory reset, put the books back, and everything seems to be fine.

My son was so happy to get correct functionality back. (I can imagine this is quite frustrating at an age where technology is still pretty much magic - he thought the reader would 'want him' to re-read all pages 'it thought' he hadn't read yet. That's not very stimulating for the budding reader)