Restoring a backup?

[Uncle Robin]

Yesterday I made the mistake of connecting my Sage to Calibre after awakening it from sleep, as opposed to from powered off. The inevitable DB corruption "error communcating with device" was the result. I have a backup generated by Kobo Utilities, do I just extract the zip into the .kobo folder?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

Yesterday I made the mistake of connecting my Sage to Calibre after awakening it from sleep, as opposed to from powered off. The inevitable DB corruption "error communcating with device" was the result. I have a backup generated by Kobo Utilities, do I just extract the zip into the .kobo folder?

Yes except for the .adobe-digital-editions directory. Then reboot after the eject.

[Uncle Robin]

THe previous reply did not answer my question, so I'll ask again

do I just extract the zip into the .kobo folder?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

THe previous reply did not answer my question, so I'll ask again

do I just extract the zip into the .kobo folder?

I gave the correct answer. You can extract everything to the .kobo directory except the .adobe-digital-editions directory.

Look in inside the ZIP file. There is a directory that you do not extract to the .kobo directory.

You only really need to extract KoboReader.sqlite (as that is the database) unless you have a need for any of the other files.

[_kind_le]

Just curious is there any special or device specific steps you need to do in order to connect your device to Calibre and not break it?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by _kind_le

Just curious is there any special or device specific steps you need to do in order to connect your device to Calibre and not break it?

Just that Calibre is not running to avoid the possibility of 2 apps accessing, and that should not reall be an issue as long as calibre is not sending anything.. but just to be safe .

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by _kind_le

Just curious is there any special or device specific steps you need to do in order to connect your device to Calibre and not break it?

Personally, I added a reboot option to NickelMenu and use that on my Sage to ensure the databases are properly closed before I connect to my computer.

Since I removed storing my entire library on my Clara HD (was an experiment after I upgraded it's internal storage to 128GB) and now have only ~800 books on it, it hasn't shown a database corruption.

As far as I can tell, if I telnet to my Sage and I see the <database-name>.sqlite-wal and <database-name>.sqlite-shm (write ahead log and shared memory) files, the database has not been closed and I will get the error. The reboot forces the database close so no issues.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Personally, I added a reboot option to NickelMenu and use that on my Sage to ensure the databases are properly closed before I connect to my computer.

Since I removed storing my entire library on my Clara HD (was an experiment after I upgraded it's internal storage to 128GB) and now have only ~800 books on it, it hasn't shown a database corruption.

As far as I can tell, if I telnet to my Sage and I see the <database-name>.sqlite-wal and <database-name>.sqlite-shm (write ahead log and shared memory) files, the database has not been closed and I will get the error. The reboot forces the database close so no issues.

Do you know if there's a way to use NickelMenu to check for these files and if they exist, reboot the Kobo?

[_kind_le]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Personally, I added a reboot option to NickelMenu and use that on my Sage to ensure the databases are properly closed before I connect to my computer.

Sorry didn't get when this reboot should happen, what is the trigger? Once you connect e-reader to USB?

Originally Posted by DNSB

...if I telnet to my Sage and I see the <database-name>.sqlite-wal and <database-name>.sqlite-shm (write ahead log and shared memory) files, the database has not been closed and I will get the error. The reboot forces the database close so no issues.

wow, that's entire new world if you can telnet to your device. What you can do over it? is it a regular bash/*nix shell?

[_kind_le]

Originally Posted by theducks

Just that Calibre is not running to avoid the possibility of 2 apps accessing, and that should not reall be an issue as long as calibre is not sending anything.. but just to be safe .

And two apps you're referring to are e-book itself and Calibre?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by _kind_le

Sorry didn't get when this reboot should happen, what is the trigger? Once you connect e-reader to USB?

I do the reboot prior to the USB connect. Once I've clicked on reboot, I wait a second and then plug the USB cable in. Once the reboot is finished, the USB connect/cancel popup shows up. Unless I've enable the Auto-USB gadget in which case, it just connects.

Originally Posted by _kind_le

wow, that's entire new world if you can telnet to your device. What you can do over it? is it a regular bash/*nix shell?

It's another NickelMenu item that turns on the telnet server. Once it's on, I just use Putty on my computer to connect. The NickelMenu item is shown below.

menu_item : main    : Telnet             : cmd_spawn      : quiet: /bin/mount -t devpts | /bin/grep -q /dev/pts || { /bin/mkdir -p /dev/pts && /bin/mount -t devpts devpts /dev/pts; }
     chain_success  : cmd_spawn          : quiet: /usr/bin/pkill -f "^/usr/bin/tcpsvd -E 0.0.0.0 1023" || true && exec /usr/bin/tcpsvd -E 0.0.0.0 1023 /usr/sbin/telnetd -i -l /bin/login
     chain_success  : dbg_toast          : Started Telnet server on port 1023.

The connection has really high security NOT, user is root and password is blank.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by _kind_le

And two apps you're referring to are e-book itself and Calibre?

No, once a Kobo is in USBMS mode, the USB connection has sole access to the storage. Just don't try running calibre and other apps that will access your Kobo on your computer at the same time. I.e. while calibre is connected to the ereader, don't try using another utility to work on the database at the same time. The results can be interesting for certain unpleasant values of interesting.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Do you know if there's a way to use NickelMenu to check for these files and if they exist, reboot the Kobo?

Once again, Jon, there are ways to test for those files existence and reboot the Kobo but, for me, it's just as easy to simply reboot.

A script (quick and dirty would be using if [ -f /mnt/onboard/.kobo/<sqlite-wal filename> ] to check for the existence of a write ahead logging file ( either BookReader.sqlite-wal or KoboReader.sqlite-wal ) and triggering the reboot if either one exists) could be written and run from NickelMenu) but creating that file will be left as an exercise for the student.

Alternately, you could run entire command from NickelMenu. See the Toggle Screensave command for an example using test to detect a file's existence.

[_kind_le]

Originally Posted by DNSB

...
It's another NickelMenu item that turns on the telnet server. Once it's on, I just use Putty on my computer to connect...
The connection has really high security NOT, user is root and password is blank.

Pretty impressive (not about a password though)

So it gives you ability to access reader's fs?
I think for Kindle you need to do a jailbreak for that.

Originally Posted by DNSB

No, once a Kobo is in USBMS mode, the USB connection has sole access to the storage. Just don't try running calibre and other apps that will access your Kobo on your computer at the same time. I.e. while calibre is connected to the ereader, don't try using another utility to work on the database at the same time. The results can be interesting for certain unpleasant values of interesting.

Got it, thanks! Yes, sqlite is ok for async reading, writing without acquiring a lock might be fatal.

[_kind_le]

p.s. From what I see how Calibre is doing books work on my Kindle device - I have a feeling that it just copying stuff over to internal memory, after device is removed from system - its OS will do a recursive scan for new files on mounted storage and updates whatever mysql, sqlite, redis, etc. so since Calibre isn't touch db directly - technically you'll never have the situation described here. But I might be wrong of course.